Step 1, Inc.

About Step 1, Inc.

Step 1, Inc. is a sober living operator in Reno, Nevada, providing structured transitional recovery housing for adult men in Washoe County. Trading as Step 1 Recovery, it has operated since 1993 and marked its thirty-fourth year in 2026.

Three Decades as a Reno Recovery Housing Provider

Thirty-four years is a long run for a nonprofit in this field, and in a state that certifies no recovery residences it is the strongest single fact in the record. An organization that has held its funding, its referral relationships and its housing together since 1993 has outlasted two recessions, the collapse and rebuilding of northern Nevada's economy and the 2023 repeal of Nevada's halfway house license. Courts, parole officers and treatment providers across Washoe County know it by name, which is why most residents arrive on a referral.

Men's Sober Living and Reentry in Northern Nevada

The organization houses adult men and specializes in people leaving incarceration. It publishes that ninety-five percent of its program graduates do not return to prison within their first year out. Reentry is a different problem from early recovery, though the same person usually has both: a parole officer with conditions, a criminal record in front of every job application, and no address that a supervision plan will accept. Housing that treats those as one problem is scarce anywhere in Nevada.

Counseling and Peer Mentoring From This Sober Living Operator

Outpatient counseling and peer mentoring run alongside the housing, delivered by the same organization. A resident's counselor and the people holding his bed are on the same team, and mentors are people who have made the same transition. Someone who already has a therapist and a prescriber elsewhere should ask how those fit with the program's own services before applying, because a provider that supplies both tends to expect participation in its own.

Public Funding Behind This Recovery Housing Provider

The program is funded in part through Nevada's substance abuse prevention and treatment channel and the federal block grant behind it, and its housing is listed in the state's certified behavioral health provider search with a transitional housing service level. Public money carries reporting and audit obligations, and state certification carries compliance review and an external complaint route. Nevada certifies no recovery residences and has no affiliate of the National Alliance for Recovery Residences, so this is as close to external oversight as housing in this state comes.

Reaching Step 1 Recovery in Reno

Applications and referrals go directly to the organization, and many arrive through the courts, parole and probation, or a treatment provider. The questions worth asking at the operator level are about the program: how long the wait runs, whether a referral is required or an applicant can approach directly, how fees are set and whether public funding covers a bed, what participation in counseling and mentoring is expected, and how a complaint escalates past staff. A nonprofit in its fourth decade should answer each one from a written policy.