A SANCTUARY FOR TRANSFORMATION.
We welcomed the first women into their new home in Austin in 2020. Our community focuses on holistic healing that addresses recovery from trauma and addiction and provides tools to thrive in the future. As women learn to live in a healthy community and take care of one another, they build lifelong friendships which will carry them throughout their lives. While building community, they learn together how to create the lives they want for themselves by accessing therapy, completing and advancing their education, gaining professional development, and learning healthy relationship skills.
each woman, every day.
Our survivor-led model sees women as the drivers of their own recovery, with guidance from trained staff as needed. We help facilitate what each woman wants for herself every day. Survivors work alongside the Therapeutic Support Specialist to develop an individualized recovery plan and connect with the services they need. In the first six months, residents begin to heal from trauma and receive medical, dental, mental health, and substance abuse counseling. They participate in intensive educational programming that includes life skills, financial literacy, and professional development. Our therapeutic community model is intentionally designed for cisgender women and relies on shared lived experience and peer-based relational safety. We want to ensure every participant has the time and access to the care she needs to heal and thrive.
“I never knew peace was possible. Magdalene House gave me my life back.”
- Magdalene House Graduate
HEAL.
longterm therapeutic residential program
Survivors participate in a two-year, long-term therapeutic community program built on holistic care. With basic needs such as lodging, food, and clothing provided, residents are able to focus fully on healing without the immediate pressures of survival.
Our program functions as a peer-based relational healing environment, where participants grow alongside others who share similar experiences and identity-based safety. Being together in this intentional community helps develop relational trust, emotional regulation skills, daily living rhythms, and healthy support networks that continue long after the program.
EMPOWER.
Job training and education.
Residents are offered education and employment training to help them realize their goals and build long-term economic independence. Survivors have the opportunity to pursue GED certification, college courses, vocational training, and internship programs with Austin-area businesses.
These opportunities are integrated into our peer-based therapeutic community, where residents are supported in building confidence, self-advocacy, and professional identity as part of their healing journey.
THRIVE.
Above all, love.
We strive to create a community of love, respect, and acceptance for every resident. Our program is grounded in relational healing, where women support one another through shared lived experience, empathy, and encouragement.
Of the women who enter the Magdalene House program, 84% graduate clean and sober—a percentage rarely seen in long-term recovery settings. We believe this is because Magdalene House is not an institution, but a therapeutic community committed to the belief that love, belonging, and connection are the most powerful forces for change.
Our model has 27 years of success behind it.
Magdalene House of Austin is modeled after Thistle Farms and Magdalene Nashville, founded by Rev. Becca Stevens in 1997. Thistle Farms is now the largest survivor-run social enterprise in the country, and the Magdalene therapeutic community model has been replicated in more than 30 cities nationwide.
The Magdalene Nashville community has served women who have experienced complex trauma, including childhood abuse, trafficking, homelessness, and addiction. Their research and long-term experience demonstrate that healing is most effective in a supportive community setting, where survivors live together, build trust, and are given the time and stability to rebuild their lives.
Over twenty years of program implementation, the Magdalene Nashville model has seen many residents maintaining long-term sobriety, employment, and housing stability after leaving the program. These outcomes affirm that consistent community, relational healing, and access to supportive services create the conditions for lasting recovery.