Steps Codger Hall Coed Recovery House

About this Recovery House

Steps Codger Hall is a coed sober house on Sevier Avenue in Knoxville, Tennessee, in Knox County. Steps House, Inc. operates it, and it is the one house in the operator's Knoxville group that carries a name of its own instead of a street address.

A Coed Sober Living Home on Sevier Avenue

The house is coed. Sevier Avenue runs along the south bank of the Tennessee River directly opposite downtown Knoxville, and it is the most urban address in this operator's group. The street has been rebuilt over the last decade into a walkable strip of restaurants, a brewery district and small businesses, with the Gay Street bridge carrying pedestrians into the center of the city in a few minutes. For a resident without a car, that combination of a short walk to downtown and a commercial street at the door is worth more than square footage.

The South Waterfront and Downtown Knoxville Recovery Housing

The South Waterfront district is the city's long-running riverfront redevelopment, and Sevier Avenue is its main street. Downtown Knoxville, one bridge north, holds the Knox County courts, the county health department, the main library and most of the outpatient providers in the region. Knoxville Area Transit serves the corridor. A resident with a probation obligation, a clinic appointment and a shift at a downtown restaurant can meet all three on foot and by bus from this address, which is not true of most recovery housing in the county.

A Named House in a Small Network of Sober Homes

Codger Hall is one of eight addresses this operator holds in Knoxville. The rest are clustered in the Valley Avenue neighborhood of South Knoxville and in North Knoxville, and the operator runs both coed and women's houses. An applicant should ask which houses are open, since a program with several addresses can often place someone the same week even when one house is full, and a resident who needs to change households later does not have to leave the program to do it.

What to Ask This Knoxville Recovery Home

Tennessee requires recovery residences to be certified, and two bodies do the certifying, the Tennessee Alliance of Recovery Residences and Recovery is the New High. Ask which body, and ask for the fee schedule, the house rules, the relapse and discharge policy and the complaint process in writing. Then ask what a coed house has to be clear about: bedroom and bathroom assignment, the relationship policy, overnight staffing, testing frequency, and whether medication prescribed for opioid use disorder is accepted.