History & Mission

St. Anne’s residents live in a secure and beautifully renovated historic home in a residential setting near downtown Birmingham. The three-story home is situated in a thriving neighborhood of like properties that dates to the turn of the 20th century.

Having accepted its first residents in May 1964, St. Anne’s Home is believed to be the first program for women overcoming addiction in the Southeast and the first women’s home in the United States to receive accreditation from a national organization that upholds standards for hospitals.  Its initial focus was alcoholism, but today St. Anne’s also assists women who are overcoming chemical addictions.

It opened as the project of a Birmingham interdenominational women’s prayer group. During a meeting at Canterbury Methodist Church, the women were moved when a guest speaker told them that although there were programs for men battling alcoholism, there was no place to send women except to jail. Following that lecture by B.F. Simms, district supervisor and counselor with the Alabama Vocational Rehabilitation Service, a subgroup of Church Women United that included Hermolyne Liles, Polly Walters, Caroline Sparks, Lt. Col. Francis Longino and Ila Cantley took up the cause of opening a shelter for recovering women alcoholics.

The founders took pride in opening the home as an independent entity and took an inclusive approach to offering aid. In its operations today, St. Anne’s embraces spirituality but does not force a religious perspective or outlook.

In the late 1980s, a suggestion for a merger with a similar program for men was rejected in the belief that the triggers for alcoholism, the treatment and the recovery are too dissimilar. The program remains today open to women only and no children can be housed at St. Anne’s.

St. Anne’s is operated under the direction of a volunteer Board of Directors, representing a number of professions including health care. The board has sole responsibility and authority for the overall conduct of operations, including its treatment and/or prevention programs.

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