‘American Nightmare’: How 30 Unlicensed Sober Homes Almost Took Over a Community

VIDEO – LIKE AN INFESTATION? –

Nov. 20, 2023 – “At one point, there was like a person passed out sleeping at the park, needles everywhere, beer cans, and again, the neighborhood has been around for six months at that point, so to see it go down that fast by people that didn’t care, it was a really big deal to me.””It’s the American dream, right? My parents are immigrants. We come from nothing. It’s like, ‘grow up, go to school, do a good job, work hard, buy a house,’” Jackie Mares said.

She moved in right as 2023 kicked off, excited to own her first home.

She bought a home in the community Element on Euclid in Laveen. It’s a fairly new community with a little more than a hundred single-family homes.

She says she later realized something was off.

“Just kind of felt like it turned my American dream to an American nightmare, like literally overnight,” Mares said.

So far this year, Arizona’s Medicaid agency, better known as the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS), has suspended more than 300 behavioral health providers.