The Empowerment Program

1600 York Street

Denver, CO 80206

303.320.1989

303.320.3987 fax

1-800-659-2656 TTY

Services for Women

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Education Programs | Health Programs | Housing Programs
| Outreach Programs | Employment Programs

WIT House (Women In Transition)

The WIT House is home to 9 women who are living with various barriers to self-sufficiency. The WIT House gives women the opportunity to develop skills that will help them when they transition to permanant housing. Groups include life skills education, money management, substance abuse treatment, and mental health care.

Mariposa House

The Mariposa House is a room and board facility that provides permanent housing for women who are coming out of prison or jail, are homeless, or have other barriers to housing. The community living gives women an opportunity to contribute through chores and cooking. All women are involved in community meatings and support groups.

Columbine Community

In partnership with the Denver Department of Human Services, the Denver Planning Office, and Housing and Neighborhood Development Services, the Empowerment Program opened the Columbine Community located at the Lowry Airforce Base this spring.

The Property consists of eighteen units, housing seventeen women with qualifying disabilities, and a resident manager. Empowerment owns and manages the property, while the Mental Health Corporation of Denver provides services for the residents. Managing the property includes making monthly inspections, performing all necessary maintenance, and working directly with the residents to respond to maintenance calls, deal with rent issues, and provide another avenue of support for the women who live there.

The residents at the Columbine Community require intense case management, but the goal is to provide them with a sense of independence that they would not experience at a traditionally structured facility. This is intended to be a permanent housing solution for the residents, and every effort is made to help them to feel that they are part of a community. The success of the program is evident in the stability of the group of residents and the low turnover rate.

Funding for the Columbine Community covered enough of the renovation of the property to allow the residents to move in, but fell short of the amount needed to complete the project. As it stands now, the property looks unfinished. Money is needed to clean up the grounds, plant grass, erect a fence, and landscape the property in step with the rest of the neighborhood so that the women who live at Lowry will feel as though they belong there.

We do not have emergency rental assistance at this time.

The Mission of the Empowerment Program is to provide education, employment assistance, health, housing referrals and support services to women who are in disadvantaged positions due to incarceration, poverty, homelessness, HIV/AIDS infection or involvement in the criminal justice system. Our goal is to decrease rates of recidivism by providing care management, support services, basic skills education, housing and resource coordination that can offer viable alternatives to habits and choices that may lead to criminal behaviors.

"The greatest danger to our future is apathy."

-Jane Goodall