Buell Street Dismas House Recovery Home

About this Recovery Home

Buell Street Dismas is a certified recovery residence at 96 Buell Street in Burlington, Vermont, the shire town of Chittenden County, operated by Dismas of Vermont. It opened in 1986 as the first Dismas house in the state and serves people making the transition out of incarceration.

The Oldest Dismas Recovery Home in Vermont

Forty years in one building on one street is itself information. Buell Street sits in a residential block within walking distance of downtown Burlington, and the house has held its place in that neighborhood across four decades and many hundreds of residents. Applicants are interviewed by the house team, and there is no restriction based on the offense a person was convicted of. The question at the door is whether someone is committed to reentering the community.

Weekday Dinners in a Burlington Sober House

The defining practice here is the table. Residents, students, international volunteers and staff eat together on weeknights, and volunteer cooks come in from the surrounding community to prepare those meals and stay to eat them. For someone whose last several years were structured by an institution, sitting down five nights a week with people who chose to be there does specific work that a house rule cannot.

What Vermont Recovery Residence Certification Establishes

The house is certified by the Vermont Alliance for Recovery Residences. Certification commits a residence to a written code of ethics, disclosure of fees and rules before move-in, a written relapse and discharge policy, an annual onsite inspection and responsiveness to grievances reviewed from outside the household. Vermont has no state licensure for recovery housing, so that certification is the only formal standing a house can carry.

Recovery Housing in Burlington and Chittenden County

Burlington is Vermont's largest city and the shire town of Chittenden County, and a resident on Buell Street is inside the state's densest concentration of jobs, transit and services. The University of Vermont Medical Center, the county courthouse, the Turning Point Center of Chittenden County and Green Mountain Transit routes are all reachable without a car. The house also shares staff and programming with the operator's Winooski residence, so a resident's network extends past this address.

What Comes After This Burlington Recovery Residence

Residents in good standing who have spent at least three months in the house may apply to the operator's satellite apartments in Burlington, shared by three people each. That step exists because the gap between a supported house and an unsupported lease is where reentry most often fails.