Denver Celebrates Innovative Youth Shelter Campus Ribbon Cutting

Denver Celebrates Innovative Youth Shelter Campus Ribbon Cutting

Published on July 24, 2024

Mayor Mike Johnston together with Denver's Department of Housing Stability and partners today celebrated the completion of Urban Peak's Mothership at 1630 S. Acoma St. The new campus will increase the number of overnight shelter beds available for youth and young adults from 40 to 136; it also brings Urban Peak's services to the same location as its overnight beds. The City and County of Denver provided $16,764,567 in funding from the voter-approved RISE Denver bond to help make the facility possible.

Urban Peak is the only non-profit in Denver that provides a full convergence of services for youth experiencing homelessness. Eight years in the making, the Mothership revolutionizes Urban Peak's approach to youth experiencing homelessness by replacing the organization's fatigued former shelter with a vibrant, thriving campus designed to transform and save lives.

"This really is a revolutionary project that enhances our vision for the way we serve the most vulnerable population and make a positive impact on our community. There's nothing like it anywhere else in the country," said Christina Carlson, CEO of Urban Peak. "Every little piece of the physical design of the Mothership was thought about and re-thought about. And the design of the programs has been built on lots of history that Urban Peak has had for over 35 years, but is also really about innovation and trying to move the needle in a different way. By putting those big picture ideas together, we are now able to wrap all these services around the youth we serve under one roof."

Denver Mayor Mike Johnston was on hand for the ribbon-cutting and proclaimed July 24, 2024, as "Urban Peak Mothership Campus Opening Day."

"This innovative expansion fills a critical gap in serving our most vulnerable as Urban Peak more than triples its capacity of overnight beds for youth experiencing homelessness," Mayor Johnston said. "This is exactly the kind of work the city is proud to do: meeting young people where they're at and giving them the best possible chance to get back on their feet."

With the christening of the first-of-its-kind Mothership, Urban Peak will expand on its mission to ignite the potential in youth through a facility that's tailored specifically to address the special needs of youth ages 12-24 while providing a full continuum of services as a pathway out of homelessness. More specifically, the Mothership allows Urban Peak to address the complex needs of youth experiencing homelessness through integrated services and progressively independent levels of housing on a campus that incorporates innovative "trauma-informed design."

Based on concepts developed by Shopworks Architecture and the University of Denver, the Mothership integrates design principles that prioritize safety, comfort, connection and choice throughout the building's layout with the goal of elevating the living experience and creating a stable, secure space to foster a sense of community and support that allows youth to focus their energy on exiting homelessness.

"Knowing what used to be here on these grounds, it is absolutely mind-blowing to see what stands before us today and the potential this new campus brings our organization," said Daniel Sparks, Urban Peak's Youth Program Coordinator. "The intentional design of this space is trauma-informed and offers hope simply by being here. It's designed solely for the population that we serve - not just as a shelter, but a space to grow and develop. It's an environment that feels good and enables us to provide an opportunity for youth to grow in a very sustainable way."

The Mothership includes six different "neighborhoods" designed to provide transitional space for youth between the stabilization of a shelter bed and long-term, independent housing. The neighborhoods were intentionally designed to not only provide youth with an opportunity to learn life skills and form community among their peers, but also to be flexible in how they're used.

That feature will significantly expand capacity to provide stabilizing shelter to both minors and young adults, ages 21-24. The former 40-bed capacity will expand more than three-fold at the Mothership, and the number of beds for youth in the minors' shelter will increase from eight to 20. For the first time, Urban Peak will be able to expand the age range of those sheltered to as young as age 12.

Starting as a daytime drop-in center that soon evolved into Colorado's first and only licensed shelter for youth experiencing homelessness in 1998, Urban Peak has dedicated more than 30 years working toward its goal of a Colorado where all youth have safe housing, supportive relationships, and the opportunity for self-sufficiency and success.

Tagged as:

• Housing Stability
• RISE Denver