Herkey Houses

About Herkey Houses

Herkey Houses is a sober living operator based in York, Pennsylvania, running recovery homes across York, Lancaster, Lebanon and Dauphin counties.

A Recovery Housing Company Built on Family Loss

Herkey Houses grew out of a personal loss rather than a business plan. Founders Peter Fitzgerald and Robert Ramos named the company for their cousin Jimmy Herkey, who died in 2017 after a combination of alcohol and prescription medication. Fitzgerald is known in the York and Lancaster recovery community, where he connects people to treatment options and handles admissions for the company's houses. Ramos served in the United States Marine Corps from 2013 to 2018 and has watched addiction take friends, fellow Marines and family members. The founders describe their goal as helping people build healthier lives and sparing other families the loss theirs went through.

Seventeen Recovery Homes Across Four Counties

Herkey Houses now operates recovery homes at these addresses:

• 305 Smyser Street, York, for men.
• 218 East Boundary Avenue, York, for men.
• 535 West King Street, York, for men.
• 23 South Hartley Street, York, for men.
• 347 West Philadelphia Street, York, for women.
• 606 South Prince Street, Lancaster, for women.
• 401 South Prince Street, Lancaster, for men.
• 818 Fifth Street, Lancaster, for men.
• 124 East Ross Street, Lancaster, for men.
• 126 Green Street, Lancaster, for men.
• 529 Howard Street, Lancaster, for men.
• 711 North Queen Street, Lancaster, for men.
• 628 East King Street, Lancaster, for men.
• 548 Pershing Avenue, Lancaster, for women.
• 502 East Weidman Street, Lebanon, for men.
• 504 East Weidman Street, Lebanon, for women.
• 1840 Boas Street, Harrisburg, for men.

York and Lancaster carry most of the portfolio, five houses and nine houses respectively, with a paired men's and women's house on East Weidman Street in Lebanon and a single house on Boas Street in Harrisburg.

Men's and Women's Sober Houses Across the Portfolio

Most Herkey Houses addresses serve men. Three, on West Philadelphia Street in York, South Prince Street in Lancaster and East Weidman Street in Lebanon, serve women. Keeping the split at the house level means each address runs its own rules and meetings for one population rather than mixing genders under one roof.

What Pennsylvania DDAP Licensure Establishes

Pennsylvania licenses recovery houses under Act 59 of 2017 through the Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs, and licensure is voluntary rather than required of every operator. Herkey Houses has carried DDAP licenses on multiple of its York and Lancaster properties, and the state's own rules allow a single operator to run both licensed and unlicensed houses within the same portfolio. Vanderburgh House's guide to certifying a Pennsylvania recovery house walks through what the license requires, and anyone can confirm a specific address through the state's DDAP recovery house locator.

An Open-Ended Approach to Sober Living

Herkey Houses does not put a fixed length on a resident's stay. It asks for abstinence, adherence to house rules and continued participation in a self-help program, and it treats recovery as an ongoing process rather than something finished on a set date. The stated approach leans on broader lifestyle change alongside sobriety, and the company frames its houses as a place to rebuild more than a place to stop drinking or using.

Serving the Susquehanna Corridor

York, Lancaster, Lebanon and Harrisburg are county seats strung along or near the Susquehanna River in south-central Pennsylvania, each with its own courts, transit system and outpatient treatment providers. A portfolio this size gives a resident room to move between houses in the same region without leaving a familiar county, or to relocate to a different county seat entirely if that fits better.

Reaching Herkey Houses in York, Pennsylvania

Applications go directly to Herkey Houses. Because licensure and house rules can differ from one address to the next, the questions worth asking are which specific house has an opening, whether that address carries a current DDAP license, what the house rules require day to day, and how the self-help participation requirement is tracked over time.