Dismas of Vermont

About Dismas of Vermont

Dismas of Vermont is a recovery housing provider running five family-style residences in Burlington, Winooski, Hartford and Rutland, all of them certified by the Vermont Alliance for Recovery Residences. The organization opened its first Vermont house in Burlington in 1986 in collaboration with the national Dismas organization founded in Nashville, and it has operated as an independent Vermont nonprofit since 2002.

A Vermont Recovery Housing Provider Built Around Reconciliation

Dismas works with people coming out of incarceration and trauma, and the model is unusual enough to explain plainly. Residents, staff and community volunteers share weekday dinners at the table. Volunteer cooks come in from the surrounding neighborhoods to prepare and eat those meals. The organization's word for what it is trying to do is reconciliation, meaning it treats the break between a person and their community as a two-way repair. For a resident, the practical effect is that the house is full of people from outside it who are not paid to be there.

Five Recovery Homes Across Vermont

The residences are:

• Buell Street Dismas, at 96 Buell Street in Burlington, opened in 1986.
• East Allen Dismas, at 103 East Allen Street in Winooski, opened in 2008.
• Hartford Dismas House, in the Upper Valley, opened in 2013.
• Rutland Dismas House, opened in 1990, for men.
• The Women's Dismas House in Rutland, opened in 2021.

Buell Street and East Allen share resources, volunteers and staff, and residents of the two come together for programming, events and holidays. The Rutland pair works the same way across the city.

Serving Men and Women in Recovery

The Rutland houses are single-gender, with one for men and one dedicated entirely to women, opened in response to the specific reintegration challenges facing formerly incarcerated women. Keeping that split at the house level means the rules, the meetings and the shared space are written for one population.

Certification for This Recovery Housing Provider

Every Dismas residence is certified by the Vermont Alliance for Recovery Residences. Certification is granted address by address in Vermont, and an organization carrying it on all five of its houses has accepted annual inspection, a published code of ethics and a complaint route outside the house at every property.

Step-Down Housing and What Comes After a Dismas House

Dismas maintains a satellite apartment program in Burlington and Rutland for residents in good standing who have completed at least three months in a house, with three residents to an apartment. That step-down matters at the point where most reentry housing ends. A resident moving into an apartment keeps the same organization, the same city and the same dinner table, and the transition to permanent housing happens with support still attached.