Most of our teen moms are growing up in generational poverty.
They often times live with a parent who is drug or alcohol-addicted.
Most of our moms have been abused in one form or another.
These girls are very determined, but the barriers are pretty significant.
Teenage moms who come to Hope House, they're here because they want to create a better
life for their little one, and they're determined as all get out to change the patterns that
they grew up with.
My husband and I were teenage parents.
I actually started working with teenage moms because I had been through some of that myself.
And when those young moms started coming to us saying, "I don't feel safe at home”,
we started researching what else is out there, and there literally was no home in the area
for a teenager who was parenting.
Hope House started because we wanted to make sure they had a safe place to live, but we
also wanted to make sure that they had a structured program that would help them become self-sufficient.
- Do you have any kids?
[laughs]
I got a couple.
As soon as I got pregnant, like everything just started to unravel.
I just was so depressed and like, I was suicidal for the longest time.
But there is that part of you where you're just like, I can't give up.
I was like, shocked.
Wow, I didn’t expect this.
This can't be true.
I didn’t think that I would have a baby at this age.
I felt like I needed to come to Hope House because I knew in my heart that they would
help me.
Our teen moms are dealing with all sorts of outside struggles and external demands on their time.
It's really important that we offer them almost a menu-style approach to moving towards self-sufficiency.
We offer self-sufficiency programs that range from our residential program to a community
program, where we do GED and college and career.
We also have all sorts of supportive services for our moms, like parenting classes and healthy
relationships classes and financial literacy classes.
It's not only having access to classes, but having access to long-term healthy relationships.
The most critical thing we do is provide that sense of community, that sense of family,
and that sense of safety.
In two more months, she will be one year old.
- You’re turning 17 this month?
Yeah, the 5th on the calendar.
I've never had a mom in my life and so I grew up knowing nothing about love really.
I felt alone.
I felt like I was nothing.
She's not gonna be in as much pain as I was and she's gonna be that happy kid.
She has a bright soul, so I could see that she's gonna be an amazing person when she
grows up.
Hope House made me become a better mom.
They helped me accomplish my high school diploma and I'm still doing my small business management.
I do wanna be an entrepreneur in the music industry.
I want people to express their feelings into music.
Like, if I can help others do that, it will help me become the person I actually want to be.
Hope House is definitely the reason that I have confidence and like, the skills to know
that I can do whatever I wanna do and achieve whatever goals that I set for myself now.
When something goes wrong or something changes, I'm able to be like, "We're gonna take care
of this, we're gonna figure it out, it's gonna be okay,"
Hope House saved my life.
I don't think I'd be here without them at all.