Epidaurus DBA Amity Foundation

Amity Foundation is dedicated to the inclusion and habilitation of people marginalized by addiction, trauma, criminality, incarceration, poverty, racism, sexism, homelessness and violence. We strive to improve health, promote environmental, social and economic justice. Amity is committed to the research, development, implementation and dissemination of information regarding community building.

Amity began as Tucson Awareness House in 1969-initiated by local teachers and community leaders that became aware of the extensive use of narcotic drugs by high school students in Tucson. This group began a number of small projects, which provided local services to adolescents and adults over the next few years. In the early 1980s the focus of the residential services changed from a "half-way house" operation to a more intensive teaching and therapeutic community.

In 1986 Amity became the owner of Circle Tree Ranch located at 10500 East Tanque Verde Road in Tucson. Amity Foundation continues to serve substance abusers and those with co-occurring disorders at its residential Teaching and Therapeutic Community at that location, using a modified therapeutic community treatment model. In 2015, Amity opened a permanent supportive housing development next to Circle Tree Ranch, designed to provide housing and services for individuals and families that are homeless or at-risk for homelessness.

The scope of all of Amity's services use the therapeutic community model, an intensive and effective pro-social community-as-method model. Amity supports its therapeutic community model with a specialized curriculum, and incorporates group work, psycho-social groups, motivational interviewing, mindfulness based cognitive therapy, and other specialized services depending on the contract such as parenting, linkages to education, employment services, smoking cessation, life skills, transportation and more and encourages self-help methods. This model is used in the in-prison and community residential setting. Amity also provides supportive services coupled with housing as individuals transition out of facilities and reenter the larger community and gain independence.

Amity Foundation has been one of the few agencies in Tucson who has allowed Mothers and Fathers to recover from Substance Abuse while having their children live with them at Circle Tree Ranch on the east side of Tucson.

Social Services + Social Justice = Social Progress