Hummingbird Ventures

About Hummingbird Ventures

Hummingbird Ventures is a nonprofit sober living operator in Boise, Idaho, running six women's recovery homes across the Treasure Valley under the Hummingbird House name. It is a registered 501(c)(3), and it houses women only.

A Nonprofit Recovery Housing Provider for Women

Women's recovery housing is the scarce half of the Idaho market, and nonprofit capacity is most of what keeps it supplied. Nonprofit structure changes the economics behind the front door in ways a resident feels. The organization can carry someone through a bad month, raise money for a repair instead of deferring it, and bill funding streams a private landlord cannot touch. It also files a public return every year, which is more disclosure than Idaho asks of any recovery residence.

Six Women's Sober Homes in Ada and Canyon Counties

The operator publishes six houses:

• Hummingbird House, on West Elmspring Drive in Boise.
• Hummingbird House Maple Grove, in Boise.
• Hummingbird House Five Mile, in Boise.
• Hummingbird House Victory, in Meridian.
• Hummingbird House Midland, in Nampa.
• Hummingbird House Lonestar, in Nampa.

Three sit in Boise, one in Meridian and two in Nampa, which spans Ada and Canyon counties and the length of the Interstate 84 corridor through the Treasure Valley.

House Sizes Across These Recovery Homes

The houses range from three bedrooms to seven, and that variation is the most useful thing this operator offers. A woman in her first weeks out of treatment who cannot tolerate noise belongs in the three bedroom house in Nampa. A woman who does badly alone, or who needs the lowest cost the organization can offer, belongs in one of the seven bedroom houses. A single-house operator has to place everyone in the same household. This one can match the placement to the person, and can move her later without ending the arrangement.

Funding and Fees for These Recovery Homes

Residents funded through Magellan pay a monthly amenity fee of $325. Other funding routes carry different costs, and an applicant should ask what her own monthly obligation would be before a move-in date is set. A nonprofit working with managed care funding is worth understanding on this point, because the answer depends on which door a resident comes through and it is not the same number for everyone.

How Placement Works With This Sober Living Operator

Street addresses are not published for the individual houses. Applications go to the organization, which decides which of the six has the right opening. Anyone applying should ask which house is on offer, ask to walk through it, and ask how bedrooms are assigned. Ask whether a house manager lives on site, what ends a stay and with how much notice, how a deposit is returned, and whether medication for opioid use disorder is accepted.

What Idaho Does Not Certify for Sober Living Operators

Idaho has no certifying body for recovery residences, no registry and no published levels, and no state affiliate of the National Alliance for Recovery Residences. No agency inspects an Idaho recovery residence or hears a complaint about one. For a nonprofit, the substitutes are real if imperfect: a board, an annual public filing, and funders with their own standards. Those create outside parties with standing to ask questions, which is more than most Idaho recovery housing has.

Serving Boise, Meridian and Nampa

The footprint is the Treasure Valley, where the great majority of Idaho's population, employment and outpatient services are concentrated. Boise is the seat of Ada County and Caldwell is the seat of Canyon County, and the operator's houses sit inside the transit and job corridors linking them. A woman managing a court obligation in one county and a job in the other can do it from these addresses, which is not true of most of the state. The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare publishes the state's directory of behavioral health programs and crisis services.