STEP Inc.

About STEP Inc.

STEP Inc. is a sober living operator in Billings, Montana, running the Renewal Recovery Residences, a group of certified recovery homes in Yellowstone County and Carbon County. The nonprofit's full name is Support and Techniques for Empowering People, and it houses more than 50 residents across seven homes while also running family and children's services from its Billings office.

A Billings Nonprofit Sober Living Operator

STEP is a charitable organization whose housing is one program among several. That structure shows up in how the residences are run. The homes exist to serve a mission and are accountable to a board, funders and a certifying body, and the operator's other services mean an applicant is dealing with an organization that already works with families, children and people coming out of treatment and incarceration. In 2025 the residences supported more than 12,800 days in recovery.

Renewal Recovery Residences in Billings and Red Lodge

Seven homes carry the Renewal Recovery Residence name. Six are in Billings and one is in Red Lodge, the Carbon County seat about an hour southwest in the Beartooth foothills. The Billings houses are:

• Renewal Recovery Residence - N. 19th, in central Billings.
• Renewal Recovery Residence - 2101, in central Billings.
• Renewal Recovery Residence - Park Place, in central Billings.
• Renewal Recovery Residence - Parkhill, on the Billings West End.
• Renewal Recovery Residence - LaBrea, on the Billings West End.
• Renewal Recovery Residence - Colton, on the Billings West End.

The group splits three to three between the older core of the city and the West End, which gives the operator real flexibility about where to place someone relative to a job, a clinic or a court date.

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

Every residence is single gender, and the mix across the portfolio is three men's houses, two women's houses and one home for women with children, with a men's house in Red Lodge. The home for women with children is the unusual piece. Recovery housing that lets a mother keep her kids with her is scarce everywhere, and in Montana it is scarcer still, so an operator that runs one alongside its other houses solves a problem that otherwise separates a parent from a placement.

Certification Across These Montana Recovery Homes

The Billings residences are certified by Recovery Access Montana at Level 2, and STEP describes itself as fully certified under the national recovery residence standards. Certification is voluntary in Montana, and it commits the operator to a published code of ethics, to disclosing fees and house rules in writing before move-in, to a documented relapse and discharge policy, and to a complaint process outside the house. Certification is granted residence by residence, so an applicant should confirm the status of the specific address.

One Application, Several Sober Homes

STEP runs one application for its Billings houses and a separate one for Red Lodge. Applying reaches the whole Billings group, which shortens the wait for a bed and lets staff match a person to a household. If the fit is wrong after move-in, a transfer is an internal conversation with people who already know the resident, and the fee and the expectations do not change with the address.

Recovery Housing for South-Central Montana

Billings is the county seat, the largest city in the state and the hospital, court and employment center for a region that runs east to the Dakotas. That draw fills these houses with people from well beyond the city. Montana's public recovery residence registry, maintained by the Department of Public Health and Human Services, lists every registered residence in the state, including this operator's. The Red Lodge house adds something different for the same organization: a smaller town, an hour from the city, for residents who do better away from it.