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Phoenix House History

In 1967, six heroin addicts came together at a detoxification program in a New York hospital.

They talked about the struggles of staying clean and decided to help one another through the tough days ahead. Together, they moved into a brownstone on Manhattan’s West Side and lived as a community, encouraging and helping each other to stay sober. That is how Phoenix House was born. What made it work was the structure and approach to treatment brought to the fledgling program by psychiatrist Mitchell S. Rosenthal, M.D. and counselors from New York City’s Addiction Services Agency (ASA). As deputy commissioner of ASA for rehabilitation, Dr. Rosenthal made Phoenix House the model for a citywide treatment network.

Phoenix House has grown to become the nation’s leading provider of alcohol and drug abuse treatment and prevention services operating close to 100 programs in nine states. Currently, we care for a
One of the very first Phoenix House facilities (Prospect Place, Brooklyn, 1973)
population of more than 5,000 through residential drug treatment for adults; residential Phoenix Academies combining long-term drug treatment and schooling for teens; outpatient care; after school; and day programs. 

Among Phoenix House milestones was its role in creating the country’s first correctional treatment unit, a model now widely replicated in prisons throughout the country and abroad. Phoenix House was also an early provider of treatment as an alternative to prison. And, more than two decades ago, Phoenix House opened its first Phoenix Academy, a residential high school where teens can make up schooling lost to drugs and recapture opportunities for higher education and careers. Eleven Phoenix Academies now operate in seven states and were designated a “model program” by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2005.