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 expertise as needed. We help facilitate what each woman wants for herself every day. Survivors work alongside the Community Director to develop an individualized recovery plan and connect to the needed services. In the first six months, women begin to heal from trauma and receive medical, dental, mental health, and substance abuse counseling. They receive intensive educational programming that includes life skills, financial literacy, and professional development as they progress through the program. We want to ensure every woman has time and access to the services she needs to heal and thrive.
HEAL.
Long-term, safe housing.
Survivors live in a residential community for two years, rent-free. With basic needs like shelter, food, and clothing provided, residents can focus on healing. Living together in the home develops relational skills and provides a supportive community of peers.
EMPOWER.
Job training and education.
Residents are offered education and employment training to help them realize their dreams and ensure their long-term economic independence. Survivors choose from many opportunities, such as GED certification, college courses, and internship programs with businesses in the Austin area.
THRIVE.
Above all, love.
We strive to create a community of love, respect, and acceptance for our residents. Of the women who enter the founding Magdalene program in Nashville, 84% graduate clean and sober—a percentage unrivaled by other programs. We believe this is because Magdalene is not an institution but a community committed to believing that love is the most powerful force for change.
Our model has 20 years of success behind it.
Magdalene House Austin is modeled after Thistle Farms and Magdalene Nashville, founded by Becca Stevens in 1997. Their social enterprise, Thistle Farms, is now the largest survivor-run small business in the United States, and their model has spread to over 30 communities across the country. In twenty years of operations in Nashville, Thistle Farms has found that every single woman who enters their program has a story that begins with rape – the average age of the first assault is between 7-11. The average age these women began living on the streets is between 14-16. Many have spent decades battling repeated rapes, violence, other trauma, and drug addiction.
The Magdalene Nashville residential community recovery program has achieved stunning results. In its twenty years of operation, 84% of the women who enter the program graduate clean and sober two years later. Two-thirds have maintained long-term sobriety and economic self-sufficiency living independently after graduation.