The Retreat

About The Retreat

The Retreat is a recovery housing operator in Wayzata, Minnesota, running an eighty-bed campus on Lake Minnetonka in Hennepin County and ten certified sober living homes in Saint Paul. The campus is where the program itself runs. The Saint Paul houses are where residents live afterward, in ordinary neighborhood households on Grand, Summit and Holly Avenues.

A Twin Cities Recovery Housing Provider

The Retreat is a non-clinical organization. It does not deliver detox or acute treatment, and residents keep their own prescribers and outpatient providers. What it supplies is structure and a stable address: a peer-based program built on Twelve Step work at the Wayzata campus, and single-gender sober living in Saint Paul for people continuing after it. Those two things answer different needs, and a prospective resident should know which one is being offered before applying.

The Wayzata Campus and Ten Saint Paul Sober Homes

Eleven residences carry The Retreat's name in Minnesota:

• The Retreat, on Wayzata Boulevard East in Wayzata, coed, with men and women housed in separate buildings.
• 571 Grand House, on Grand Avenue in Saint Paul, for men.
• 569 Grand House, on Grand Avenue in Saint Paul, for men.
• 868 Summit House, on Summit Avenue in Saint Paul, for men.
• 866 Summit House, on Summit Avenue in Saint Paul, for men.
• 505 Summit House, on Summit Avenue in Saint Paul, for men.
• 265 Summit House, on Summit Avenue in Saint Paul, for men.
• 667 Holly House, on Holly Avenue in Saint Paul, for men.
• 665 Holly House, on Holly Avenue in Saint Paul, for men.
• 864 Summit House, on Summit Avenue in Saint Paul, for women.
• 862 Summit House, on Summit Avenue in Saint Paul, for women.

The Wayzata campus sits twenty minutes west of Minneapolis on the north shore of Lake Minnetonka, and it is the program's main site, several buildings on one property. The ten Saint Paul addresses are separate houses inside the Summit Hill and Crocus Hill neighborhoods, close enough together that a resident moving between them keeps the same bus routes, the same meetings and the same job.

Men's and Women's Sober Houses Kept Separate

Every household is single-gender. Eight of the Saint Paul houses serve men and two of the Summit Avenue addresses serve women, and on the Wayzata campus men and women sleep in different buildings while sharing program space. Splitting at the building level means no resident is the only man or the only woman under a roof, and house rules are written for one population.

MASH Certification Across the Saint Paul Recovery Homes

All ten Saint Paul residences are certified by the Minnesota Association of Sober Homes, the state's affiliate of the National Alliance for Recovery Residences. Certification is voluntary under Minnesota law, so an operator holding it on ten houses at once has chosen to work inside a published code of ethics, written fee and rule disclosure before move-in, a documented relapse and discharge policy, and complaint review from outside the household. MASH certifies residence by residence, so anyone comparing options should confirm the specific address being applied to.

One Program, Eleven Addresses

Applying through The Retreat means being considered for whichever household fits, and a move later is arranged by an organization that already knows the resident. The program asks for a serious commitment: a minimum stay measured in months, steady Twelve Step attendance, full-time work, and a share of the service that keeps a house running. Anyone who needs clinical supervision on site is a poor match.

Recovery Housing Across the Twin Cities Metro

The two ends of this portfolio cover the metro from opposite sides. Wayzata is quiet, residential and set back from the density of the city, which suits the months of concentrated program work the campus is built for. Saint Paul is the state capital and the seat of Ramsey County, where the outpatient providers, the courthouse, Metro Transit's bus and light rail network and an entry-level job market all sit inside a few miles. A resident can start in Hennepin County and continue in Ramsey County without leaving the organization.