Last year Raquel Moody was struggling with alcohol addiction and she wanted to get sober.

I had started, you know, drinking and just, um, I got lost to my addiction and I knew I needed help.

Rakell lives in Arizona and she's Native American.

The state has a special program aimed at giving Native Americans more treatment options for addiction.

Rakel heard about a type of facility called a sober living home and decided to try it.

But when she got there was no

she noticed some red flags.

When I arrived at the housing there was no intake, you know,

that it was just straight to your room,

there's your bed, and there was nothing to do. I mean we sat in these sober living homes, just watching TV. I would always question, you know, if there were activities that we could do because I'm a recovering alcoholic and when I get bored I want to drink. The only thing they needed for Raquel was her Medicaid

number. There were no drug tests and what surprised her most people living there

were still allowed to drink alcohol.

What did you expect it would be like and then what was it like when you actually arrived?

I was expecting them to help me with everything they promised me with.

You know, I really wanted to work on myself.

I was hoping, you know, these classes that they were offering would help me better myself and they

said that they would help me and they never did.

Thousands of Native Americans like Raakell have also been caught up in sober homes like these.

Where officials say, instead of helping people get clean,

many of the homes were actually committing fraud.

Welcome to the journal, our show about money, business, and power.

I'm Ryan Knutzen. It's Monday, December 4th.

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