About this Recovery House
Farmer House 338 is a men's sober house at 338 Farmer Street in Plymouth, Michigan, in Wayne County. The Doorway to Recovery runs it as the westernmost of its three recovery homes, and it is the only one outside Livonia.
A Men's Sober House on Farmer Street
Farmer Street runs through the residential grid immediately north of downtown Plymouth, a few blocks from Kellogg Park and Main Street. For a man in early recovery that location does real work. Groceries, a bank, a pharmacy, a barber and a diner shift are all walkable, and a job that starts before the first bus does not require a car. Plymouth is a small city of about twelve thousand people wrapped inside Plymouth Township, which means the whole downtown is a fifteen minute walk end to end.
What Sober Living Certification Establishes in Michigan
Michigan does not license or register recovery residences, so the only formal standard in the state is voluntary certification through the Michigan Association of Recovery Residences. A certified house commits in writing to a code of ethics, to disclosing fees and rules before move-in, to a written relapse and discharge policy, and to an outside complaint process. A house that has not sought certification has not failed anything: the list is opt-in and a large share of Michigan's recovery housing sits off it. The four commitments are still the right checklist to bring to any tour.
What a Men's Recovery Home Settles
Single-gender housing removes a whole category of question. Everyone in the house is in the same phase of the same problem, house rules are written for one population, and the social pressure in the living room pulls one direction. That is the mechanism sober living actually runs on. Nobody supervises a resident at two in the afternoon on a Tuesday, so the men sharing the kitchen are the accountability.
Recovery Housing in Plymouth and Wayne County
Plymouth sits at the northwest corner of Wayne County, on the Ann Arbor side of the county line, and it draws in two directions. Detroit is the county seat and holds the circuit court, the probation offices and most of the county's treatment capacity. Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County are twenty minutes west on M-14, with the University of Michigan health system and the Ann Arbor VA. A man in a Plymouth sober house can hold a job in one county and an appointment in the other, which is harder from almost anywhere else in Wayne County.
Questions Worth Asking This Plymouth Sober House
Applications go through The Doorway to Recovery. Ask what the weekly fee is and whether a deposit is due at move-in, whether a house manager sleeps in the building, how many men share a bedroom, whether there is a curfew and a testing schedule, whether medication for opioid use disorder is accepted, and what the house expects about work or school in the first month. A residence with clear answers to those six questions is running a program. One that improvises them is renting rooms.
In addition to the amenities of the Farmer Houses, all of Doorway to Recovery's sober living homes are bound by The Doorway to Recovery's Program Rules and Housing Rules, which provide a structured, recovery focused environment. The Life Recovery Program offers recovery programs to men and women (inclusive to the general public), where individuals are able to be rebuilt, restored and healed from the devastating effects of addiction.
