On Friday, the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System suspended the licenses of 12 sober living centers, adding to the list of more than 300 centers shut down by the state in 2023 because of allegations of Medicare fraud.
Rehema Behavior Health Clinic was one of the 12 centers shut down. On Monday, its doors were locked and the center's patient vans were kept in a lot behind a padlocked gate.
"Right now we're homeless, don't have nowhere to go. We were kicked out," said Kendra Moses, a Rehema patient. Moses is also a mother of five and 30 weeks pregnant.
When a sober living center closes, so does the housing for its patients. On Saturday, Moses, her boyfriend Alex Hopkins, and her children were among the people evicted from homes along a west Phoenix street that were rented for Rehema patients and their families.
"All the Rehema vans pulled up and said they were going to take us back to the reservation," Moses said.
But Moses says there is no life for her and her family on the reservation, so she elected to stay behind. The Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS) offered assistance with temporary shelter and has provided lift tickets so her children can be taken to and from school.
AHCCCS has been working with the Arizona Attorney General's Office for much of this year as it tries to stop the hundreds of millions of dollars being lost to Medicare fraud.
Native Americans have been the targets of sober living centers recruiting patients from reservations in Arizona and elsewhere, requiring the victims to turn over information from their Indian Health insurance cards.
Moses and her boyfriend Alex Hopkins have been sober for 90 days. Both are working to rebuild their lives and find permanent housing and jobs. A home, right now, Moses says they can only count on days in a motel, "I have to be trying to do something, trying to get out to better myself to get in shelter, then they'll give more time. But they said it's not a promise."
