Ground broken on female veterans’ sober living house
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MANKATO - Bravo Zulu House, based in Southern Minnesota with their male veterans’ sober living house in Martin County, has taken the next step with a groundbreaking of their female veteran's sober living house in Mankato on Wednesday.
This step has been planned since Bravo Zulu House was founded.
"We knew that veterans, regardless if they're men or women, have fought heroically," Bravo Zulu House Servant Leader Tim Murray said. "They have assumed every possible role that you can imagine, and they have suffered equally challenging both physical and mental wounds of war."
Murray said this is part of their holistic approach covering all of those who need sober living help.
"Regardless of gender, race, creed, if you’re a veteran, you deserve help and support," he said. "We have been challenged as a country to do a better job of providing post-service support, whether it’s medical, physical, emotional and financial support for our veterans who have served our country and have created the wonderful freedoms that we have."
Moving this idea forward kicked into high gear after the open house for the men's house in May 2025, when the women's advisory board was created. The board is all-women, including both civilian and veteran women. Through this approach, it seeks to reverse what can happen with male-dominated systems.
"Think about all major societal systems," Murray said. "If you go back far enough in history, they were all founded, run and dominated by men, and it was only in the last one to 200 years that women have been able to even vote, much less hold significant positions in leadership."
He went on to say, "It’s not a surprise that these systems, which sometimes are centuries old, have embedded in them biases towards men and either intentionally or unintentionally against women. As the father of two daughters, I raise them to be aware of the reality, but to not let it stop them, nor use it as an excuse. What we want to do is acknowledge those differences."
As an example, Murray said a majority of women-based sober houses in America are modeled after men's houses, so they have community bathrooms.
When the house is finished, it will fit 10 residents and one full-time house manager.
"Think of all of the design aspects as being trauma-informed, as well as women-oriented," Murray said. "You’ve got residents that have some mental health challenges in addition to their addiction, so you want to create a soothing environment. It informs the design, which is much more of an open area, but also small little gathering areas where two or three women can sit and chat and have conversations and feel like they’ve got privacy."
Having women lead this project also played a factor in where it was placed.
"When the advisory board got together, and they took a look at the men’s house, they said, 'This men’s house, which is lovely, and it’s out in the middle of nowhere, and the men love that, right? We don’t want that. We want the privacy, the safety, and the security that you have with the men, but we want to be closer to infrastructure, meaning closer to services that you’re going to find in a city area,'" Murray said.
Ultimately, the team chose Mankato over Rochester, as most of the contractors Bravo Zulu House worked with on the men's house agreed to return to work on a women's house in the Mankato area.
Right now, Murray said they are finalizing the fundraising to determine when work will begin.
"The total cost of this home, between the land and the construction, is about $2 million," he said. "Roughly half of that has been raised. We need about $400,000 more to break ground and get it closed up before the deep freeze hits. We’re hoping to get that done in the next 30 days. It’s warmer than usual right now, so we’ve got some time, and we have several fundraising activities that are happening that we believe will allow us to do that."
As long as they raise the money in time, which Murray is confident they will, they plan to have the women's house finished by the fourth quarter of 2027. Otherwise, Murray said it would push them back, but they should still be finished by the first part of 2028.