Phoenix House is a nonprofit drug and alcohol rehabilitation organization operating in ten states with 150 programs. Programs serve individuals, families, and communities affected by substance abuse and dependency.
History
Phoenix House was founded in 1967 by six heroin addicts who met at a detoxification program in a New York hospital. They were concerned about staying clean after detoxification, so they moved from New York City’s Addiction Services Agency (ASA) soon incorporated structure and treatment programming into the community. As Commissioner of ASA for rehabilitation, Dr. Mitchell Rosenthal, who had spent time observing Synanon used their methods and model of treatment to start Phoenix House the model for a citywide treatment network. The most obvious Synanon methods used within the Phoenix House program are the stripping of your identity on admission, encounter groups (called The Game by Synanon and Phoenix House), work-based treatment. Phoenix House played a 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. In 1983, Phoenix House opened its first Phoenix House Academy, a residential high school where teens receive substance abuse treatment as well as daily on-site academic education. Eleven Phoenix House Academies now operate in seven states and have been designated a “model program” by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2005. The organization is funded mostly by government contracts, but also receives philanthropic support for a portion of its $100 million annual budget. In addition to residential treatment, Phoenix House’s continuum of care includes prevention and education, outpatient services, sober living and recovery support, as well as specialty programs for mothers with young children, criminal justice clients, and the military community.
Controversy
Phoenix House treated adolescents in various facilities until 2015, when their Descanso, CA location, which opened in 1986, closed after numerous reports were investigated by San Diego County Department of Social Services, with whom Phoenix House had contracts for nearly twenty years. It was found that a female counselor on staff had sex with a male resident on more than one occasion and had provided him with methamphetamines. Another incident that was investigated and validated was that a male staff member was providing residents with pornography. Around that same time, five residents of the Phoenix House facility in Descanso, CA were involved in a violent brawl involving 15 - 20 male adolescent residents, which resulted in one adolescent being severely beaten and suffering extensive injuries. During the fight, Phoenix House staff did not intervene, waiting for law enforcement to arrive. State investigators found that the facility was understaffed to begin with. Another incident found by California State Investigators involved two Phoenix House adolescent residents who walked away from an off-campus outing to a Mission Valley mall in San Diego and were later found in Poway, CA, testing positive for drugs. Phoenix House Descanso announced a week after that incident that they were closing the facility for financial reasons.
Beneficiaries
Phoenix Houses of New York
In New York, where the first Phoenix House program opened in 1967 and the Phoenix House Academy model was introduced in 1983, Phoenix House now provides a range of programs that includes afterschool outpatient treatment for adolescents and their families, residential and outpatient options for adults and adolescents, programs for mothers with small children, programs that serve clients with co-occurring mental illness, and support services for substance abusers in recovery.
Phoenix Houses of California
Since 1979, Phoenix House has offered services in California. Currently, the agency serves more than 18,000 adults and children each day. The comprehensive continuum of care includes prevention; intervention; residential and outpatient treatment for adults and teens; as well as services for veterans, transitional age youth, and clients with co-occurring mental disorders. Phoenix House also offers wraparound services, home-based case management, and recovery support.