About this Recovery Home
New Paths is a men's recovery residence on Starling Avenue in Martinsville, Virginia, an independent city in the southern Piedmont that DBHDS administers as part of Region 3. It is certified through the Virginia Association of Recovery Residences at Level of Support 2 and operated by Piedmont Community Services, the public community services board for Martinsville, Henry County, Franklin County and Patrick County.
A Men's Recovery Residence Run by a Community Services Board
Most certified recovery housing in Virginia is run by private companies and nonprofits. This one is run by a public agency, and that changes the shape of the thing. Piedmont Community Services has operated behavioral health services in this catchment since 1972, employs more than 450 people across roughly thirty facilities, and served about 7,077 individuals in the 2025 fiscal year. A resident of New Paths is inside a system that also runs the outpatient therapy, the case management and the office-based addiction treatment they may need, instead of having to assemble those pieces from separate providers.
What Level 2 Certification Means for This Sober House
The state register records this address at Level of Support 2, which VARR calls Monitored: written house expectations, peer accountability, and clinical care delivered outside the residence. The register also records the population as men with co-occurring disorders, and that second half is the useful detail. A house explicitly registered for co-occurring mental health and substance use conditions is telling applicants it expects residents who carry both diagnoses, which is not something every peer-run residence is prepared for.
Certification Is Mandatory for Every Virginia Recovery Home
Virginia criminalized uncertified recovery housing under Va. Code section 37.2-431.1, and the Commonwealth recognizes only two credentialing bodies. Accreditation through VARR binds a residence to a published code of ethics, written disclosure of fees and house rules before move-in, a documented relapse and discharge policy, and a complaint route outside the house. For a publicly operated residence, those obligations sit on top of the accountability a community services board already carries to its member localities.
Three Men's Sober Houses on One Street
Piedmont runs three separately certified men's residences on Starling Avenue: this one at 822, Passages at 817 and The Landing at 214. They are distinct houses with distinct register entries, and the clustering is deliberate. Starling Avenue is a long residential and commercial spine through Martinsville, close to the uptown district, and keeping the men's houses on it means a resident who moves between them keeps the same bus stop, the same clinic and the same job.
Recovery Housing in Martinsville and the Southern Piedmont
Martinsville is an independent city and belongs to no county, though Henry County surrounds it on all sides. The city holds Patrick and Henry Community College, SOVAH Health Martinsville, the Martinsville Circuit Court and the county administrative offices, so a resident can hold a court date, a class and a medical appointment inside a few square miles. Region 3 covers a wide rural footprint across southwest and southern Virginia, and certified recovery housing in it is thin outside a handful of towns. Martinsville is the largest concentration for a long way in any direction.
