About this Sober House
Cedar Street is a Fresh Start Sober Living of Maine sober living home in Bangor, Maine, at 149 Cedar Street. The house is in Penobscot County, whose seat is Bangor, and it was the fifth home the organization acquired, added in August 2020 as Fresh Start expanded through the city.
About Cedar Street
Fresh Start records this house simply as house number five, acquired in August of 2020. That places it in the middle of the organization's expansion, after the founding Ohio Street home and the earlier houses in Brewer and on Warren and Fourth Streets, and before the wave of additions that followed in 2021 and 2022. Cedar Street sits in a residential part of Bangor, and, like the rest of the network, on the bus route and close to services.
Day to Day Life in the House
The operator describes its houses as communities rather than facilities. In its own account, residents support each other through recovery, sharing responsibilities, attending meetings and building a strong foundation for their journey. That is the substance of what a recovery residence offers: a drug and alcohol free household of adults in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction, where the ordinary routines of a shared home are carried collectively and no one is doing early recovery alone. Fresh Start frames the underlying idea as a belief in the power of community to help individuals overcome addiction and build fulfilling lives.
In practice that means the household carries its own weight. The operator's description of residents sharing responsibilities and attending meetings points at the two halves of how a sober house works: the domestic side, where a functioning home is maintained by the people living in it, and the recovery side, where going to meetings is ordinary rather than exceptional because everyone in the building is doing the same thing. A recovery residence is not treatment and not a clinical service. It is housing with structure, and its value lies in the stability it gives someone while work, health and relationships are rebuilt after treatment ends.
Getting Around from 149 Cedar Street
Fresh Start says its homes, this one included, sit on the bus route and close to services. In Bangor that is a meaningful detail. The city is the service center for much of eastern Maine, with employers, clinics and recovery meetings distributed across it, and a resident without a car depends on the bus to reach them. Choosing house locations along the routes is one of the few decisions an operator can make that directly affects whether a resident can hold down work and keep appointments.
Certification and the Operator Behind the House
Cedar Street is run by Fresh Start, Inc., trading as Fresh Start Sober Living of Maine, which is certified by the Maine Association of Recovery Residences and describes itself as the first recovery residence north of Augusta certified by MARR. The organization says it now owns 21 sober living residences in the Bangor area. MARR publishes a register of the residences it has certified, which is the place to verify the standing of any Maine sober house. Certification in Maine is voluntary, so a certified listing reflects a deliberate decision by an operator rather than a default.
Applying to Cedar Street
Applications are made to Fresh Start rather than to the house directly. The published process is an application, then an intake assessment and an interview, then orientation. Controlled medications are securely stored and managed by the house manager, an arrangement the operator sets out in its admissions information so that residents on prescribed medication know in advance how it will be handled. Fresh Start also publishes its house rules and a member handbook, updated in September 2025, so what the house asks of its members can be read before an application is made.
About Our Sober Living Addiction Recovery House
Sober living homes are group residences for people who are recovering from addiction. In most instances, people who live in sober homes have to follow certain house rules and contribute to the home by doing chores. Most importantly, residents must stay sober throughout their stay in the home.
