The Room 12 Blues Foundation will also operate a safe, secure, and sober residential housing unit (not a treatment center), for those in the early stages of recovery from alcohol and/or drug addiction, in particular, those having been discharged from an in-patient treatment. The housing unit will be ideally situated in Cleveland to serve the business community and those employees who typically forego transitional living oftentimes recommended by substance-abuse counselors and therapists.

Room 12 Sober Housing will offer housing to 20 men at the most and desires to partner with the Cleveland business, medical, legal, and sports community to offer and require employees to avail themselves of this vital and often-neglected step in the recovery process.

In the latest figures available, lost productivity due to alcohol-related illness cost employers over $87.5 billion dollars per year. It has been estimated that the economic costs of substance abuse per year to employers, the justice, educational, and medical systems are $200 BILLION. Some estimates, such as that of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, are high as $1 TRILLION. In 2005 and 2006, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) conducted the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC), which found that 30 percent of young Americans aged 18 to 24 years of age suffer from an alcohol- or drug-abuse disorder. And although the percentage of those suffering from alcohol- or drug- abuse disorders decreases with age, overall, more than 10 percent of adults in this country suffer from alcohol- or drug-abuse disorders.

At Room 12, Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, and Al-Anon meetings, open to all, will be held on a daily basis.

In addition, Room 12 will sponsor educational programs and seminars for employers and the public to promote awareness and understanding of substance abuse, the disease model of addiction, and the attendant costs to society. And for those in the work force, Room 12 places emphasis on the importance of drug- and alcohol-free work environments.