About this Sober House
Temple House is a men's recovery home in Nashua, New Hampshire, in Hillsborough County, run by GateHouse Sober Community at 77 Temple Street in the downtown core. It is one of five houses the organization operates in the city, all of them gender-specific.
A Downtown Men's Sober House on Temple Street
Temple Street sits inside Nashua's downtown grid, a block from Main Street. The practical effect is that almost everything a resident owes his week to is walkable: meetings, the courthouse, the transit center, pharmacies, outpatient offices and a broad set of service and retail jobs. Men who arrive without a license or a vehicle can meet every obligation on foot from day one, which is not true of most sober houses in southern New Hampshire.
Twenty Years of Recovery Housing in Nashua
GateHouse began as a single ten-bed sober living home and had grown to two houses and twenty-seven beds by 2011, expanding since into five residences serving men and women. That history matters to a prospective resident for one reason: an organization that has housed people in the same city for that long has a working relationship with the treatment providers, the courts and the employers a man will be dealing with. Thousands of alumni have come through, and a fair number stay in the area.
Tiers, Testing and the Weekly Meeting
Residents progress through a tier system, gaining latitude as they accumulate sober time. Drug and alcohol testing is random and mandatory, the house meeting runs weekly, and transportation is provided to therapy, fellowship meetings and appointments. The recovery program is 12-step based with an emphasis on evidence-based clinical treatment delivered by outside providers, so a resident keeps his own clinicians while the house supplies the structure around them.
Education and Employment From This Recovery Residence
The operator supports residents applying to school, with help on applications, coursework, resumes and career planning, and Nashua puts five institutions within reach: Rivier University, Nashua Community College, Southern New Hampshire University, Granite State College and the University of New Hampshire. A downtown address inside a walkable city is what makes a class schedule and a work schedule fit together in the same week.
Certification and Referrals in New Hampshire
GateHouse Sober Community holds certification with the New Hampshire Partnership for Recovery Residences. Certification in this state is voluntary and functions as the gate on the New Hampshire Voluntary Recovery House Registry: agencies and vendors spending state or federal funds may refer only to registry houses. For men coming out of publicly funded treatment or through the Hillsborough County court system, that status determines which doors a referral can actually open. New Hampshire's Department of Health and Human Services publishes the state's recovery housing resources.
