Foundation House

About Foundation House

Foundation House is a men's treatment program and recovery residence provider in Portland, Maine, in Cumberland County. The organization describes what it does as behavioral health and substance abuse treatment for men, and presents itself as a treatment program designed for men that combines comprehensive clinical services with innovative experiential programming. Men in the program live in Foundation House residences in the city while their clinical hours are delivered at a separate Portland address, so housing and treatment are a single offer delivered in two places.

Clinical Services and Accreditation

Foundation House states that its program incorporates a fully licensed Intensive Outpatient Program and that clients receive a minimum of nine clinical hours each week. That work happens at the organization's clinical building at 160 Preble Street in Portland, where the men living in its residences start their day. Foundation House is accredited by the Joint Commission, holds membership of the National Association of Therapeutic Schools and Programs, and displays the National Association of Addiction Treatment Providers seal. For anyone comparing options across Greater Portland, that is the clearest way to place this organization. It is an accredited clinical program that also provides the housing its clients live in, rather than an independent sober house that refers residents elsewhere for care.

Homes Operated by Foundation House

Foundation House has described three fully furnished residences, and Maine's July 2020 Recovery Residences Directory recorded the organization in exactly those terms, as Foundation House with three properties serving men, listing three Portland addresses against the name: 40 Deering Street, 235 State Street and 42 Mellen Street. Each of those addresses appears in this directory as its own listing, because each is a distinct house on its own street even though the three share a program and a common set of expectations. Deering Street and State Street are the two residences currently named on the organization's houses and facilities page. All three addresses sit in Portland proper, inside Cumberland County, and all three serve men.

Certification and Standards

Recovery housing certification in Maine is voluntary and runs through the Maine Association of Recovery Residences, which publishes the residences it has certified along with the level each one holds. Foundation House was recorded as MARR: NO in the state recovery residence directories of 2019 and 2020, and it does not appear in the current MARR certified list. Its external accountability sits instead with the Joint Commission, on the clinical side of the operation. That distinction is worth understanding when comparing listings in this directory: MARR certification speaks to how a residence is run as housing, while Joint Commission accreditation speaks to how a treatment program is run. Foundation House carries the second of those.

Men's Recovery Housing in Portland and Cumberland County

Every Foundation House address is in Portland, in Cumberland County, on the southern Maine coast. Men come to programs like this one from across the state and from out of state, and the practical advantages of the location are real. Portland is a compact city with an established recovery community, and its clinical services sit in the same small urban area as its housing. The Foundation House arrangement depends on exactly that: residences at one set of addresses and a clinical building at another, close enough together for the two to work as one program.

Finding a Place at Foundation House

Foundation House presents housing and clinical programming as a single offer rather than as two services a person can take separately, so inquiries go to the organization rather than to an individual house. Which of the Portland residences a man is placed in follows from that conversation. The individual listings in this directory for 40 Deering Street, 235 State Street and 42 Mellen Street carry what is specific to each address, while this page covers what the three hold in common. Anyone weighing a move into a men's program in Portland is best served by reading both: the shape of the organization, and the street they would actually be living on.