Common Ground Recovery

About Common Ground Recovery

Common Ground Recovery is a sober living operator in Rutland, Vermont, providing trauma-informed, peer-led recovery housing in Rutland County. The nonprofit was founded by a man who could not find housing when he left a Rutland recovery residence, and it opened its first house in November 2025 after gaining 501(c)(3) status and certification from the Vermont Alliance for Recovery Residences.

A Rutland Recovery Housing Provider Founded Out of Necessity

The founder built this organization because the resource did not exist for him. Leaving a higher-level residence, he found landlords declining him over credit scores and past interactions with law enforcement, and the area's affordable housing organizations could not help. He was facing homelessness on a fixed date with nowhere to go. That is the specific problem the organization was formed to solve, and it means the people running it have recently been on the applicant's side of the conversation.

Peer-Led Sober Living and the Gap It Fills

Vermont's recovery residences skew toward higher levels of monitoring and support, and the state has thin coverage at the peer-run end where residents govern themselves. Advocates have raised that gap for years, describing it as the missing step-down between short-term inpatient treatment and an ordinary lease. The director of the Rutland recovery center has said she was not aware of any peer-run residence in the Rutland area before this one. A house at this level lets a person keep a recovery community and independence at the same time, and it frees higher-support beds for people who need them.

Trauma-Informed Recovery Housing With Dignity as the Design Brief

The organization describes its housing as trauma-informed and peer-led, and it frames its purpose around stability, autonomy and community. Dignity is the recurring word in how it describes what it is building, and for people who have been turned down by landlords over things they cannot change, that framing is not decorative.

Expanding Recovery Housing in Rutland County

The organization has been fundraising to expand capacity and outreach, including a women's residence it has described as badly needed. It is very new, and an applicant should expect a small operation, direct contact with the people running it, and the honest limits of an organization in its first year.