Our team of more than 200 staff across 19 programs works with people to develop and execute creative, safe solutions to the very real challenges they face. On the streets, at our Boston Living Center, and across programs, we work to prevent chronic conditions and overdoses. We provide HIV, Hepatitis C, and STI testing and counseling; a healthy meals program; syringe and naloxone distribution; and an array of education, navigation, and support services. Victory Programs provides recovery, health, and housing services through thirty-three buildings in Boston, Cambridge, and now Topsfield, fourteen of which we own. Maintaining these units in the manner that those in our care both need and deserve is a great cost to our organization. This combined with surging healthcare costs for employees results in a very narrow profit margin on an annual basis.

Victory Programs, Inc.

Victory Programs operates various programs throughout Boston, all built on our strongly held belief that no person who is struggling should be asked to do the hardest thing first, on their own, before they are offered the fundamental support they truly need. They talk to people on the street around Mass. and Cass about the services they have and offer resources. Build relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. At Victory Programs, we value your time, both at work and in your personal life, ensuring you have the resources and support you need to thrive. Remembering her own experiences —  of sleeping in cars or under a bridge, of wanting to end her own life — and the moments when people helped, or failed to help, Rivera said she continues to find herself wanting to do more to aid people in similar need.

She provides counseling to the most entrenched individuals at Mass. and Cass. She wants you to know her story.

1. They talk to people on the street around Mass. and Cass about the services they have and offer resources.
2. “Every time I had an appointment, they had somebody to come with me because it’s how I felt safe,” she said.
3. By the time she was 10 or 11, Rivera and her siblings were placed in foster care because of their mother’s alcohol use.
4. The Victory Connector, where she is a harm reduction specialist, provides a range of services to women, transgender, and nonbinary individuals who are at high risk of overdose and who are reluctant to engage with other care systems.
5. It’s a “housing first” approach that includes stabilization services, emergency shelter, transitional and permanent housing, and case management.

Being able to provide that respite and getting to see individuals who have come in from the street smile (she calls them “members”) is the best, she told Boston.com. We follow a low-barrier housing-first clinically driven approach to guide clients towards health and safety. Coping with those deaths, and the prospect that she will likely see more as the state and country continue to grapple with the overdose crisis, Rivera said she relies on belief — and the knowledge that change doesn’t happen overnight. Rivera said whenever she learns of another fatal overdose, she finds herself wondering about how there could have been a different outcome. The hardest moments are when Rivera and her colleagues learn from members coming into the Connector that someone has passed away from an overdose, she said.

She’s also hopeful that people who are quick to judge the unsheltered individuals, still in the throes of their own crises of addiction and mental health, living around Mass. and Cass might gain greater understanding from hearing her story. The best thing anyone can do to help those who are struggling with addiction, homelessness, or mental health issues is get educated, Rivera said. Victory Programs strives to meet the needs of disadvantaged homeless families and individuals in underserved communities throughout Boston. The majority of our programs are located in or serve urban Boston communities of Dorchester, Mattapan, Roxbury, and Jamaica Plain.

Rivera starts each day with a cup of coffee and greets her staff, ensuring the plan is set for the day. When Rivera was moved to Casa Esperanza’s new housing on Eustis Street, she again felt flooded with feelings of fear and nervousness about the change, she recalled. “We were always left alone, and the violence that was in the house was not normal,” she said of living with her mother. By the time she was 10 or 11, Rivera and her siblings were placed in foster care because of their mother’s alcohol use.

Victory Programs is a Boston-based nonprofit organization dedicated to helping individuals and families who are homeless and may have substance use disorders, often accompanied by chronic health issues like HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis C and mental illness. Providing a welcoming environment, our compassionate and inspiring team is committed to helping them regain their health and restore their hope through immediate access to safe and stable housing. When individuals and families are safely housed, they’re much more likely to address their physical and mental health, addictions, and other issues.

Victory Programs: Housing. Health. Recovery. Hope.

Giving the individuals that she counsels at The Victory Connector, a low-threshold navigation center in the neighborhood run by the nonprofit Victory Programs, a feeling of care, a sense of calm and peace, is what she aims for each day. Join Victory Programs’ team of over 200 dedicated and compassionate employees who are committed to helping our community’s most vulnerable individuals and families. Public health officials, including the Boston Public Health Commission, have been warning in particular that xylazine, a non-opioid veterinary tranquilizer, has been increasingly detected in street drug samples analyzed in Massachusetts. Xylazine, also referred to as “tranq,” increases the risk of overdose and death when mixed with other sedating drugs like opioids — and it is not affected by the overdose reversal drug naloxone, according to BPHC.

Fiscal year’s 2018 margin for a 13 million Victory Programs dollar budget is approximately half a percent. The annual acquisition of significant unrestricted funding through donations, grants, and special events is vital as a response to this reality. The Victory Connector, where she is a harm reduction specialist, provides a range of services to women, transgender, and nonbinary individuals who are at high risk of overdose and who are reluctant to engage with other care systems. For many, Victory Programs represents the last possibility for hope and the first chance for sustained success in their battles with addiction or illness.

Housing

She ended up working as a staff member at Casa Esperanza for almost 12 years, becoming first a peer recovery coach, then a house manager, then a treatment coordinator, a senior treatment coordinator, and a supervisor. But she said it’s also taken her a long time to feel comfortable sharing what she experienced as a child and teenager, which resulted in her own years-long struggle with substance use, incarceration, and instability. We are excited to bring you the latest issue of Victory Programs’ print newsletter, The Doorway! The Fall edition is packed with inspiring stories and messages of resilience, generosity, and hope from our clients, staff, and supporters who are transforming lives and strengthening our communities. They want to know that there are people out there who care, who won’t treat them “like they’re trash,” Rivera said. “It’s happening a lot,” Rivera said, emphasizing that there are more dangerous substances being put in the drugs being consumed on the street.