Georgia's Friends, Inc.

About Georgia's Friends, Inc.

Georgia's Friends, Inc. is a sober living operator in Charlottesville, Virginia, providing certified recovery housing for women. The nonprofit began in 2006, when a group of friends of Jane Avary Barbour, known to them as Georgia, decided her struggle with alcoholism should leave something behind. They incorporated in 2010, opened their first residence in September 2015, and added a second property in 2019. Both addresses appear on the Virginia register of certified recovery residences.

A Charlottesville Recovery Housing Nonprofit

Georgia's Friends is a 501(c)(3) organization, and that status changes what a resident encounters. Grants, donations and volunteer labor carry part of the cost of a bed, which is why the program can hold a woman for far longer than a market-rate rooming house would. The population it serves is narrow by design: women with substance use disorders and co-occurring mental health conditions. Clinical treatment comes from providers elsewhere in the city. The organization supplies the housing, the daily structure and the peer community that surrounds both.

Two Sober Living Addresses in Charlottesville

The organization runs two properties in the city:

• Georgia's House, on Ridge Street in Charlottesville, the women's residence that opened in September 2015.
• The Cottage, on Dice Street in Charlottesville, which opened in 2019 and holds the organization's administrative offices, a meeting space and a full kitchen.

The two sit within a few blocks of each other on the south side of the city, close enough that a resident walks between her bed and the program space. The state register carries Ridge Street at Level of Support 3 and Dice Street at Level of Support 2.

What VARR Accreditation Establishes for These Recovery Homes

Virginia is one of the few states where recovery-residence certification is compulsory. Va. Code 37.2-431.1 makes operating an uncertified recovery residence a Class 1 misdemeanor, and the state recognizes two credentialing bodies. Georgia's Friends works through the Virginia Association of Recovery Residences. Accreditation binds a residence to a published code of ethics, written disclosure of fees and house rules before move-in, a written relapse and discharge policy, and a complaint process that runs outside the house. The level attached to each address describes the model in use. Level 3 is supervised housing with staff and an organizational structure above the house. Level 2 is a monitored residence with a manager on site and written daily expectations.

A Women's Sober Living Program Measured in Years

Georgia's House serves up to eleven women at a time, and a resident may stay as long as two years. That horizon is the defining feature of this operator. Most recovery housing in Virginia is priced and structured around a stay of a few months, which is long enough to stabilize and seldom long enough to finish a credential, satisfy a court obligation or work a custody case through to the end. Two years covers all three. The organization reports more than 29,000 safe bed nights provided since it opened.

Recovery Housing for Charlottesville and Albemarle County

Charlottesville is an independent city and belongs to no county, and Albemarle County wraps around it on every side. The working footprint of a Charlottesville sober living operator therefore covers both. The University of Virginia and its health system, Piedmont Virginia Community College, the city's general district court and most of the region's outpatient providers sit inside or just outside the city line, and local transit connects them. A woman leaving treatment somewhere in the surrounding counties generally finds that the appointments, the entry-level jobs and the meetings she needs are concentrated here.

Applying to This Charlottesville Sober Living Operator

Applications go to Georgia's Friends directly, and the questions worth asking at the operator level differ from the ones about a particular bedroom. How long the waiting list runs, and where an applicant is expected to stay in the meantime. What the program fee covers, how it is set for a woman who arrives with no income, and what the nonprofit's fundraising actually subsidizes. Whether medication for opioid use disorder is accepted. How a woman with a co-occurring diagnosis keeps her prescriber and her therapist through the move. A certified operator has to hand over its fees, rules and discharge policy in writing before anyone signs, so every one of those answers exists on paper. Virginia publishes its register of certified recovery residences through the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services.