A Safe Home and Pathways to Opportunity for Destiny

Destiny had a very difficult childhood. Her parents succumbed to debilitating substance abuse, and after a separation and a move from Michigan to Las Vegas, her mom became involved with an abusive boyfriend.

Destiny’s mom lost the capacity to care for Destiny and her siblings when they were very, very young. In fact, there were several times when she left them alone at home or in parks, and they never knew if she was going to return. Destiny was taken away by the Department of Family Services more than once. She never felt safe.

When Destiny was five years old her mom sent her to live with a great-aunt. It was the safest environment she had ever experienced. Sadly, her aunt died shortly thereafter, and she was sent to live with her grandmother in Colorado. Destiny says her grandmother was abusive to her and her siblings—physically, mentally, and emotionally. Again she felt unsafe, and filled with despair, she attempted suicide three times while there.

During her senior year of high school, Destiny decided she wanted to live. She knew that in order to succeed she was going to have to leave her grandmother’s house to strike out on her own. On her 18th birthday, she did just that. “It was so hard,” says Destiny.

“I couldn’t find anywhere to go. I couldn’t find a shelter that took in teens. I wanted to go to school, so I enrolled in college. I stayed with a cousin for a while, and a high school teacher took me in for two weeks.” Eventually, she was accepted into a shelter, but she was mistreated there, and began to wonder if she would ever find a safe place to live.

So, she took the initiative and started researching alternatives. She found a long list of affordable housing providers at Denver Human Services and sat down for hours to call each one on the list. Hope Communities was the only one to return her call. Thus began a relationship that would change Destiny’s life—and the lives of many other young women at Hope.

With the help of Hope’s onsite resource navigators, she began to access the services she needed. She built relationships with staff – ever grateful, for instance, after her baby became ill, that a navigator brought food to her house and another staff member bought her a thermometer to monitor the baby’s progress. Most importantly, for the first time in her young adult life, Destiny felt safe.

Destiny has lived at Hidden Brook for three years, and her life is moving in a positive direction. She is married and the mother of a one-year-old baby girl. She believes it is important to give back to the community, and one way she does that is to volunteer for Hope Communities’ Girls Empowerment Program. Working with and mentoring teen girls through tumultuous times is a gift that she wishes she’d had as a teen, and she knows she’s making a difference in their lives.

Today Destiny is hopeful about the future. She and her husband would like to own a home someday, and because Hidden Brook is affordable, they are able to save. She dreams of going back to college to finish her degree in health care or mental health services. “If someone had told me, even a few years ago, that I’d be in a safe home, have a good job, a stable family and a hopeful future, I wouldn’t have believed it,” she says. “I am so grateful for Hope Communities.”