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Although the term is of recent origin as used in connection with alcohol or drug treatment, the basic idea of the halfway house is almost two hundred years old. It designates a residential facility that provides a drug-free environment for individuals recovering from drug or alcohol problems but not yet able to live independently without jeopardizing their progress. By definition, halfway houses are not located in hospitals or PRISONS, but they vary in the extent to which they are integrated with local community life, and in size, sponsorship, sources of financial support, regulatory status (licensed or unlicensed by a state agency), treatment philosophy, and the degree of legal coercion to which residents are subject. Some specialize in alcohol abusers or drug abusers, while some serve both; some focus on specific population groups like offenders, ADOLESCENTS, or WOMEN, while others are inclusive. Some will accept only those with at least a few days of abstinence; others provide DETOXIFICATION services. Some are loosely structured and rely for staff on recovering people; others provide formal treatment and employ a professional staff.

In sum, the term covers a lot of ground and has no stable meaning. Indeed, its meaning in any given state depends on that state's licensing provisions, and whether these make any distinctions among halfway houses, recovery homes, and other similar forms of residential treatment. At a minimum, however, the term implies a group of people with alcohol and/or drug problems living together in a formal, therapeutic arrangement and abiding by the rule of abstinence. In 1987, there were more than 1,300 such programs in North America, many of them members of the National Association of Halfway Houses.

Although there is increasing interest in establishing residential forms that tolerate off-site consumption that does not disrupt facility life, these would not be considered halfway houses in the common use of the term. Further, because the halfway house is a sponsored, therapeutic program, however informally operated, it is everywhere subject to special zoning ordinances that regulate the location of therapeutic agencies. Thus, the halfway house is distinct from what is called "alcohol and drug-free (or sober) housing." The latter is designed to be part of a locality's ordinary housing stock and to be exempt from such regulation.

The Federal Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 (Public Law 100-690) included a provision to encourage the development of ALCOHOL AND DRUG-FREE HOUSING. Each state that receives federal block grant funds for drug and alcohol programs must establish a 100,000 dollar revolving fund to make start-up loans for such facilities. Although this money can be used to develop halfway houses, as we have defined them, the revolving fund has in practice been used to stimulate less formal approaches to housing recovering people.