About this Sober House
Boyd Street is a men's sober living house in Sanford, Maine, run by the non-profit Journey House Recovery. Sanford is a York County city in the southern part of the state, and Boyd Street is one of two Journey House residences in the city.
How the House Runs
Boyd Street is peer-run and low-barrier, with a house manager. Residents are required to abstain from alcohol and other illicit drugs, and that requirement is the firm line of the house.
Around it, the expectations are about participation rather than compliance for its own sake. Residents are expected to obtain and maintain employment, to be enrolled in school, or to volunteer their time to the community — and the organization notes that many residents do all three. There is no fixed length of stay: a resident may stay as long as he wishes. Staff help residents reach employment, healthcare and social services, and support the move toward more independent living at the end of a stay.
Who Boyd Street Serves
The house serves men in recovery from substance use disorder. Residents on medication-assisted treatment are accepted, in line with the organization's statement that it supports multiple and diverse pathways to recovery, including MAT. There is no requirement to take up a particular fellowship or program in order to hold a place.
A low-barrier men's house is a specific thing in the Maine landscape. It means that the questions asked at the door are fewer, and that the categories of person who are commonly screened out elsewhere — someone on a prescribed opioid agonist, someone with a thin work history, someone whose last attempt ended badly — are not automatically screened out here.
Certification at Boyd Street
A July 2020 Maine recovery residence directory listed a MARR-certified men's residence on Boyd Street in Sanford under Journey House Recovery. The operator states that all of its houses are certified by MARR, the Maine Association of Recovery Residences, and adhere to the evidence-based standards set out by NARR, the National Alliance of Recovery Residences. Journey House Recovery is a NARR member and a registered MARR affiliate.
Sober Living in Sanford, York County
Sanford is the organization's home base, and York County is where Journey House Recovery first built out after its founding. The women's house that opened here was the first recovery house for women in York County; Boyd Street is the men's house in the same city.
York County covers the southwestern corner of Maine, from the New Hampshire line to the edge of Greater Portland, and Sanford is its inland service center — a former mill city with its own employers, clinics and social service offices rather than a commuter town dependent on Portland. For a man in recovery, that means the practical work of a stay here — finding a job, getting to appointments, filing for benefits, showing up for a court date — can be done locally.
It also means staying close to home. Many men who come to Boyd Street are from York County, and there is a real argument for recovering in the community you intend to live in afterwards: the job you find during your stay is the job you keep, the people you meet are the people still around a year later.
Applying to Boyd Street
Journey House Recovery handles applications for all four of its houses centrally, so an inquiry about Boyd Street is made through the organization rather than at the door. Besides Boyd Street, the organization runs a women's house in Sanford, a men's house in Lewiston in Androscoggin County, and a women's house in South Portland in Cumberland County.
For men looking for structured, abstinence-based housing in southern Maine that will not turn them away for being on medication and will not put a clock on their stay, Boyd Street is one of the established options in Sanford.
