About this Recovery Home
Passages is a men's sober living home on Starling Avenue in Martinsville, Virginia, in DBHDS Region 3 and part of the recovery housing run by Piedmont Community Services. The residence carries VARR certification at Level of Support 2.
The Oldest of Piedmont's Sober Living Homes
Passages did not start on Starling Avenue. The agency's own history places the program on Broad Street first, with the move to its current address coming later, which makes it the longest-running recovery residence in this portfolio. Continuity like that is a genuine signal in recovery housing, where the median operator turns over faster than its residents do. A program that has survived a relocation and kept its name has referral relationships, staff who have seen a lot of intakes, and a place in how the local court and treatment system routes people.
A Men's Sober House Inside a Public Behavioral Health System
Piedmont Community Services is the community services board for the city of Martinsville and for Henry, Franklin and Patrick counties, established in 1972 and operating around thirty facilities today. Its substance use division runs intensive outpatient treatment, outpatient therapy, case management, office-based addiction treatment and the adult drug treatment court docket. Residents of Passages are living inside the same organization that provides those services, so a referral is internal instead of a handoff between two agencies that do not share records.
Level 2 Monitored Recovery Housing and the Drug Court Route
The register lists this address at Level of Support 2, which means peer accountability and written house structure with clinical services obtained elsewhere. Piedmont operates the Adult Drug Treatment Court program for its catchment, and drug court participants are among the people who most often need a certified address with documented rules. A residence registered at Level 2 and run by the same agency that administers the docket is a straightforward fit for that pathway.
Why Virginia Sober Houses Have to Be Certified
Operating an uncertified recovery residence in Virginia is a Class 1 misdemeanor, and only two credentialing bodies are recognized statewide. Certification through VARR is what puts this address on the public register, and it obliges the residence to disclose fees and rules in writing before move-in, keep a relapse and discharge policy on paper, and answer to a complaint process outside the house.
Martinsville Recovery Housing on the Starling Avenue Corridor
Three of Piedmont's men's residences sit on Starling Avenue, at 214, 817 and 822, and a women's residence sits at 813. Each holds its own certification. Martinsville is an independent city under no county government, surrounded by Henry County, and the Starling Avenue corridor runs close to the uptown district, the Dick and Willie Passage trail and the retail along Commonwealth Boulevard. For a resident without a car, the concentration means work, meetings and appointments stay within walking or short bus distance no matter which of the four houses has a bed.
