Anchor House on Wednesday broke ground on the expansion of its $18 million men’s residential treatment facility in Crown Heights.
Anchor House staff and board members, former president Bill Clinton representing The Clinton Foundation and its Overdose Response Network, The United Methodist City Society, The New York State Office of Addiction Support and Services, Urbahn Architects, contractor The J. Pilla Group, project manager The Dormitory Authority of the State of New York celebrated the beginning of the renovation and expansion of the Anchor House Men’s Residential Treatment Facility at 1041 Bergen St.
Anchor House is a faith-based, non-profit, intensive residential treatment facility provider of the state. It currently operates a 50-bed men’s facility and 28-bed women's facility, both located in Brooklyn. The organization applies a trauma informed, integrated biopsychosocial and holistic treatment approach to substance use disorder. The goal is for men and women to return to their families as healthy, productive, and self-sufficient members of their communities.
“This is not simply an expansion–it is a direct response to the increasing clinical and operational demands we are seeing across the behavioral health system,” Alison King, executive director of Anchor House said in a statement. “Individuals are entering treatment with increasing complexity across trauma, mental health and justice involvement. Expanding capacity alone is no longer sufficient. This project strengthens both scale and structure—ensuring we remain a ‘House of Hope’—a safe harbor where hope is renewed, while delivering clinical excellence and measurable outcomes.”
The project will expand the men's treatment facility’s capacity to 70 beds. The renovation of the existing center will upgrade bedrooms and create new shared facilities and outdoor spaces.
"Residential recovery lasts months, and the architecture should support that, not work against it," said Urbahn Architects Principal Rafael Stein, AIA.
The new building takes design cues from the scale and materiality of the brownstones on Bergen Street, and inside, the courtyard and oversized windows bring daylight into the treatment floors, he added.
Over the five-year period ending in 2023, New York experienced a sharp escalation in overdose deaths driven by fentanyl and other synthetic opioids, officials said. In 2023, more than 6,300 New Yorkers died—one of the highest levels on record. Data shows overdose deaths began to decline in 2023, with a 30% decrease in 2024 and continued declines into 2025.
For over 15 years, the Clinton Foundation has been fighting the overdose crisis by increasing access to lifesaving naloxone, reducing stigma and training community leaders to help people into recovery.
"There's really not much of a partisan difference when humans' lives break," Clinton said. "The truth is that people don't have to die, but people don't know that the simplest thing is an orderly, caring, loving response. Everybody counts and deserves a chance. Anchor House is a place of second chances."
