Hope House Colorado

Clearly there is a significant need for programs that help struggling teen moms become self-sufficient and build healthy community. For this reason, the overall goal of Hope House is to provide free self-sufficiency programming that equip teen moms for long-term economic and personal self-sufficiency through the development of skills and knowledge, via the following goals:

• Continue to offer services to 250 teen moms (ages 16 - 20) who participate in Hope House Programming.

• Complete construction of a new Early Learning Center (2024) adjacent to the Hope House Resource Center (which was completely finished in 2019 following a successful $5 million Capital Campaign) in order to increase the number of teen moms and children served at Hope House each year.

• Expand upon current measuring tools to improve reporting and to develop new measurement tools that can be housed in an easy-to-use application to best communicate growth of teen moms in the Personal and Economic Self-sufficiency Continuum.

• Expand local partnerships with organizations that provide direct services for teen moms that are not currently provided by Hope House.

• Contribute to a healthier local community; every time one of our teen moms reaches self-sufficiency, Colorado tax payers save approximately $30,000 annually -- and the cycle of welfare dependency is much more likely to be broken once the mother reaches self-sufficiency because two generations have been transformed.

• Create a safe place for teen moms to develop healthy community with staff, volunteers and other teen moms.

Hope House is metro-Denver's only resource providing free self-sufficiency programs to teen moms; programs are offered to support teen moms in nine personal domains and six economic domains:

We offer a variety of components designed to help teen moms become self-sufficient members of their community who are also nurturing, loving parents. We offer a menu-style approach to services that allows our teen moms to define their own goals and then select the components that will help them reach those goals.

Components include:

• Parenting Classes
• Relationships Classes & Certified Counseling
• Personal Growth
• Health & Wellness
• Activities & Events
• High School & GED Program
• College & Career Program
• Family Advocacy
• Legal Advocacy
• Residential Program
• Early Learning Program (for children of active teen moms)

To accomplish its mission, Hope House relies on numerous volunteers and local business partnerships. In 2019, prior to the COVID-pandemic which impacted the number of volunteers who could safely serve at Hope House, 507 volunteers donated 9,633 hours of free service, which is equivalent to four additional full-time employees.

After more than 17 years of offering self-sufficiency programs to teen moms, Hope House Colorado has become a recognized expert in our field. This is evidenced in many ways, including the fact that in 2015 Hope House received the Governor's Service Award for Outstanding Nonprofit Organization in Colorado and was named the 2018 Nonprofit of the Year by the Arvada Chamber of Commerce. Additionally, our staff is highly qualified in terms of both experience and education. For example, Melinda Smith, our Parent Educator, is one of 30 certified facilitators in the state of Colorado for Nurturing Healthy Sexual Development.

It should also be noted that Lisa Steven, our Executive Director, is also the Founder of Hope House, which adds to the depth of the organization. Lisa has over 25 years of experience working with teen moms. She is a co-founder of the Colorado Teen Parent Collaborative and is active with the Denver Women's Leadership Forum. Lisa serves on the Board of Directors for the Arvada Chamber of Commerce and has received several awards, including the Arvada Woman of the Year and Outstanding Women of Jefferson County. Her connections, experience and leadership skills all contribute to the organization's capabilities.

Deep partnerships, which Hope House staff members have worked hard to create, also serve to strengthen our organizational capabilities. In 2015, through the GED Task Force, we partnered with other nonprofit organizations to successfully advocate for educational legislation that removed a significant barrier to self-sufficiency for teen moms and other individuals working to break the cycle of poverty. We also partner with various agencies that help our teen moms obtain housing, medical care, legal assistance regarding parenting orders and more. We are highly intentional in terms of the services we provide, and careful to not duplicate services provided by other organizations.

Hope House also has the financial capabilities to meet our goals. With a budget of over $2.4 million, Hope House has joined the top 10 percent of nonprofit organizations in the United States. Our financial stability is largely due to the fact that we enjoy a large, grassroots support base. In fact, individual donors have historically proven to be the largest source of income for Hope House, which means the organization is not dependent on a specific individual or organization for financial support. We continually work to increase our donor base, and every year, as our income has grown, so has our donor base in terms of number of donors and total donations.

The fact that we have a large volunteer base also adds to our capabilities. Since Hope House opened its doors in 2003, the number of volunteers and the volunteer hours donated has grown every year. In 2019, 507 volunteers donated 9,633 hours of service to Hope House, which is valued at $269,917, according to the Independent Sector.

In order to help at-risk teen moms receive the education and support necessary to land employment at a wage that provides enough income to meet basic needs without public assistance, Hope House opened its Residential Program in 2003. To date, this program has served 100 formerly homeless or at-risk teen moms and their children with a high rate of success: 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 additional Hope House Programs in 2007, which included a GED Program in 2009, and supportive services such as Parenting and Healthy Relationships Programs, certified counseling and life skills classes.

In 2012, we opened our Resource Center, moving all Hope House Programs, including our GED Program, to this new location. The house now hosts the Residential Program only; this 12-bedroom home provides our moms up to a week of respite care, up to nine months of transitional housing or up to two years of comprehensive programming. In 2013 we launched a College & Career Program, and in 2014 we piloted our new Early Learning Program for the kids of Hope House teen moms. To date, Hope House has served nearly 1,000 disadvantaged teen moms and 1,500 children.

In 2015 Hope House successfully helped create the Teen Parent Collaborative, a local, unified community of organizations driven by the strength of teen parents to raise public awareness, share resources and advocate for public policy that benefits teen parents and their children.

Because the demand for services for teen moms is so high, Hope House launched a capital campaign to build a new Resource Center that was completed in 2019. This expansion allows the organization to double the number of teen moms and children served annually.

Hope House is also still in the process of building national as well as international partnerships and forming a national affiliation of organizations that serve teen moms. Senior staff is also investigating the options for creating an income stream for Hope House through social enterprise.