The House: A safe place for teens

In Mesa County, 160 teens from the age of 13 to 20 are living on the streets, and as the weather begins to grow colder, they're looking for a place to sleep.

Luckily for ten teens in Mesa County, they have The House,  a homeless shelter dedicated only to teens.

The House is currently the only shelter in our state to be operating without federal funding, and the only way it even saw its opening day was because of the generosity of our community. In fact, The House tried twice before to open but failed.

The shelter can only house ten teens at a time, which it says is no where close to enough. But with the demand so high in our area, the non profit knew it needed to find a way to open the doors.

"We were shocked to learn, along with a lot of other people, that homeless teens in our community had no where to legally go because when a teen doesn't have a parent with them they can't go to a family shelter,"executive director of Karis Inc., John Mok-Lamme said.

"We started with one, then three, four," program coordinator Aaron Stites said. "And for a few months we had in the range of four to six, and I think we've done a lot in terms of outreach and now we're full."

The House officially opened it's doors on May 2nd of this year, but it was a day before its first teen had already moved in. Since then, the shelter has grown to full capacity, housing ten teens and getting them back on their feet.

For more information on the homeless teen shelter or if you're interested in getting involved click here.