Hope House Colorado

Background Statement

Hungry, struggling to afford essential needs, unstable housing, domestic violence: these are real issues for teen moms living in our community. In fact, 67% of teen moms live below the poverty line -- which came as a surprise to our local founders over two decades ago.

Hope House Colorado began when the founders, two former teen moms themselves, recognized that because 67% of teen moms live below the Federal poverty line, they are a particularly vulnerable population that is often overlooked. The challenges these economically disadvantaged teens face are significant:

• Less than 50% of teen moms will graduate from high school;

• Fewer than 2% will ever earn a college degree;

• In Colorado, a teen mom must work 101 hours per week at minimum wage to earn enough annual income to meet basic needs without public assistance

Hope House opened its Residential Program in 2003 in Arvada. To date, this program has served 130 formerly homeless or at-risk teen moms and their children with a high rate of success among program graduates: 90 percent of graduates have achieved basic levels of self-sufficiency.

Demand for services for teen moms increased every year, with staff receiving approximately 150 crisis calls annually from teen moms and service providers. In response, we launched our Community Program initiative in 2007, which included a GED Program, and supportive services such as healthy relationships classes, parenting classes, certified counseling, life skills classes, job readiness workshops and community building activities.

In 2012, we opened our resource center in Westminster, moving all Community Programs, including our GED Program, to this new location; the house in Arvada now hosts the Residential Program only and is thus able to offer housing to more teen moms and their children. In 2013 we launched a College & Career Support Program, offering practical support and resources to teen moms in college or entering the workforce. In 2014 we opened an Early Learning Program for the children of Hope House teen moms.

In 2015, we launched a capital campaign for a new resource center that would allow us more space to serve teen moms. In 2019, we completed the $5.4 million campaign and moved into our 15,000-square-foot resource center debt-free thanks to the generosity of so many champions (donors). The resource center is adjacent to the residential house in Arvada and allows us the space to grow and serve 450 teen moms and 675 children annually!

In 2020 when the pandemic hit, we pivoted to virtual programming and a curbside Grab & Go to help fulfill our teen moms' most essential needs. We transitioned our residential house into a temporary shelter for moms and their kids who experienced homelessness or domestic violence during COVID.

In 2021, we worked to mitigate the impacts of COVID through increased mental health support for moms and early intervention support for kids who experienced developmental delays.

In 2022, we expanded our Residential Program into a full Housing Support Program, which includes our Residential Program. This program is an immediate disturbance to homelessness and supports teen moms as they create Individual Growth Plans (IGPs) with an eventual goal of being able to afford market-based housing. We also expanded our Early Learning program into an Early Learning & School Age Program to more comprehensively serve the school-age children of our teen moms who need additional social and literacy support.

In 2023, we served the most teen moms we have ever served in our history. We served more than half of our teen moms in our Housing Support Program and through our economic navigator. We also completed a $6 million capital campaign for a brand-new Early Learning Center, located on our campus, which will provide child care to the children of our teen moms who are utilizing the Colorado Child Care Assistance Program (CCCAP).

In 2024, we celebrated the grand opening of our new 11,000-square-foot early learning center in August. The center will provide full-time, licensed, quality-care for up to 104 children of Hope House teen moms and staff. This will remove a significant barrier for teen moms, allowing them to attend school or work full time while their child receive quality child care in a safe and loving environment.

Hope House supports and empowers teen moms as they work toward self-sufficiency and break the cycles of generational poverty for themselves and their children. We focus on a two-generation approach in our programming so that teen moms and their children are receiving the supports they need to create lasting change.