Live Free

About Live Free Structured Sober Living

Live Free Structured Sober Living is a sober living operator based in Manchester, New Hampshire, running recovery housing and clinical programs in Hillsborough and Cheshire counties. It operates four New Hampshire sober houses across two cities, and its Manchester and Keene houses hold certification with the state's designated certifying agency.

A New Hampshire Recovery Housing Provider With Clinical Programs

Most recovery housing operators in New Hampshire do housing and nothing else. This one also runs partial hospitalization, outpatient treatment and addiction rehabilitation services, which changes what it can offer a resident. Someone stepping down from a higher level of care can keep one organization while the intensity of treatment drops, and the housing does not have to change in the same week the clinical plan does. Residents who prefer outside prescribers and counselors keep them, since living in a house does not oblige anyone to use the operator's clinical services.

Serving Manchester and Keene

Four sober living homes carry the Live Free name in New Hampshire:

• Live Free Sober Living House, on Kelley Street in Manchester, for men.
• Live Free Women's Sober Living House, at the same Kelley Street address in Manchester, for women.
• Live Free Structured Sober Living - Keene, on Marlboro Street in Keene, coed.
• Prospect House, on Water Street in Keene, for men.

Two cities, two counties, and roughly ninety minutes of road between them. Manchester sits in Hillsborough County in the south, Keene in Cheshire County in the Monadnock Region to the west, and the two housing markets have almost nothing in common. An operator working both is covering the state's largest city and one of its most isolated small ones.

Men's and Women's Sober Houses Under One Operator

The Manchester operation runs men's and women's housing as separate households at one address, and Prospect House in Keene serves men. The Marlboro Street house in Keene is coed. That mix gives the operator something a single house cannot: a man in Keene who needs a different setting has an option in Manchester, and a woman applying in Manchester is not competing for the same beds as the men. Admissions, fees and discharge are handled by one organization across all four.

Certification Across These New Hampshire Sober Homes

The New Hampshire Partnership for Recovery Residences is the sole agency the state designates to certify recovery residences, and it lists this operator's Manchester operation and its Keene house Prospect House among its certified residences. Certification is granted residence by residence, so anyone comparing addresses should confirm the status of the specific house they are applying to. What certification commits a provider to is concrete: a published code of ethics, written disclosure of fees and rules before move-in, a written relapse and discharge policy, and an external complaint process. It is also the requirement for the state registry that funded programs refer from.

Recovery Housing for Two Very Different New Hampshire Markets

Manchester is the largest city in the state and the seat of Hillsborough County, dense with employers, transit, courts and hospitals. Keene is the seat of Cheshire County, a small city of around twenty thousand that anchors the Monadnock Region and is the only place for a considerable distance holding a courthouse, a hospital and a college together. Recovery housing behaves differently in each. In Manchester a resident chooses among many houses; in Keene the list is short and the nearest alternative may be an hour away. An operator running in both is answering two different scarcity problems.

Applying to This Sober Living Operator

Applications run through the operator, which is the practical argument for choosing a multi-house provider. An applicant is considered against every bed the operator has open, across four houses in two cities, and a move between houses later is a conversation with people who already know the resident. Worth asking at operator level: how long it has run housing in each city, whether it takes referrals from treatment providers and drug courts, how fees and deposits are documented and refunded, and how a complaint escalates past the house.