Our Story
20 years of transforming lives
For more than 20 years, Hope House Colorado has empowered 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 them and for their children.

A Place To Belong
The True Story of a Teen Mom, a Humbling Leadership Journey, and a House Called Hope
Read the amazing story of the history of Hope House and how God worked miracles through the lives of His people in our Founder & Executive Director Lisa Steven’s book, A Place To Belong.
How Hope House Began
Hope House began when the founders, two former teen moms, recognized that because 67% of teen moms live below the federal poverty line, they are a particularly vulnerable and overlooked population. The challenges these economically disadvantaged teens face were and are still significant: Fewer than 50% of teen moms will graduate from high school; only 2% will ever earn a college degree; and many struggle with mental health and obtaining child care, safe housing and basic needs.
In 1997, there simply wasn’t a place for homeless teen moms and their children. Most group homes were maternity home, and shelters typically only took adult women. It was hard to believe that no one would provide a place for teen moms. Hope House first addressed the issue of homelessness and opened its Residential Program in Arvada in 2003. The house was built with amazing support and a series of miracles – it was truly the house that God built! To date, this program has served more than 100 formerly homeless or at-risk teen moms and their children with a high success rate.
How Hope House Expanded
Just a few years into the Residential Program, Hope House staff were receiving approximately 150 crisis calls annually from teen moms and services providers. Based on the success of the program and the clear need to serve more teen moms and their kids, Hope House launched additional self-sufficiency programs in 2007: GED Program, Parenting and Healthy Relationships Programs, mental health counseling, and life skills classes. In 2013, a temporary (rented) Resource Center located in Westminster provided space for more programming while allowing additional teen moms and children space to live at the house. At this time, the College & Career Program was added, with the launch of the Early Learning Program for the children of teen moms a year later. Additional programs followed including Legal Advocacy, Housing and Economic Navigation, Health & Wellness and more.
In 2017, after a successful $5.4 million capital campaign, a groundbreaking ceremony was held in Arvada (next to the residential house) for a 15,000-square-foot Resource Center. In 2019, the building was completed and programs were moved to this new, debt-free building that has the capacity to serve up to 400 teen moms annually. In 2020, Hope House welcomed its first affiliate, Hope House Northern Colorado in Greeley, Colorado. To date, three affiliate locations have begun the work of empowering teen moms in their area (Greely, CO; Cañon City, CO; and Orange County, CA)!
Over the past few years, Hope House has continued to provide programs in areas that best support the needs of teen moms across the Denver metro-area. In 2022, the Residential Program expanded into a full Housing Support Program, allowing more teen moms who are experiencing homelessness or unsafe housing to receive housing services. The Early Learning Program has become the Early Learning & School Age Program to more comprehensively serve the school-age children of teen moms who need additional social and literacy support.
In 2023, we served more than half of our teen moms in our Housing Support Program and through our economic navigator, and completed a $6 million capital campaign for a brand-new Hope House Early Learning Center (ELC).
In 2024, we opened our new, debt-free ELC located on our campus, which provides quality licensed care for up to 104 children of our teen moms and staff. As every teen mom served by Hope House qualifies for the Colorado Child Care Assistance Program (CCCAP). Also in 2024, we served the most teen moms and children ever in our history (270 and 401), saw great success in our Education & Career Program, began structured organizational “Belonging Work” and created more impactful partnerships.
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