Our Roots

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History
We remain rooted in the self-help and self-sufficiency traditions in which we were founded in order to remain accountable to our mission, our clients and our community.

The agency was founded as a grass roots response to the crisis of alcohol and drug abuse in the Latino community and has served more than 3,500 men, women and families. In 1987, Casa Esperanza opened Massachusetts’ first bilingual/bicultural residential treatment program for 25 men, based on AA’s 12-step philosophy of treatment and culturally adapted to serve the needs of the Latino community.

Today, Casa Esperanza is a recognized leader in developing holistic approaches to behavioral health treatment, with a reputation for having caring, highly skilled staff. We now operate a residential treatment facility for 25 men; a residential treatment facility for 20 women and their children; 37 units of Supportive Housing for individuals and families; and an Outpatient Services program which provides integrated outpatient addictions, mental health, primary care, and wellness services, for individuals and families in recovery, as well as Greater Boston’s only Spanish language Structured Outpatient Addictions Program (SOAP).

Understanding that recovery is a lifelong process, Casa Esperanza has continued to evolve to meet the unique, long-term needs of people in recovery, providing integrated, bilingual/bicultural tailored services to each individual and each family.

By focusing on whole people, not a single problem, Casa Esperanza seeks to help families regain the lives they have lost and create a strong, supportive community for those who hope to follow in their footsteps.

From grassroots to cutting-edge, Casa Esperanza has been seeking better ways to help families break the cycle of addiction and build a community of recovery for more than three decades.

  • In 1987, Casa Esperanza opened Massachusetts’ first bilingual/bicultural residential treatment program for 25 men, based on AA’s 12-step philosophy of treatment and culturally adapted to serve the needs of the Latino community.
  • In 1991, Casa was selected by SAMHSA as one of 13 “Best Practice Facilities” in the nation.
  • In 1995, Casa Esperanza addressed a key barrier to women seeking treatment by opening the Latinas y Ninos Center, the state’s first bilingual/bicultural residential treatment program allowing residents to maintain custody and care of their children.
  • Again, in 1991 and 2003, Casa answered the growing need among graduates for sober, affordable, transitional housing by opening Nueva Vida for men and Dunmore Place for women and their children.
  • In June 2006, Casa Esperanza once again extended the reach of hope as we broke ground on an innovative community center for people in recovery—The Familias Unidas Center. The “Families United” Center serves as a long-term anchor for people in recovery as they work to rebuild their lives and is home to our Relapse Prevention & Outpatient Services.
  • In 2007, Casa Esperanza was chosen to represent SAMHSA at the Latino Addiction Conference as a national model for substance abuse treatment.
  • In 2011, we completed construction of ‘Nueva Esperanza,’ 14 new units of supportive housing, in response to the growing concern about the lack of safe sober housing.
  • In November 2012, Casa’s outpatient Familias Unidas Center became a licensed mental health clinic, received a national three-year CARF accreditation, and added psychiatric and psycho-pharmacology services. The agency launched a Structured Outpatient Addictions Program (SOAP), Boston’s only bilingual Day Treatment program.
  • In March 2013, Casa began a Community Support Program (CSP) providing case management support to patients with serious mental illness in the community.
  • In August 2014, Casa implemented an Electronic Health Record and Work Practice Management System (EHR/WPM). The Netsmart/Evolve system streamlined our ability to manage client-level clinical information. This system increased productivity through elimination of duplicate data entry and paper-based documentation inefficiencies; increased accuracy and timeliness of data with real-time reporting; and simplified and fully integrated documentation, reporting, scheduling, and billing.