Paula's House

About Paula's House

Paula's House is a recovery housing provider in Monroe, Michigan, serving women and women with children in Monroe County. The organization runs a one to two year transitional program for women who are homeless and in recovery, and its housing is certified and ADA accessible.

A Monroe Recovery Housing Provider for Homeless Women

The organization takes on two problems at once, and that is the whole design. A woman arriving here is usually without housing as well as in recovery, and a program that solves only the second sends her back into the first. Peer recovery and case management services go to every participant, so benefits, housing applications, court obligations and treatment appointments are worked through with someone instead of alone. The stated destination is permanent housing.

A Four-Phase Sober Living Program

The program runs on four phases of increasing privileges over one to two years. Structure is tightest at the start and loosens as a resident shows she can carry more, which matches how early recovery actually goes and means a woman gains freedom without changing address. Groups are part of the schedule and cover parenting, recovery maintenance, financial literacy, healthy relationships and nutrition. A curriculum that includes budgeting and parenting alongside recovery is aimed at what happens after discharge, not just during.

An Accessible Recovery Housing Provider

The housing is listed as ADA accessible, which very little recovery housing in Michigan is. For a woman using a wheelchair or a walker, or managing a condition that makes stairs impossible, accessibility eliminates most listings before cost, gender or level ever come up. An operator that has taken it on is worth a call from well outside Monroe County.

Certification and Income-Based Fees at This Sober Living Operator

Michigan neither licenses nor registers recovery residences, so certification through the Michigan Association of Recovery Residences is voluntary and it is the record a resident can verify. It commits the housing to a published code of ethics, written disclosure of fees and rules before move-in, a written relapse and discharge policy, and outside complaint review. The fee is tied to income: $450 per month or thirty percent of net income, whichever is less, with residents paying that share once they have a source of income. Tying rent to earnings is what makes a two-year program realistic for a woman arriving with nothing.

Where This Monroe County Recovery Housing Provider Works

The footprint is Monroe and Monroe County, in the corner of Michigan between Detroit and Toledo where the River Raisin reaches Lake Erie. The county seat, the courthouse, the hospital, the community college and the county's human services offices all sit in the city, so a resident can meet a court date, a caseworker and a class without leaving town. Only a post office box is published, so applications go directly to the operator. Certified women's recovery housing in this part of southeast Michigan is thin, and a provider that accepts children and takes accessibility seriously is thinner still.