In September 2025 San Antonio’s City Council wrote the phrase “structured sober living home” into its code for the first time, in order to prohibit running one as a home occupation. That is the closest the city has come to regulating recovery housing, and it is very nearly the whole of it. Texas issues no licence for a non-clinical, peer-supported recovery residence, Bexar County has no zoning at all outside city limits, and the rule that actually decides whether a house works is a six-resident ceiling in the Unified Development Code with a reasonable-accommodation path written into the same sentence. Behind all of it sits a county of 2,160,088 people where methamphetamine was detected in 389 deaths in 2025 and twelve certified recovery residences serve the entire city.
This page is the San Antonio layer. It covers how the Unified Development Code classifies the house, the six-resident line and the conditional-use path around it, what the 2025 ordinance did and did not change, the Development Services and Fire Department steps, the local lease and purchase anchors, and the Bexar County desks that keep beds full.
The statewide picture lives in the Texas guide below: whether a licence is needed, how TROHN certification works, and the full startup and operating cost model. Those shared Texas figures are restated here and adjusted only where San Antonio genuinely changes them, never recalculated from scratch.
Before you read onHow to Open a Sober Living Home in TexasThis post covers one piece of the process. The complete Texas guide walks through every step, from planning to your first resident.→Watch: How to Start a Sober Living Home in Texas
The video walks the whole Texas sequence: the line between housing and treatment that decides whether you need a license, what TROHN certification asks for, how a zoning review goes, and how to plan the money before you sign anything. Everything below takes those statewide steps and runs them through San Antonio’s code, departments, and referral system.
The Texas book covers the same ground in print, with the checklists and templates an operator needs on day one.
Is San Antonio a Good Place to Open a Sober Living Home?
Yes, with one condition most first-time operators miss. San Antonio has the demand, an unusually cheap stock of three-bedroom single-family houses on frequent transit, and no state license standing between an operator and a first resident. The condition is the house itself: six residents is the by-right ceiling in a single-family district, and the city has already put the phrase “structured sober living home” in its code once, as something you may not run as a home occupation.
Recovery Housing Demand in Bexar County
Demand in San Antonio is not driven by the opioid wave that shaped coverage elsewhere. It is a methamphetamine market with a large court-supervised population attached to it, and the people who need a bed mostly arrive from a system rather than from a search engine.
- Court-ordered treatment discharge: The county’s own Applewhite Recovery Center runs roughly 430 residential beds on 120-to-180-day curricula, and everyone finishing needs an approved address.
- Licensed residential treatment: Ten licensed sites in Bexar County hold 392 residential beds between them, and discharge planners place people the week they step down.
- The jail-diversion system: The Restoration Center takes people out of custody into sobering, detox and opioid treatment, then has to send them somewhere.
- The homelessness response: Haven for Hope and the Homelink coordinated-entry system move people into housing, and a share of them are in early recovery and need structure rather than an apartment.
These are the numbers a lender asks about before a loan and a discharge planner asks about before a referral.
| Indicator | San Antonio figure | Why it matters to an operator |
|---|---|---|
| Methamphetamine-involved deaths, Bexar County | Detected in 389 deaths in 2025, ahead of ethanol (386), cocaine (155) and fentanyl (118) (Bexar County Medical Examiner) | San Antonio is a stimulant market, so residents arriving from detox need longer structure than an opioid taper implies. |
| Licensed residential treatment beds, Bexar County | 392 beds across 10 licensed sites (Texas HHSC licensed facility roster, August 2026) | Every one of those beds discharges someone who needs an address, and ten sites is a short enough list to call in a week. |
| Adults under community supervision | More than 25,000 probationers supervised by the Bexar County CSCD (Bexar County) | Probation officers place people into approved residences daily, and they are the highest-volume referral relationship in the county. |
| County-run residential treatment capacity | About 430 beds at the Applewhite Recovery Center after a $28 million, 130-bed expansion opened October 10, 2025 (San Antonio Report) | A 120-to-180-day curriculum means a predictable, dated flow of people stepping down into housing. |
| People counted as homeless | 2,523 counted on January 27, 2026, of whom 265 adults reported a substance use disorder (Close to Home, TX-500 Point-in-Time Count) | Homelink coordinated entry is a real referral channel, but it prioritises permanent housing over structured recovery beds. |
| Certified recovery residences in the city | 12 TROHN-certified homes listed in San Antonio, out of 115 statewide (TROHN) | A metro of 1.5 million with twelve certified homes is an underserved market, and eight of the twelve serve women. |
| Transit ridership | 30,716,511 unlinked passenger trips in report year 2024 (Federal Transit Administration, National Transit Database) | Residents without a car can hold a job and make court dates if the house sits on a Prímo or Frequent corridor. |
Texas scores 8 of 10 on VSL’s Operating Climate Index and ties for fourth among the fifty states, with a Market Strength reading of 10, the top of the scale (Foote, 2026). Those scores are assigned against published rubrics rather than measured, and they describe the state, not this city. San Antonio is a large part of what the Market Strength rubric is reading in Texas: the fourth-largest metro housing market in the country by population, cheap single-family stock, and a county behavioral-health system big enough to move people in volume.
San Antonio never wrote a sober living ordinance, so there is no permit to win and no registry to join. That cuts both ways: nothing stands between an operator and a first resident, and nothing gives an operator a piece of paper to wave when a neighbor complains. The Zoning Verification Letter is the closest substitute, and it is worth its fee.
Most people ask whether they are allowed to open a recovery home. The better first question is whether the need and the money are there. This answers both, for your state.
- How many people need a bed, and how few beds exist
- Who actually pays the rent, and which programs are real
- What it costs to open on the purchase path and the lease path
How to Open a Sober House in San Antonio: Step-by-Step
The order below is San Antonio’s, not the statewide one. Here the zoning check comes before anything else, because the six-resident ceiling in UDC 35-376 and the half-mile boarding-home spacing rule are address-specific and can make a house unusable after you have signed for it. Budget four to seven months from first walkthrough to first resident, with certification running past opening rather than before it.
Ten steps, in the order a San Antonio operator actually meets them.
Step 1. Run the Zoning Check Before You Make an Offer
Start at the city’s One Stop Map, which returns the zoning district for any San Antonio address. What you are checking is whether the property sits in a single-family district, where UDC 35-376(a) caps a group living arrangement at six residents by right, or in a multi-family or commercial district, where seven to sixteen residents is available without a conditional-use request. If the map returns no San Antonio district, the address is outside city limits, and Bexar County confirms there are no zoning regulations in unincorporated areas at all.
Then check the block. San Antonio enforces a half-mile separation between registered boarding homes, so an existing registered facility nearby can close off a property before you have spent anything. Nothing in Ordinance 2025-09-04-0580 creates a spacing rule for recovery residences, but it does prohibit running a structured sober living home as a home occupation, which is what an operator looks like when the house serves a business rather than housing a household.
Texas guideTexas Zoning, Fair Housing, and Land Use Laws for Sober LivingWhere sober homes can operate in Texas and the legal protections that apply.→Step 2. File the Entity and Put It on the Lease
The entity signs the lease or takes title, never the individual. In Texas that is a certificate of formation filed with the Secretary of State on Form 205 at $300, and franchise tax is reported annually but owed only above $2,650,000 in annualized revenue, which no single house reaches. Get the EIN and open the operating account before the first resident pays anything, because commingling resident payments with personal funds is the mistake that is hardest to unwind later.
San Antonio requires no general business licence, so there is nothing to renew at the city level for an ordinary residence. The exception is a boarding home, which must register with the city and observe the half-mile separation; a house operating as a household does not register, and registering unnecessarily invites the classification you are trying to avoid.
Texas guideHow to Form a Legal Entity for a Sober Living Business in TexasLLC, nonprofit, or both: how Texas operators structure the business and the property.→Step 3. Test the House Against the Family Definition
The classification turns on whether the house reads as one household. UDC 35-A101 defines a family as people occupying a dwelling “living together as a separate housekeeping unit,” and expressly excludes residents of a boarding home, community home or transitional home. A house passes that test on the facts of how it operates, not on what you call it.
- Bedrooms that were permitted as bedrooms, with no converted garage or enclosed porch counted toward the total.
- Shared kitchen, living and dining space that the whole house actually uses, because a separate housekeeping unit is the test.
- Two full bathrooms for six residents, which is a practical requirement long before it is a code one.
- Off-street parking for the household, since on-street parking is the trigger the 2025 home-occupation amendment names.
- One lease or one title in the entity name, rather than individual room rentals, which is what turns a household into a rooming house.
Price the property against two published anchors, both of which are linked in the cost section below. The FY2027 fair market rent for the San Antonio-New Braunfels area, effective October 1, 2026, is $1,864 for a three-bedroom and $2,163 for a four-bedroom, and the Bexar County median sale price was $280,999 in August 2026. Those two figures drive every line in the cost table.
Texas guideSober Living Startup Costs in TexasEvery one-time cost to open, on the lease path and the purchase path, with the Texas figures behind each line.→Step 4. Clear Fire, Alarms and the Certificate of Occupancy
Smoke alarms go in every sleeping room, outside each sleeping area, and on every story, interconnected so that one sounds them all. Carbon monoxide alarms are required on alteration only where the house has an attached garage or fuel-fired appliances, or where a sleeping room is added, under San Antonio’s amended R311.2.2. TROHN adds what the code does not: clear egress from every sleeping room and written records that the alarms were tested.
The certificate of occupancy is where converted houses fail. City Code 10-12(a) bars occupancy and any change of use without one, and an unpermitted bedroom or a prior care-facility use surfaces the moment a permit is pulled. Resolve it with Development Services before you book any inspection, because the fixes are cheaper as a condition of purchase than as an emergency after move-in. The citations sit in the fire and building section below.
Step 5. Write the Governing Documents Before You Open
TROHN reviews the documents at application, alongside a self-assessment against the NARR standard, and expects them to be in force rather than drafted for the file. That means house rules, a resident agreement, a written grievance process, a medication policy, a relapse and discharge policy, and financial procedures showing how resident payments are handled. Add the one most templates skip: a neighbor-relations plan naming who answers a neighbor’s call and what they say, which in San Antonio is what keeps a complaint from becoming a home-occupation enforcement file. Write them while the house is empty, because writing them after an incident means writing them under pressure and against a specific person.
Keep readingHouse Rules in Sober HousesThe rules that keep a recovery home safe, structured, and worth living in.→Step 6. Bind Insurance on the Specific Address
Insurance is one of the lines the state cost model leaves unpriced, because it is written against a building rather than a business type. Ask the carrier for a quote on the actual address, disclose the use plainly as a shared residence for people in recovery, and confirm general liability sits alongside the property policy. In San Antonio the underwriting question that moves the premium is usually roof age and wiring, since the affordable stock in the strongest ZIP codes was built between 1947 and 1967. Bind before closing or lease signature, never after.
Step 7. Recruit and Move In the House Mentor
The live-in house mentor is what makes a NARR Level II home function: someone in stable recovery who lives in the house, holds the weekly meeting, enforces the rules and calls the operator when something is wrong. Recruit through the San Antonio recovery community rather than a job board: the Central Service Office lists over a thousand weekly meetings across the metro, Rise Recovery runs peer coaching out of the Charlie Naylor Campus, and the alumni networks at Lifetime Recovery and Cenikor are where people with two or more years of sobriety actually are. Put the arrangement in writing, move the mentor in before the first resident arrives, and carry their bed as unpaid, which is exactly the line that reappears in the pro forma.
Step 8. Apply for TROHN Certification
Certification is voluntary under Texas law and close to mandatory in San Antonio for any home that wants publicly funded residents, because the state recovery housing money behind Be Well Texas vouchers is restricted to NARR-certified homes. The sequence is short, and the Texas guide below carries the detail.
- Complete the Recovery Housing Administrator curriculum, which runs a little over sixteen hours.
- Submit the online application with the Recovery Residence Self-Assessment and the supporting documents.
- Work through TROHN’s document review, and expect at least one revision cycle.
- Sit the virtual interview, which sets the level of support the home is certified at.
- Host the onsite review, which happens only after the home has been at least half occupied for sixty days.
Step 9. Meet the Referral Desks Before the House Opens
Publicly funded placement in Bexar County moves through a small number of desks, and discharge planners send people to homes they already know. Call the partners in the table below while the house is still being set up, invite three of them to tour it, and list with the CHCS helpline and the San Antonio Community Resource Directory. Those weeks of outreach are far cheaper before the mortgage starts than after it.
Step 10. Open, Then Hold Occupancy
The Texas model breaks even at forty-six percent occupancy, which is about six of fourteen beds, and the first quarter is for reaching that line rather than for profit. Admit steadily rather than filling in a rush, hold the weekly house meeting from week one, and track occupancy daily so a dip shows up before it becomes a month. A short monthly note to every referral partner naming the beds you have open is the cheapest occupancy tool there is, and in Bexar County it goes to a list you can count on two hands: CHCS, the OSAR desk, probation, the specialty court coordinators, and the discharge planners at the ten licensed residential sites.
Keep readingHow Sober Houses Fill Beds and Stay FullProven occupancy strategies from established recovery housing operators.→A realistic sequence, assuming the first property you look at clears zoning.
| Phase | Weeks (estimated) | What gets done |
|---|---|---|
| Zoning and property search | 2 to 6 | Pull a Zoning Verification Letter on each shortlisted address, check the half-mile boarding-home separation, and walk away from unpermitted bedrooms. |
| Entity and banking | 1 to 2 | File the Texas certificate of formation, obtain the EIN, and open the operating account before any resident pays rent. |
| Lease or close | 2 to 8 | Sign the lease in the entity name, or close on the purchase and budget for the tax bill at the full non-homestead rate. |
| Fire, alarms and occupancy | 2 to 4 | Bring smoke and carbon monoxide alarms to code, resolve any certificate-of-occupancy question, and settle maximum occupancy. |
| Documents, insurance and mentor | 2 to 4 | Write the house rules, resident agreement and neighbor-relations plan, bind insurance, and move the house mentor in. |
| Referral outreach and opening | 4 to 8 | Meet the county desks, open the house, and hold occupancy long enough to become eligible to apply for certification. |
Timelines are estimated. What adds months in San Antonio is a conditional-use request under UDC 35-422 for a house above six residents, an unpermitted bedroom that surfaces when you pull a permit, and TROHN’s eligibility rule that a home be at least half full for sixty days before it can even apply.
Best Neighborhoods for a Sober Living Home in San Antonio
A workable San Antonio address passes four tests, and they are not the same four tests a coastal city imposes.
- Bedroom count: The by-right ceiling is six residents, so a four-bedroom house with two doubles is the shape that works, and the ZIP codes with the most three- and four-bedroom stock are the ones worth searching.
- Frequent transit: Residents need to reach work, court dates, probation check-ins and meetings without a car, which in practice means a VIA Prímo corridor or a Frequent route rather than “on a bus line.”
- Distance from another registered boarding home: The city enforces a half-mile separation between boarding homes, so an address near an existing registered facility is a risk before you tour it.
- Proximity to the referral system: The Restoration Center, Haven for Hope and the county courts all sit on or near the near-west and downtown core, and a house an hour away from them fills slower.
Six areas follow. Housing-stock figures come from the Census Bureau’s 2020-2024 American Community Survey by ZIP code tabulation area, transit from VIA Metropolitan Transit, and neighborhood character from the City’s adopted SA Tomorrow sub-area plans.
| Area | Housing stock and transit | Siting notes for a sober living home |
|---|---|---|
| Edgewood and Prospect Hill (78237) | About 80 percent single-family, median owner value $115,500, and 47 percent of the stock is three-bedroom; served by VIA Prímo 103 Zarzamora, which moved to twelve-minute weekday frequency in January 2026, plus the Kel-Lac Transit Center (ACS 2020-2024, VIA) | The strongest overlap of cheap acquisition, large houses and frequent transit anywhere in the city; the risk is that the cheapest stock is also the oldest wiring and roofs, and insurance prices that before it prices the use. |
| Woodlawn Lake and the Near West Side (78228) | About 73 percent single-family with the best large-house supply in the city, 48 percent three-bedroom and 12 percent four-bedroom, median owner value $174,900; VIA Frequent routes 95 Fredericksburg, 82 Culebra and 88 Bandera, with the Ingram Transit Center nearby (ACS 2020-2024, VIA) | The four-bedroom supply is what makes a six-resident house work without doubling everyone up; the risk is that the area is already dense with rooming arrangements, so check the half-mile boarding-home separation before touring. |
| Harlandale and the South Side (78214) | About 75 percent single-family, 36 percent three-bedroom, median owner value $128,800 and the lowest median rent in this set at $990; on VIA Prímo 102 Military Drive between the Kel-Lac and Brooks transit centers (ACS 2020-2024, VIA) | The cheapest rent in the city makes the lease path genuinely viable here; the risk is a housing stock built around 1955 where bedrooms have often been added without permits. |
| Highland Hills and the Brooks area (78223) | About 66 percent single-family and the newest affordable stock in the city, median year built 1977, with 42 percent three-bedroom and 12 percent four-bedroom, median owner value $172,600; Brooks Transit Center plus Prímo 102 and the Frequent 20 New Braunfels (City of San Antonio, Brooks Regional Center Plan, VIA) | Newer construction means fewer permit surprises and a cleaner fire inspection; the risk is that Brooks is an active redevelopment area, so acquisition prices are rising faster than the rest of the south side. |
| Los Angeles Heights and the Deco District (78201) | About 65 percent single-family, median year built 1952, with the best bedroom mix in the city at 34 percent three-bedroom and 31 percent two-bedroom, median owner value $197,800; on Prímo 100 Fredericksburg Road between Centro Plaza and the Medical Center Transit Center (ACS 2020-2024, VIA) | Direct Prímo access to the Medical Center puts residents within one ride of the largest concentration of healthcare employers in the region; the risk is that two-bedroom stock dominates, so the four-bedroom houses go quickly. |
| Dignowity Hill and Denver Heights (78202 and 78203) | About 72 to 75 percent single-family, median year built 1953 to 1957, median owner value $234,700 and $158,000 respectively; Frequent routes 25 East Commerce and 20 New Braunfels, the Eastside Transit Center, and the planned VIA Rapid Silver Line (ACS 2020-2024, VIA Rapid) | Closest of these areas to downtown, the courts and the Restoration Center, which shortens every trip a resident has to make; the risk is that Dignowity Hill is gentrifying fast and an organised, well-resourced neighborhood association is exactly who files the complaint. |
Whatever the neighborhood, three features decide whether a San Antonio house works.
- Permitted bedrooms: A converted garage or an enclosed porch counted as a bedroom without a permit is the single most common deal-killer, because it surfaces the moment any permit is pulled.
- Two full bathrooms: Six residents sharing one bathroom fails the practical test long before it fails an inspection, and it is what residents leave over.
- Off-street parking: The 2025 home-occupation amendment explicitly targets uses that generate on-street parking, and a house that pushes six cars onto the curb is the house neighbors complain about.
Bexar County holds twenty-five other incorporated cities, and each runs its own code: a house in Leon Valley, Converse, Universal City or Alamo Heights sits outside San Antonio’s Unified Development Code entirely and has to be checked against that city’s own definitions. The nearest Texas metros with their own guides are Austin, Houston, Dallas and Fort Worth.
- ✓Room-by-room requirements for a Level II home
- ✓Zoning and occupancy questions to ask before you tour
- ✓The red flags that should end a showing early
Who Regulates Sober Living Homes in San Antonio?
No single agency regulates sober living homes in San Antonio, which is why operators get conflicting answers. Texas Health and Human Services licenses chemical dependency treatment facilities under Health and Safety Code Chapter 464 and does not license peer-supported recovery housing at all. What is left is a stack: the City for zoning, building, fire and the certificate of occupancy; Bexar County for the money and the referrals; and TROHN, a private nonprofit, for the voluntary certification that public funders look for.
A sober living home is a shared residence where people in recovery pay their own rent, follow house rules, and receive no treatment on site. That last clause is what keeps it outside state licensure, because the licensing trigger in 26 Texas Administrative Code 571.4 is the delivery of chemical dependency treatment, not the housing of people who are in recovery. San Antonio has its own version of that boundary: the 2025 ordinance that names a “structured sober living home” as a prohibited home occupation is the city drawing the same line from the other side, saying the house may be a residence but may not be run as a business out of the residence.
| Layer | Agency | What it controls for a sober living home |
|---|---|---|
| State licensing | Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) | Licenses chemical dependency treatment facilities under Health and Safety Code Chapter 464 and 26 TAC 571.4. A home that provides counselling, detox, or any clinical service on site crosses into that licence and operating without it is an enforcement matter. Peer-supported recovery housing falls outside it entirely. |
| State certification (voluntary) | Texas Recovery Oriented Housing Network (TROHN) | The Texas NARR affiliate. Certification is voluntary in law, costs $1,000 plus $15 per bed, and requires the home be at least 50 percent occupied for 60 days before it can apply (TROHN). |
| City zoning | San Antonio Development Services Department (DSD) | Administers the Unified Development Code: the family definition in 35-A101, the six-resident by-right ceiling and conditional-use path in 35-376, and the home-occupation prohibition in 35-378. |
| City building | San Antonio Development Services Department (DSD) | Enforces the 2024 International Residential and Building Codes as adopted at City Code Chapter 10, effective May 1, 2025, and issues the certificate of occupancy required by 10-12(a). |
| City fire | San Antonio Fire Department (SAFD) | Enforces the 2024 International Fire Code adopted at City Code 11-32, but its inspection triggers are commercial and licensed events. A single-family recovery residence meets none of them (SAFD). |
| City registration | City of San Antonio Finance Department | Issues no general business licence. A boarding home, however, must register with the city and observe a half-mile separation from another registered boarding home (City of San Antonio). |
| County land use | Bexar County Public Works | None. Bexar County states plainly that “in the unincorporated areas of the County there are no zoning regulations,” so outside a municipality what remains is platting, septic permitting, floodplain and fire review (Bexar County). |
| County funding and referrals | The Center for Health Care Services (CHCS) | Bexar County’s behavioral health authority, holder of the HHSC Region 8 screening and referral contract, and operator of the Restoration Center. It controls the largest publicly funded flow of people into housing in the county (CHCS). |
The short version for an operator.
- State license: Not required, and there is no state registry to join either.
- City license: San Antonio issues no general business license, but a change of use triggers a certificate of occupancy, and a boarding home requires registration and one always requires a new certificate.
- Certification: Voluntary in law, and close to mandatory in practice for any home that wants publicly funded residents.
- Referrals: Controlled by the county behavioral health authority, the specialty courts and probation, none of which is obliged to send you anyone.
Licensing is the easy part in San Antonio, because there is nothing to apply for. Zoning is where an operator actually gets stopped, and it turns on two numbers and one sentence in the code.
San Antonio Zoning Laws for Sober Living Homes
San Antonio has no sober living ordinance, no sober-living-specific spacing rule, and no use category called “recovery residence.” What it has instead is a definition of family that excludes congregate categories by name, a hard six-resident ceiling for group living in single-family districts, a half-mile separation rule for registered boarding homes, and one 2025 ordinance that mentions structured sober living homes exactly once.
How the Unified Development Code Treats a Sober Living Home
The code carries no sober-living use category, so classification falls out of four definitions in UDC Appendix A, section 35-A101. Which one a house lands in decides everything that follows.
- Family: Defined as people “occupying a dwelling living together as a separate housekeeping unit,” and the definition “expressly excludes residents of an assisted living facility, boarding home, community home, college fraternity or sorority, transitional home, or nursing facility as defined,” which means San Antonio sets no cap on unrelated adults and instead excludes the congregate categories by name (UDC 35-A101).
- Rooming house: “A facility where lodging is provided for definite periods thirty (30) days or longer, for compensation, pursuant to previous arrangements,” which is the category a rent-paying recovery residence most closely resembles on the page (UDC 35-A101).
- Community home: Tied to Texas Human Resources Code Chapter 123, whose list of qualifying conditions does not include substance use disorder, so a sober living home generally cannot claim community-home status or its by-right path.
- Transitional home: Reserved for facilities housing people “required to reside at the facility as a term of parole or under mandatory supervision,” which a voluntary recovery residence is not, and which carries a 1,000-foot separation from schools, parks and day-care under UDC 35-390.
- Permitted districts: A boarding home or community home of six or fewer residents is listed across the residential districts from RE and R-20 down to R-3 and the multi-family and commercial districts, while seven to sixteen residents is confined to multi-family and commercial zones (Information Bulletin 532).
A house of six or fewer residents living as one household, sharing meals and expenses, is analysed as a family and needs no special approval in a single-family district. It becomes exposed the moment it looks like a business rather than a household: rooms let individually, a manager who does not live there, meals and services sold separately, on-street parking. The city publishes the ceiling itself in UDC 35-376(a), which states that “in single-family districts the maximum number of residents, by right, shall be six (6)” and that seven to sixteen may be authorized as a conditional use.
Get the zoning answer in writing before you sign. San Antonio charges $371 for a Zoning Verification Letter and returns it within ten working days, and it is the only address-specific document the city will stand behind. A verbal answer from a counter is worth nothing in a dispute with a neighbor or a lender.
What the Six-Resident Rule Does and Does Not Do
Operators repeat the six-resident rule as though exceeding it is illegal. It is not: UDC 35-376(a) says the same sentence that sets the ceiling also opens the door above it, and the door is a reasonable-accommodation request.
- UDC 35-376(a): Sets six residents by right in single-family districts and authorizes seven to sixteen as a conditional use under 35-422, adding that “reasonable accommodation is encouraged” (City of San Antonio).
- Texas Human Resources Code 123.006: Caps a community home at six persons with disabilities plus two supervisors, regardless of how those persons are related to one another (Texas Human Resources Code).
- Unlicensed recovery residences: Chapter 123 does not reach them, because its qualifying-condition list in section 123.002 omits substance use disorder entirely and its operator list in 123.004 is limited to state agencies, community centers, nonprofit corporations and licensed facilities.
The protection that actually reaches a San Antonio recovery residence is federal. People in recovery from a substance use disorder are protected under the Fair Housing Act, current users of illegal drugs are not, and the joint statement from the Department of Justice and HUD on land use makes clear that the Act reaches local zoning decisions. That is where the conditional-use path in 35-422 stops being a favour and becomes a duty, and it is worth reading the legal protections that apply to recovery housing in zoning disputes and how to go about requesting a reasonable accommodation before you need either.
Keep readingThe Federal Fair Housing Act and Sober Living: Everything You Need to KnowThe federal protections every operator, neighbor, and local official should understand.→Ordinance 2025-09-04-0580 and the Home-Occupation Clause
On September 4, 2025 the City Council adopted Ordinance 2025-09-04-0580, an amendment to Chapter 35 of the City Code bringing the Unified Development Code into line with the 89th Texas Legislature. It moved on the consent agenda as Item 12 of the A Session, after a Planning Commission briefing on August 13 and a Zoning Commission hearing on September 2. Buried in its rewrite of UDC 35-378, Home Occupations, is the clause that matters here: among the prohibited home occupations the code now lists sexually oriented businesses, the selling of alcohol or drugs, “or a structured sober living home.”
- It bars operating a structured sober living home as a home occupation, meaning as a business run out of a dwelling.
- It adds a general test that no home occupation may generate on-street parking, substantially increase area traffic, or violate the noise ordinance.
- It leaves the residence itself alone: a household of people in recovery living together is not a home occupation.
Nothing else changed that day. The ordinance did not touch the definitions of family, boarding home facility, community home, rooming house or transitional home, did not move the six-resident ceiling in 35-376, and did not create a spacing rule, a registry or a permit for recovery housing. Whether a prohibited home occupation can be enforced against a residence whose occupants are protected under federal law is exactly the question the courts have answered.
- City of Edmonds v. Oxford House, Inc., 514 U.S. 725 (1995): The Supreme Court held that a family definition capping unrelated occupants is a land-use restriction rather than an exempt maximum-occupancy rule, so it gets no safe harbour under the Fair Housing Act (U.S. Supreme Court).
- Elderhaven, Inc. v. City of Lubbock, 98 F.3d 175 (5th Cir. 1996): The Fifth Circuit upheld a city requirement that group homes of five or more residents obtain a special exception, finding the city had reasonably accommodated people with disabilities in its zoning decisions (Fifth Circuit).
- Groome Resources v. Parish of Jefferson, 234 F.3d 192 (5th Cir. 2000): The Fifth Circuit confirmed that the reasonable-accommodation duty binds local government, and that a claim is not ripe until the official with final authority issues a denial (U.S. Department of Justice).
For an operator today, the ordinance is a drafting instruction more than a prohibition. It tells you what the house must not look like.
- Run the house as a residence, not as an office: no signage, no client visits, no staff reporting to the address for work.
- Keep six or fewer residents in a single-family district, or file the conditional-use request under 35-422 before you sign, not after a complaint.
- Solve parking on the property, because on-street parking is the trigger the amendment now names.
- Pull an address-specific answer in writing, through a Zoning Verification Letter, rather than relying on a phone call to a counter.
How your home gets classified, where Fair Housing applies, and what to do if the city says no.
San Antonio Fire and Building Code Rules for Sober Living Homes
A single-family house in San Antonio occupied by six or fewer adults in recovery stays in Residential Group R-3 under the 2024 International Building Code, which the city adopted at City Code Chapter 10 effective May 1, 2025. It is the resident count and whether custodial care is provided that move a house out of R-3, and three code points decide what Development Services and the Fire Department will ask for.
- The resident-count line: Group R-4 covers “more than five but not more than 16 persons, excluding staff, who reside on a 24-hour basis in a supervised residential environment and receive custodial care,” so a peer-run home that provides no custodial care stays in R-3 well past six residents (San Antonio City Code Chapter 10).
- Certificate of occupancy: City Code 10-12(a) states that no building “shall be used or occupied in whole or part, and no change in the existing use or occupancy classification of a building or structure or portion thereof shall be made, until the Building Official has issued a certificate of occupancy therefor,” which is the section that catches a house converted from a prior care-facility or commercial use (San Antonio City Code 10-12).
- The Fire Department’s scope: San Antonio Fire Department inspections are triggered by commercial events, a code-violation complaint, a day-care or foster-care licence, a building shell or a state requirement, none of which a single-family recovery residence hits, and its free smoke-alarm home visit is a public-education programme rather than a code inspection (San Antonio Fire Department).
- Sprinklers: San Antonio deleted the residential sprinkler mandate from the adopted code, so a one- or two-family dwelling operating as a recovery residence carries no sprinkler requirement (San Antonio City Code Chapter 10).
Alarms are where first-time operators fall short of both the code and the TROHN inspection, usually because the house was compliant as a family home and nobody rechecked it after bedrooms were reassigned. The requirements below apply to every dwelling in San Antonio regardless of who lives in it, which is precisely why no one will come and tell you about them.
| Requirement | What the rule says | Authority |
|---|---|---|
| Smoke alarms in every sleeping room | One in each sleeping room, one outside each separate sleeping area in the immediate vicinity of the bedrooms, and one on each additional story of the dwelling. | 2024 IRC R310.3, adopted at City Code Chapter 10 |
| Interconnected alarms | Where more than one smoke alarm is required, the devices must be interconnected so that actuation of one activates all of them. | 2024 IRC R310.4, adopted at City Code Chapter 10 |
| Alarm upgrade on alteration | Where alterations, repairs or additions requiring a permit occur, the dwelling unit must be equipped with smoke alarms located as required for new dwellings, which is what catches a bedroom conversion. | 2024 IRC R310.2.2, adopted at City Code Chapter 10 |
| Carbon monoxide alarms | Required on alteration only where the dwelling has an attached garage or fuel-fired appliances, or where sleeping rooms are added or created. San Antonio amended the model trigger to this narrower test. | 2024 IRC R311.2.2 as amended, City Code Chapter 10 |
| Landlord smoke alarm duty | A landlord must install alarms, inspect and repair them at a tenant’s request, and faces tenant remedies for failing to. This applies to the house you lease and to the residents you house. | Texas Property Code 92.251 to 92.264 |
| Certificate of occupancy | No building may be used or occupied, and no change of use or occupancy classification may be made, until the Building Official issues a certificate. A boarding home always requires a new one. | San Antonio City Code 10-12(a) |
| Residential sprinklers | Not required. San Antonio struck the model code’s sprinkler mandate for one- and two-family dwellings from its adopted residential code. | 2024 IRC R309.2 as deleted, City Code Chapter 10 |
| Egress and documentation | Not a city mandate for an existing single-family dwelling, but the standard TROHN inspects against, so treat clear egress from every sleeping room and written alarm-test records as requirements rather than good practice. | TROHN certification standards |
Nothing in Texas triggers a mandatory fire inspection of an unlicensed recovery residence in a single-family home. There is no state licence to inspect against, the State Fire Marshal’s jurisdiction runs to state-owned and statutorily enumerated buildings rather than private homes, San Antonio Fire inspects on commercial and licensed triggers, and Development Services inspects only when a permit is pulled. The entire fire-safety burden is voluntary, carried by the operator, and the only outside enforcement is a resident suing a landlord after the fact under Chapter 92. Settle how many people the house can actually hold before you book any inspection, because the answer changes what the alarms and egress have to cover.
Alarms, egress, extinguishers, and the documentation an inspector expects on file.
Get the checklist freeNo cost, no obligation. Unsubscribe in one click.How Much Does It Cost to Open a Sober House in San Antonio?
The Texas reference model prices opening a sober living home at $31,011 to $39,112 on the lease path and $86,954 to $112,744 on the purchase path, and those totals are the floor here. San Antonio changes three of those inputs and leaves the rest alone: the lease anchor, the purchase anchor, and a set of city fees that Texas-wide figures do not price. Insurance and the alarm upgrades are the two lines no model can quote for you, because both are written against a specific address.
| Line item | San Antonio figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Entity formation | $300 for the Texas certificate of formation (Form 205) | Texas Secretary of State |
| Texas franchise tax | $0 owed below $2,650,000 in annualized revenue for report years 2026 and 2027; the report is still due May 15 | Texas Comptroller |
| City business licence | $0. San Antonio issues no general business licence | City of San Antonio |
| Zoning Verification Letter | $371 ($350 plus the 6 percent Development Services and Technology surcharge), returned within 10 working days | San Antonio Land Development Fee Schedule |
| Certificate of occupancy, where a change of use is triggered | $200 commercial certificate of occupancy; $150 temporary; $51.50 per re-inspection | San Antonio Development Services fee schedule, FY2026 |
| State licence | $0. Texas does not license peer-supported recovery housing, where a licensed chemical dependency treatment facility would carry a full application | 26 TAC 571.4 |
| TROHN certification | $1,000 base plus $15 per bed, recertified every 24 months | TROHN |
| Lease anchor | $1,864 a month for a three-bedroom and $2,163 for a four-bedroom, effective October 1, 2026 | HUD FY2027 Fair Market Rents, San Antonio-New Braunfels |
| Purchase anchor | $280,999 median Bexar County sale price in August 2026, putting twenty percent down at about $56,200 estimated | San Antonio Board of REALTORS |
| Furnishings, supplies, utility deposits, renovation, insurance and reserve | Restated from the Texas model rather than repriced here | Sober Living Startup Costs in Texas |
Two adjustments turn the statewide model into a San Antonio budget.
- Purchase path: Swap the model’s statewide down payment for twenty percent of the Bexar County median sale price of $280,999, which is about $56,200 estimated, and the purchase total lands within a few hundred dollars of the state range because San Antonio prices sit almost exactly on the Texas median. Closing costs, the alarm work and the first insurance premium are still on top.
- Lease path: The lease path barely moves at all, and the figure to test a landlord’s quote against is the FY2027 fair market rent of $1,864 for a three-bedroom and $2,163 for a four-bedroom, effective October 1, 2026. A quote materially above the four-bedroom number is a quote priced for a group home, not a house.
Local offsets exist, but only one of them is real money for a new San Antonio operator, and it comes from the state rather than the county.
- Be Well Texas recovery housing vouchers: A state-funded programme delivered through UT Health San Antonio that pays for Level 2 and Level 3 recovery housing for adults aged 18 to 25, restricted to homes carrying national NARR certification, with four San Antonio homes already in the network (Be Well Texas).
- Texas franchise tax threshold: No franchise tax is owed below $2,650,000 in annualized total revenue for report years 2026 and 2027, which means a single house owes the report but not the tax (Texas Comptroller).
Neither of these is a startup grant. The voucher pays rent for an eligible resident after you are open and certified, not before, and it is restricted by age band; the franchise threshold is simply a tax you do not owe. Bexar County’s opioid settlement money runs to naloxone, neonatal services and jail-based treatment, with no recovery housing line, so do not budget against it.
Texas guideTexas Recovery Housing Funding: Why It Rarely Works the Way Operators ExpectBlock grants, opioid settlement dollars, Medicaid, and county contracts: what reaches a sober living home and what does not.→Is a Sober Living Home Profitable in San Antonio?
Yes, on the same terms as the rest of Texas, and the condition is occupancy rather than rent. The Texas reference model runs a fourteen-bed home at $800 a bed with an eighteen percent vacancy allowance, producing $8,109 in monthly revenue against $4,029 in operating expenses, about $4,080 in net operating income before the owner’s own labour, a fifty percent margin, and breakeven at forty-six percent occupancy. San Antonio changes exactly two lines in that stack: the mortgage, and the property tax.
That score reads Texas as a whole, and San Antonio pulls it in both directions at once. Acquisition prices here sit almost exactly on the Texas median, so the capital side of the ratio is unremarkable, while Bexar County’s combined tax rate is heavy enough to be the single biggest local drag on monthly margin. The table restates the state model line for line and scales only the two property lines.
| Line | Texas reference model ([N] beds) | San Antonio adjustment (estimated) |
|---|---|---|
| Beds | 14 | Unchanged |
| Rent per bed, per month | $800 | Unchanged |
| Potential monthly rent | $11,200 | Unchanged |
| Less house mentor bed | -$800 | Unchanged |
| Less membership and scholarship | -$800 | Unchanged |
| Less vacancy allowance, 18 percent | -$2,016 | Unchanged |
| Intake fees and laundry | $525 | Unchanged |
| Total monthly revenue | $8,109 | Unchanged |
| Mortgage principal and interest | $1,846 | About $1,828 estimated, holding the model’s twenty percent down payment and swapping the Texas median value for the $280,999 Bexar County median sale price |
| Real estate tax | $370 | About $536 estimated, applying the 2025 combined San Antonio, Bexar County, hospital district, college district, river authority and Northside ISD rates of roughly $2.29 per $100 to that same purchase price, with no homestead exemption (Bexar County Tax Assessor-Collector) |
| Insurance, utilities, supplies, maintenance, drug screens and marketing | $1,813 | Unchanged |
| Total monthly operating expenses | $4,029 | About $4,177 estimated |
| Net operating income before owner labour | $4,080 | About $3,932 estimated |
| Breakeven occupancy | 46 percent | About 48 percent estimated, scaled in proportion to the two adjusted lines |
The adjustment holds revenue, per-bed rent, vacancy and every non-property expense exactly as the state model sets them, and changes only the mortgage and the tax line. It is an estimate built from published figures, not a quote: at a Bexar County median purchase, monthly net operating income lands near $3,932 and the margin near forty-eight percent. Three local factors will move that number further than the mortgage does.
- The property tax bill: A house held in an entity gets no homestead exemption, so the full combined rate applies and the tax line runs roughly forty-five percent above the state model’s figure.
- Referral concentration: Most publicly funded placement in Bexar County moves through a small number of desks, so a home that lands two of them fills quickly and a home that lands none prices like private-pay housing.
- Insurance on an older house: The cheap stock in the strongest ZIP codes was built between 1947 and 1967, and the carrier prices roof age and wiring before it prices the use.
Your property will not match the model, and finding out how far off it is takes about five minutes.
Will your property pencil out?
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Get my projectionFree calculator with your property’s numbers.See Texas profitabilityRealistic revenue, operating costs, and margins in Texas.How to Get Residents for a Sober Living Home in San Antonio
Publicly funded referral in Bexar County runs through The Center for Health Care Services, the county’s behavioral health authority, and through the courts and probation department that supervise a very large population. Everyone else fills the remaining beds through hospital discharge, treatment providers and word of mouth inside the recovery community. Three public doors matter most.
- The CHCS 24-hour crisis and substance use helpline, 210-223-7233: Screens anyone in crisis or seeking substance use help in Bexar County and routes them into detox, sobering, opioid treatment or outpatient services at the Restoration Center, which is where most discharge-to-housing conversations start (The Center for Health Care Services).
- Be Well Texas recovery housing vouchers: Pays Level 2 and Level 3 recovery housing for adults 18 to 25, with the referral made through the programme’s intake rather than by the home, and the rate covering the resident’s housing fee for a defined period rather than an open-ended subsidy (Be Well Texas).
- TROHN certification: The state funding stream behind those vouchers is restricted to homes carrying NARR certification, which is what turns a voluntary credential into something close to a referral requirement for any San Antonio home that wants public dollars (TROHN).
Fourteen organizations follow, public agencies first, because in Bexar County the public system controls both the volume and the money while the nonprofits control the relationships.
| Organization | Type | How residents reach you |
|---|---|---|
| The Center for Health Care Services | County behavioral health authority | Residents discharge from the Restoration Center’s sobering unit, residential detox, opioid treatment or co-occurring programme and need a sober address the same day. The 24-hour line is 210-223-7233. |
| HHSC Region 8 OSAR, operated by CHCS | State-funded screening and referral | Anyone seeking state-funded treatment is screened here first, at 210-261-3076, and the level-of-care decision is where housing gets raised. |
| Bexar County Community Supervision and Corrections | County probation | Officers supervising more than 25,000 probationers approve residences and place people directly, especially from the Applewhite programmes. |
| Bexar County specialty courts | County courts | Thirteen registered programmes, including the Camino Court adult drug court, felony drug court and the DWI court, condition phase advancement on stable sober housing. |
| Bexar County Veterans Treatment Court | County court | Case managers coordinate housing alongside benefits and employment for veterans on both the misdemeanor and felony tracks; the line is 210-335-2156. |
| Bexar County Reentry Center | County reentry | People leaving custody arrive for identification, benefits and behavioral health support, and its published service list carries no housing component, which is the gap a home can fill. |
| VA South Texas Homeless Veteran Care | Federal hospital system | HCHV and HUD-VASH coordinators place veterans into transitional housing while a voucher is processed. |
| Audie L. Murphy VA Medical Center | Federal hospital system | Veterans stepping down from the VA’s residential rehabilitation programmes for addictive disorders need a next placement. |
| San Antonio Metropolitan Health District | City public health | Post-overdose and harm-reduction contacts are routed outward to treatment and housing rather than held in-house. |
| Haven for Hope | Nonprofit homeless campus | Transformational case management and the campus housing team move members into housing that supports long-term recovery; walk-in intake runs weekdays. |
| Close to Home and the Homelink coordinated entry system | Continuum of Care lead | Assessed households are matched to housing programmes through a single county-wide queue; the access line is 210-207-1799. |
| Lifetime Recovery | Nonprofit residential provider | A 45-to-90-day residential programme on 18.5 acres in southeast Bexar County, and the most direct treatment-to-housing feeder in the county. |
| Cenikor San Antonio | Nonprofit treatment provider | Women discharging from detox, residential and medication-assisted treatment at the former Alpha Home campus on Camden Street. |
| Crosspoint Inc. | Nonprofit reentry and residential | Residents leaving its federal residential reentry centre, its Casa Miá programme or its veterans programme need step-down housing. |
| Rise Recovery | Recovery community organization | Peer coaches and group facilitators work with adults in early recovery who have no stable housing, at the Charlie Naylor Campus on Mossrock Drive. |
| University Health Behavioral Health | Public hospital district | Discharge planners connect patients leaving hospital-based treatment to community resources, including housing. |
Neither fellowship refers formally, but meeting secretaries and sponsors are how a large share of residents actually find a house. The San Antonio Central Service Office runs a 24-hour line at 210-828-6235, a Spanish-language line at 210-409-8524, and lists over a thousand weekly meetings across the metro; the Esperanza Area of Narcotics Anonymous covers San Antonio with a helpline at 210-434-0665.
If you came here looking for a bed rather than a business plan, that is a different and simpler route.
Take the next step
Apply, browse homes, or search the national directory.
Apply onlineGet a call back within 24 hours.View VSL homesSee Chartered recovery homes and find the right fit.Search the national directoryCertified sober houses anywhere in the US.Or call (844) 762-3747, weekdays 8a to 5p.
Common Mistakes When Opening a Sober House in San Antonio
The errors below are the ones that show up in San Antonio homes that struggle in year one, and almost all of them happen before the first resident moves in.
- Signing before pulling a Zoning Verification Letter: A $371 letter answers the address-specific question that a phone call to a counter does not, and it is the only thing you can hold up when a neighbour complains.
- Treating six residents as a legal maximum: It is a by-right ceiling with a conditional-use path above it under 35-422, and an operator who quietly runs eight instead of filing has given the city the easiest possible enforcement case.
- Running the house like a business at the address: Signage, client visits and staff commuting in are exactly what the 2025 home-occupation clause names, and each one converts a protected residence into a prohibited home occupation.
- Pricing from statewide numbers: The Texas model’s property tax line understates a Bexar County bill by roughly forty-five percent on a house held in an entity, which is most of the gap between a fifty percent and a forty-eight percent margin.
- Assuming the county will fill the beds: Bexar County’s reentry centre publishes no housing component at all, and there is no TDCJ halfway house anywhere in the county, so a home that has not built its own referral relationships has nothing to fall back on.
If you would rather work from a printed sequence than a web page, both routes below cover the Texas process end to end.
The book gives you the map to open a home. When you’re ready to launch, certify, and sustain, the Blueprint is the full playbook covering funding, legal, insurance, and operations.
Frequently Asked Questions About Opening a Sober House in San Antonio
Do you need a license to open a sober living home in San Antonio?
No. Texas does not license peer-supported recovery housing, and there is no city licence either. The licensing line in 26 TAC 571.4 is drawn at delivering chemical dependency treatment, so a home that provides housing and structure but no clinical services on site stays outside it. TROHN certification is voluntary but close to mandatory for publicly funded referrals.
How many residents can a sober living home have in San Antonio?
Six by right in a single-family district. UDC 35-376(a) sets that ceiling and, in the same sentence, authorizes seven to sixteen residents as a conditional use under 35-422, adding that reasonable accommodation is encouraged. San Antonio’s definition of family sets no numeric cap on unrelated adults; the cap lives in 35-376 instead.
Did San Antonio ban sober living homes in 2025?
No. Ordinance 2025-09-04-0580, adopted September 4, 2025, lists a structured sober living home among the prohibited home occupations, which bars running one as a business out of a dwelling. It did not touch the family definition, the six-resident ceiling, or any use category, and it created no permit, registry or spacing rule for recovery housing.
Can a sober living home operate in a single-family neighborhood in San Antonio?
Yes. A household of six or fewer people living together as a single housekeeping unit is analysed as a family under UDC 35-A101 and needs no special approval. Exposure begins when the house reads as a business rather than a household: rooms let individually, staff commuting in, signage, or cars pushed onto the street.
What does it cost to open a sober house in San Antonio?
The Texas model prices it at $31,011 to $39,112 on the lease path and $86,954 to $112,744 on the purchase path, and San Antonio sits close to those figures. Local additions are a $371 Zoning Verification Letter, a $300 entity filing, a $200 certificate of occupancy where a change of use applies, and TROHN certification at $1,000 plus $15 per bed.
Who refers residents to sober living homes in San Antonio?
The Center for Health Care Services controls the largest publicly funded flow, through the Restoration Center and the Region 8 screening and referral contract. Bexar County probation supervises more than 25,000 people and its specialty courts condition progress on stable housing. Be Well Texas vouchers pay for certified recovery housing for adults aged 18 to 25.
Your San Antonio Sober House Startup Checklist
Every item below is covered somewhere on this page, and in San Antonio none of them is optional. Work them in order, because several of them cannot be undone once you have signed.
Four evergreen guides that sit underneath everything above.
How VSL Helps You Open a Sober House in San Antonio
Vanderburgh Sober Living charters and supports independent recovery home operators across more than fourteen states, and the questions this page kept returning to are the ones VSL exists to answer. What does the six-resident line mean for the house you are looking at. Whether a conditional-use request is worth filing before you sign. How to get in front of the small number of Bexar County desks that control publicly funded placement, and what the house has to look like on paper before TROHN will even accept an application.
There are two ways in. The Launchpad course is the self-guided route for an operator who wants the sequence and the templates and intends to do the work alone, while the Mastery Program is the done-with-you route, with startup, certification and operating support from people who have opened homes. If you have a specific San Antonio address in hand, or you are weighing a lease against a purchase on the south or west side, that is a conversation worth having before you commit: start here.
Start your sober house
Pick the path that fits where you are in the process.
Download the free guidePath to Purposeful Recovery Housing, by Dr. Hunter T. Foote.Explore the Mastery ProgramHands-on startup, certification, and operating support.See how starting with VSL worksThe opportunity, the community, and what a Charter includes.Prefer to talk now? Call (844) 762-3747, weekdays 8a to 5p.
Educational only; not legal, financial, or medical advice. Fees, rents, and rules change, and the San Antonio adjustments above are estimates built on the Texas reference model. Confirm current requirements with San Antonio, Bexar County, and qualified professionals before you sign or spend.
Research & Sources
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- U.S. Census Bureau. (2026). QuickFacts: Bexar County, Texas. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/bexarcountytexas/PST045225
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- Texas Health and Human Services Commission. (2026). Chemical dependency treatment facilities: Licensed facility roster. https://www.hhs.texas.gov/providers/health-care-facilities-regulation/chemical-dependency-treatment-facilities
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- San Antonio Report. (2025, October 10). With Applewhite expansion, Bexar County doubles down on mental health and rehabilitation. https://sanantonioreport.org/with-applewhite-expansion-bexar-county-doubles-down-on-mental-health-and-rehabilitation/
- Close to Home. (2026). 2026 point-in-time count, TX-500 San Antonio/Bexar County Continuum of Care. https://closetohomesa.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/2026-Point-in-Time-Count-TX-500-San-AntonioBexar-County-CoC.pdf
- Texas Recovery Oriented Housing Network. (n.d.). Find recovery housing. https://trohn.org/find/
- Federal Transit Administration. (2025). 2024 agency profile: VIA Metropolitan Transit. National Transit Database. https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/transit_agency_profile_doc/2024/60011.pdf
- U.S. Census Bureau. (2026). American Community Survey 5-year estimates, 2020-2024: ZCTA 78237. Census Reporter. https://censusreporter.org/profiles/86000US78237-78237/
- VIA Metropolitan Transit. (2026). Route 103 Zarzamora. https://www.viainfo.net/route/103/
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- VIA Metropolitan Transit. (2026). Routes and schedules. https://www.viainfo.net/routes/
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- VIA Metropolitan Transit. (n.d.). Prímo service. https://www.viainfo.net/bus-services/primo-service/
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- VIA Metropolitan Transit. (n.d.). Transit centers. https://www.viainfo.net/transit-centers/
- U.S. Census Bureau. (2026). American Community Survey 5-year estimates, 2020-2024: ZCTA 78201. Census Reporter. https://censusreporter.org/profiles/86000US78201-78201/
- U.S. Census Bureau. (2026). American Community Survey 5-year estimates, 2020-2024: ZCTA 78202. Census Reporter. https://censusreporter.org/profiles/86000US78202-78202/
- VIA Metropolitan Transit. (n.d.). VIA Rapid. Keep SA Moving. https://keepsamoving.com/projects/via-rapid/
- Texas Legislature. (n.d.). Health and Safety Code Chapter 464: Facilities treating persons with a chemical dependency. https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/HS/htm/HS.464.htm
- Texas Health and Human Services Commission. (n.d.). 26 Texas Administrative Code § 571.4: Applicability and exemptions. Cornell Legal Information Institute. https://www.law.cornell.edu/regulations/texas/26-Tex-Admin-Code-SS-571-4
- City of San Antonio. (2025). Unified Development Code, Appendix A § 35-A101: Definitions. Municode. https://library.municode.com/tx/san_antonio/codes/unified_development_code
- Texas Legislature. (n.d.). Human Resources Code Chapter 123: Community homes for disabled persons location act. https://law.onecle.com/texas/human-resources/title-8/chapter-123/index.html
- City of San Antonio. (n.d.). Unified Development Code § 35-390: Transitional homes. http://sanantonio-tx.elaws.us/code/udc_artiii_div7_sec35-390
- City of San Antonio. (n.d.). Unified Development Code § 35-376: Group living and related uses. http://sanantonio-tx.elaws.us/code/udc_artiii_div7_sec35-376
- U.S. Department of Justice & U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. (2016). Joint statement on state and local land use laws and practices and the application of the Fair Housing Act. https://www.justice.gov/crt/joint-statement-department-justice-and-department-housing-and-urban-development
- City of San Antonio. (2025). Ordinance 2025-09-04-0580: Amending Chapter 35 of the City Code (Unified Development Code). City Council A Session, September 4, 2025. https://sanantonio.primegov.com/portal/item/211833
- City of Edmonds v. Oxford House, Inc., 514 U.S. 725 (1995). https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/514/725/case.pdf
- Elderhaven, Inc. v. City of Lubbock, 98 F.3d 175 (5th Cir. 1996). https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/Opinions/pub/95/95-10851.CV0.wpd.pdf
- Groome Resources, Ltd., L.L.C. v. Parish of Jefferson, 234 F.3d 192 (5th Cir. 2000). https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/crt/legacy/2010/12/14/groome.pdf
- City of San Antonio. (2025). Chapter 10: Building-related codes, 2024 edition. Development Services Department. https://docsonline.sanantonio.gov/DSDUploads/2024Ch10Building-RelatedCodesFinal.pdf
- San Antonio Fire Department. (n.d.). Types of permits and inspections. https://www.sa.gov/Directory/Departments/SAFD/Permits-Inspections/Types
- Texas Legislature. (n.d.). Property Code Chapter 92, Subchapter F: Smoke alarms and fire extinguishers, §§ 92.251-92.264. Justia. https://law.justia.com/codes/texas/property-code/title-8/chapter-92/subchapter-f/
- Texas Recovery Oriented Housing Network. (n.d.). Certification. https://trohn.org/certification/
- Texas Secretary of State. (n.d.). Form 205: Certificate of formation, limited liability company. https://www.sos.state.tx.us/corp/forms/205_boc.pdf
- Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. (2026). Franchise tax. https://comptroller.texas.gov/taxes/franchise/
- City of San Antonio. (n.d.). Small business permitting guide. https://www.sa.gov/Directory/Initiatives/Small-Business-Permitting-Guide
- City of San Antonio. (n.d.). Land development fee schedule. Development Services Department. https://docsonline.sanantonio.gov/FileUploads/dsd/LandDevelopmentFeeSchedule.pdf
- City of San Antonio. (2025). Development services fee schedule, FY2026. https://docsonline.sanantonio.gov/DSDUploads/CurrentFeeSchedule.pdf
- Texas Recovery Oriented Housing Network. (n.d.). Pricing. https://trohn.org/pricing/
- U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. (2026). FY2027 fair market rent documentation system. Office of Policy Development and Research. https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/fmr.html
- San Antonio Board of REALTORS. (2026). South Texas market report, August 2026. https://sabor.com/market-research-and-statistics/market-statistics/south-texas-market-report/
- Be Well Texas. (2023). Be Well Texas offers recovery home subsidies to young adults with substance use disorder. UT Health San Antonio. https://bewelltexas.org/be-well-texas-offers-recovery-home-subsidies-to-young-adults-with-substance-use-disorder/
- Bexar County Tax Assessor-Collector. (2026). 2025 official tax rates and exemptions. https://www.bexar.org/4032/2025-Official-Tax-Rates-Exemptions
- The Center for Health Care Services. (2026). Program directory. https://chcsbc.org/program-directory/
- Texas Health and Human Services Commission. (n.d.). Outreach, screening, assessment and referral. https://www.hhs.texas.gov/services/mental-health-substance-use/mental-health-substance-use-resources/outreach-screening-assessment-referral
- Bexar County. (n.d.). Programs, services and specialty courts. https://www.bexar.org/506/Programs-Services-and-Specialty-Courts
- Bexar County. (n.d.). Veterans Treatment Court. https://www.bexar.org/1085/Veterans-Treatment-Court
- Bexar County. (n.d.). Reentry Center available services. https://www.bexar.org/3513/Available-Services
- U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. (n.d.). Homeless veteran care, VA South Texas Health Care System. https://www.va.gov/south-texas-health-care/health-services/homeless-veteran-care/
- U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. (n.d.). Mental health care, VA South Texas Health Care System. https://www.va.gov/south-texas-health-care/health-services/mental-health-care/
- San Antonio Metropolitan Health District. (n.d.). Substance use resources for health professionals. https://www.sa.gov/Directory/Departments/SAMHD/Health-Professionals/Substance-Use
- Haven for Hope. (n.d.). Get help. https://www.havenforhope.org/get-help/
- Close to Home. (n.d.). Homelink coordinated entry. https://www.closetohomesa.org/homelink
- Lifetime Recovery. (n.d.). Residential program. https://www.lifetimerecoverytx.org/residential-program.html
- Cenikor Foundation. (n.d.). San Antonio location. https://www.cenikor.org/locations/san-antonio
- Crosspoint, Inc. (n.d.). Programs. https://cpsatx.org/programs/
- Rise Recovery. (n.d.). Home. https://riserecovery.org/
- University Health. (n.d.). Behavioral health services. https://www.universityhealth.com/services/behavioral-health
- Alcoholics Anonymous San Antonio Central Service Office. (n.d.). Contact us. https://aasanantonio.org/contact-us/
- Esperanza Area of Narcotics Anonymous. (n.d.). Home. https://www.esperanzana.org/
- Bexar County. (n.d.). Are there zoning regulations in the unincorporated areas of Bexar County? Frequently asked questions. https://www.bexar.org/Faq.aspx?QID=178
- City of San Antonio. (n.d.). Boarding homes. Development Services Department. https://www.sa.gov/Directory/Departments/DSD/CES/Permits-Licenses/Residential/Boarding-Homes
- City of San Antonio. (n.d.). One Stop Map. Development Services Department GIS. https://gis.sanantonio.gov/DSD/OneStop/Index.html
