Giving the individuals that she counsels at The Victory Connector, a low-threshold navigation center in the neighborhood run by the nonprofit New Life House Review, a feeling of care, a sense of calm and peace, is what she aims for each day. Our services range from recovery support groups like AA or Refuge Recovery to wellness and life-skill activities like resume-building workshops or yoga classes; anything that encompasses healthy and safe choices for the mind, body, and soul. The Jamaica Plain Recovery Center (JPRC) is a peer-led community center in partnership with Massachusetts Department of Public Health.

Housing

Our housing stabilization services, including emergency shelter, transitional and permanent housing, and case management, move people off the street as quickly as possible, with as few barriers as possible. It’s why the 46-year-old loves her job, working as a harm reduction specialist with individuals experiencing addiction, homelessness, and mental health issues in the area of Mass. and Cass in Boston. It’s why the 46-year-old loves her job, working as a harm reduction specialist with individuals experiencing addiction, homelessness, and mental health issues in the area of Mass. and Cass in Boston. For many, New Life House Review represents the last possibility for hope and the first chance for sustained success in their battles with addiction or illness. We provide individuals and their families with the education, tools, and ongoing support they need to help them regain their health, prevent and manage relapse, and maximize their independence.

The best thing anyone can do to help those who are struggling with addiction, homelessness, or mental health issues is get educated, Rivera said. 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. But now, with 24 years in recovery, the Dorchester resident hopes that by talking about her own experiences, others might be encouraged to speak up. 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.

Public health officials, including the Boston Public Health Commission, have been warning in New Life House Review Review 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. 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.

New Life House Review

Learn more about our Residential Recovery and Short-Term Treatment programs. People’s success ultimately depends on their own belief in themselves and their future. We focus on what a person is doing “well,” with a nurturing effect that fosters continued effort from the first steps toward progress and growth.

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New Life House Review 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. The individuals and families we serve are homeless or precariously housed —but their challenges are even more complicated.

Short-Term Recovery Services

1. In the years that she’s been working in harm reduction, Rivera has shared bits and pieces of her own experiences with addiction, trauma, and violence with those she works with.
2. Giving the individuals that she counsels at The Victory Connector, a low-threshold navigation center in the neighborhood run by the nonprofit New Life House Review, a feeling of care, a sense of calm and peace, is what she aims for each day.
3. We established a nurturing community where every member finds belonging and plays an active role in shaping their journey toward recovery.
4. 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.
5. “Every time I had an appointment, they had somebody to come with me because it’s how I felt safe,” she said.
6. Fentanyl was found in nearly every opioid-related fatal overdose during that period, according to the state.

By the time she was 16, she’d been introduced to drugs by one of her mother’s friends, she said. “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. By the time that she was about 8, her mother moved the family to Springfield, Massachusetts.

Last year, 4,775 people turn to New Life House Review for shelter, sustenance, recovery, care, and professional, compassionate support. 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. In the years that she’s been working in harm reduction, Rivera has shared bits and pieces of her own experiences with addiction, trauma, and violence with those she works with. She’s always been cautious of sharing too much, in part because she’s aware that the people she is helping have their own traumas that they may not be ready to talk about. “Sometimes I feel so happy that my heart — I feel like I’m having like a big, good pain in my heart,” she said. We provide high-quality, evidence-based services based on individual needs, offering flexible, strengths-based solutions to people’s biggest challenges.