$142,645 raised by 292 donors
100% complete
$130,000 Goal
Hope House Colorado empowers parenting teenage moms to strive for personal and economic self-sufficiency and to understand their significance in God's sight, resulting in a healthy future for them and for their children.
Janelle remembers when her world crumbled. She was 12 when her parents' fights and addictions led them to split. Although Janelle and her brothers were already used to living in chaos, now they were left on the sidelines, trying to take care of themselves. Janelle ended up meeting an older boy - and they connected deeply as they shared stories from their rough childhoods.
By age 14, Janelle was pregnant, and that same boyfriend became abusive, leaving her with bruises make-up couldn't cover. By the time Joseph was born, Janelle had stopped going to school. By the time he turned four, Janelle had another baby boy.
Janelle and her boys eventually became homeless - sleeping in a car, on the ground, or in homeless shelters. Sleeping in a car was actually a good night because the ground was cold and the shelters were crowded, smelly and scary.
Janelle knew she had to make a change.
She found Hope House online and enrolled in our GED Program. Surrounded by staff and volunteers who encouraged her, Janelle began to feel hope.
Six months later, Janelle had earned her GED and had found her own confidence. With the support of our College & Career Program, Janelle applied to the Community College of Denver and began working toward a certification in machining.
The tutors at Hope House helped Janelle when she needed it, and she stuck with the program. When she graduated, she was offered a job at Ball Aerospace as a machinist. Today Janelle is loving her job, where she gets to use the skills she learned in college. She also now owns her very own house, where she and her boys are thriving!
Hope House Colorado empowers parenting teen moms to strive for personal and economic self-sufficiency and to understand their significance in God's sight, resulting in a healthy future for their children.
Hungry and homeless: these are real issues for teenage mothers 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 110 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.
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.
Organization name
Hope House Colorado
other names
Hope House Colorado
2000
Tax id (EIN)
84-1567838
Category
Human Services
Address
6475A Benton StreetJefferson County, CO, US
Denver, CO, US
Adams County, CO, US
Arvada, CO, US
Westminster, CO, US