Talbot House, Inc.

In 1963 Bill Wallace saw a problem … the courts were convicting men on alcohol-related charges, incarcerating them then releasing them to their same old environment. It was a never-ending cycle that needed to stop.

To try to help bend the arc, Wallace convinced local judges to release these men to his custody. The deal: come to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings with me or go back to jail. The deal wasn’t very successful. Not many men got or stayed sober.

Undeterred, Wallace concluded that these men needed a place to stay that was away from rooming houses and the streets from which they had come, so he set about making that happen. Along with twelve members of Alcoholics Anonymous, Wallace set out to create a house that provided food, shelter, supervision and fellowship that operated as closely to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous as possible.

With some seed money provided by local donors and a small loan secured from a local savings and loan, Serenity Inc., the predecessor to Talbot House, bought Wallace’s home and converted it into a recovery house.

In 1995, the Board of Directors, with the help of private donations and grants, purchased a second house which was across the street from the Talbot House. They named it Wallace House after the organization’s founder. And in 2000, Talbot House purchased a third property, a small apartment building adjacent to both the Talbot and Wallace houses. This house is named Jim Hoard House after the long-time supporter of Talbot House.

Talbot House is the first house men move into. It provides the most structure and support. At the appropriate time men transition to Wallace House, which provides a little less structure but still a great deal of support. Finally, men transition to Jim Hoard House for still less structure but significant support. Hoard House is the last stop before men begin living outside of the Talbot House system. Together, these three houses give men a means to progress to self-sufficient living away from drugs and alcohol.

​To this day, Talbot House continues to operate under the same principles that guided it at its founding: recovery, accountability, community and service.