Victory Programs promotes the successful reintegration of individuals into their communities through the achievement of long-term sobriety, the rebuilding of family systems, and the accessing of such stabilizing factors as housing, holistic health care, employment and community affiliations. 

Victory Programs provides innovative services to individuals and their families who are affected by alcoholism and addiction, and who have psychiatric and medical problems, especially HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C.

Victory House, founded in 1975, was the first of Victory Programs’ recovery homes and the prototype of addiction and HIV treatment for all of our programs. Victory House provides up to eight months of progressive and unique residential addiction treatment for men who may be diagnosed with both HIV and addiction. From its commencement Victory House has encouraged a holistic approach to treatment that involves a client’s family, friends, and community as support structures. 

New Victories opened in 1993, as a response to lessen extensive waiting lists for residential alcohol and addiction treatment for men. New Victories is built upon the successful model of Victory House and similarly provides up to eight months of residential addiction treatment. Both programs develop individualized treatment plans for each client and work toward successfully reintegrating each person back into their community. 

Shepherd House, founded in 1975, was one of the original recovery homes to open for women in Boston. In 1995, Shepherd House successfully merged with Victory Programs, and continues to open its doors for recovery and hope for women and their families by providing residential addiction treatment. 

Women’s Hope was founded in the 1980’s and became a significant milestone in the women’s treatment movement. Today Women’s Hope is designed to provide up to 90 days of intensive residential alcohol and drug treatment to homeless women whose treatment is often complicated by pregnancy and/or a co-occurring medical condition such as HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C. 

The Living and Recovering Community (LARC) began in 1997 and is specifically designed to treat those men and women with histories of chronic addiction relapse who also are diagnosed with HIV/AIDS. LARC’s unique treatment concept provides up to 90 days of substance abuse relapse treatment, stabilization, and housing search assistance for its residents. A LARC resident is typically homeless or at risk of becoming homeless due to alcoholism and/or drug dependency. 

Victory Programs’ Bobbie White House was the first supportive HIV housing model in Massachusetts conceived specifically for addicts in recovery diagnosed with HIV/AIDS. This groundbreaking residence opened in 1994 in the South End of Boston as a permanent home for men and women both in recovery and living with the symptomatic effects of HIV disease.
Today the Bobbie White House welcomes residents in addiction recovery regardless of their medical condition. 

Victory Transitional House for men and theWomen’s Hope Transitional Home for women were both created for residents living with HIV in recovery, and the Yetman Transitional House is designed for homeless women recovering from alcoholism and drug addiction. In these three housing models, residents continue to strengthen and fortify their sobriety, health, hope and well being. 

Fundamental to our mission is to reintegrate and reunite families. Victory Programs’ Cedar Family House  and the Portis Family Home provide the rare and unique opportunity for families that were once torn apart by addiction and domestic violence with another chance to establish a healthy family unit. These programs offer shelter and housing with daily family building supportive services for parents and their children. 

In 1989, Victory Programs’ Center for Health and Wellness began providing holistic health care, education and support for homeless addicts in recovery and living with HIV/AIDS. Keeping up with the needs of our clients, the Center now provides HIV counseling and testing, Hepatitis C education, and complementary therapies including acupuncture and yoga. 

The Center for Health and Wellness’ goal is to increase quality of life through health education and prevention by building awareness around health issues that affect Victory Programs’ clients and their families. Through a series of weekly educational groups a client receives opportunities to experience various relaxation techniques and holistic therapies, as well as educational sessions on stress reduction, positive affirmations, nutrition, exercise and healthy lifestyle choices. We believe that by empowering our clients to actively participate in their health care and recovery process they gain the necessary skills to succeed on the road to recovery.

 In the 29 years since we opened our first door to recovery and hope, over 36,000 people have come to Victory Programs to seek help in the treatment of their addiction from drugs and alcoholism. Many arrive in despair and leave with hope, dignity, and pride. Victory Programs offers another chance at life, a chance to reunify families, to stabilize employment and health care, and to experience life changing accomplishments as sober, drug free, healthy members of a community.

Ted Cantone, one of our founders, was the first one to say, “Victory House will take in anyone who needs help.” Victory House has been there for those who came from cities and rural areas — those with bipolar disorder — mental illnesses —Vietnam Vets — homeless and gay — head injured — on medication — HIV/AIDS — Hepatitis C — if you had no where to go, Victory House would be the one place that would take you in — and we still are recognized for that today. 

Victory House is our flagship program with its recognizable red door… We painted the door red back in 1975 because it was the only color paint we could get a local hardware store to donate. The community recognized us by the red entrance because “it was the one door you could find at night when you needed to get sober.” 

Today, we are in the process of undertaking a major gut rehabilitation of Victory House. This includes protecting the structural integrity of the building, installing an elevator and making the building handicapped accessible, adding more bathrooms (close to 30 men were sharing two bathrooms), creating better office space for our dedicated program and counseling staff, and updating the interior of the building to make our clients more comfortable and give them a beautiful
building for their recovery and care. 

The one thing we are not changing is the red door. This is a piece of our history. Even the local landmark commission agreed that the red entrance is of historical value — and approved the red paint samples to maintain its distinctive place in our community.