About this Recovery Home
REAL LIFE - 1119 27th Street is a women's recovery residence in Richmond, Virginia, in the Church Hill neighborhood of a city that sits inside no county. It holds state certification at Level of Support 3 and is one of two REAL LIFE women's houses standing side by side on this block of 27th Street.
A Women's Sober House on 27th Street
Women live here, and the household is run as a women's household. In practice that means bedrooms, bathrooms, house meetings and the daily schedule are all written for one population, and a woman does not have to manage a mixed building while she is managing her first months of recovery. The house next door at 1117 is the operator's second women's residence, so the two share a street and a set of expectations.
Pregnancy, Motherhood and This Richmond Recovery Home
The state register names pregnant women among the populations this residence serves, and REAL LIFE runs a motherhood program in the same organization. For a pregnant woman in early recovery those two facts together are the whole decision. Prenatal care, a caseworker, a stable address and a household that will not treat a pregnancy as a complication are hard to assemble separately, and harder still on a deadline. VCU Health and the region's obstetric care sit inside the same independent city, minutes from Church Hill.
What Level 3 Certification Establishes for a Women's Recovery Residence
Virginia law makes certification mandatory and recognizes two bodies that can grant it. This house is accredited through the Virginia Association of Recovery Residences at Level of Support 3, the tier VARR calls Supervised. That commits the operator to written admission, relapse and discharge policy, staff oversight, disclosure of fees and rules before move-in, and an outside complaint process. For a woman leaving custody or treatment with children involved in the decision, a documented standard is worth more than a description.
Forty Hours of Programming in a Certified Sober Living Home
Residents work through roughly forty hours a week of programming across twenty-five classes and groups, using a 234-page curriculum REAL LIFE wrote and teaches with staff, peers and volunteers. The same curriculum runs at every REAL LIFE address, which matters if a resident later moves between houses. Reentry is another named population here, and the organization's jail-based services mean a woman can begin the program before release and continue it at this address.
Church Hill and East End Recovery Housing
Church Hill sits on the high ground east of downtown, one of Richmond's oldest residential neighborhoods, with the city's center a short bus ride west. Because Richmond is an independent city, the courts, the health system, the community college and the social services a resident needs are all inside one jurisdiction. Someone coming out of the Richmond Justice Center or an outpatient program in the East End does not have to leave the neighborhood to stay connected to either.
