A House of Hope since 1967.

Our History

How it all began.

In 1967, Reverend Alfredo Cotto-Thorner was pastor at the South Third Street United Methodist Church in Brooklyn. In the neighborhood surrounding the church, he saw many signs of drug addiction and prayed for ways to help.

There was a notorious drug user named Sabo who lived in the neighborhood. One Sunday Sabo came to church, and after the service he asked the pastor to write a letter to his Probation Officer. Reverend Cotto-Thorner agreed, on one condition: that Sabo help him work with other addicts in the community.

Sabo was asked to bring 10 to 15 addicts to the church, where churchwomen would give them food and coffee. When he showed up with 30 to 40 people, Reverend Cotto-Thorner didn't know what to do. After the meal, they prayed. The encounter was so well-received that they decided to meet regularly.

Believing that having their own building would help people battle addiction, the Brooklyn and Long Island Church Society purchased 976 Park Place from United Methodist Church. Once the building opened, Reverend Richard Rice and his wife Nancy came to work with the program. Nancy and Dorothy Cotto-Thorner reached out to women across Brooklyn and Long Island for furniture, pots and pans, dishes, and anything else the program needed to function. At the time, there was no paid staff, only volunteers.

Together, Reverend Cotto-Thorner and Sabo went to the "shooting galleries" of the neighborhood. Reverend Cotto-Thorner held many addicts as they died. No one ever attempted to harm him or any of the volunteers.

Dorothy Cotto-Thorner and Nancy Rice organized Neighbors of Anchor House (NOAH). The men's facility grew from 20 men at Park Place to a newly built facility for 50 men in 1996 at Bergen Street. It was then that the women's facility was born, providing hope to 20 women, and most recently expanding to 28 women in 2014.