Kieyesa Johnson came to The Gathering Place, a refuge for homeless women and children, when she was nine and living on the street with her mother, sister and brothers.
Now 25, the Iraq War veteran, a keynote speaker at the opening of the daytime drop-in center’s new 28,000 square foot building, is a member of the National Guard and planning a career in broadcasting. “Growing up as a homeless child it was nice to have a place to go to just be a kid,” she said today of The Gathering Place.
“Sleeping on the streets was scary, I remember sleeping in the bus station. This was a new environment, they made it feel like home.”
The new, three-story brick building sits where the old facility, an 11,000 square foot former Denver Public Schools credit union building once stood at 1535 High St.
The now-demolished building was bursting at the seams. The non-profit Gathering Place experienced a 62 percent increase in visits for services between 2000 and 2005.
A fund-raising campaign raised $5.7 million, mostly from individual donors, to replace the facility, said Leslie Foster, Gathering Place CEO.
During the past year as the building project was underway, the operation moved to Montview Boulevard Presbyterian Church.
It is difficult for the homeless to recover and lead productive lives, said Mayor John Hickenlooper. Transitional facilities like The Gathering Place are needed to help them, he said.
Several hundred people, including volunteers and mothers and children who have relied on the Gathering Place’s services, attended a ribbon cutting, and lunch time celebration.
The Gathering Place offers breakfast, lunch, a laundry, bus tokens, GED preparation, literacy tutoring, a computer lab and other services.
Staff writer Tom McGhee can be reached at (303)954-1671 or tmcghee@denverpost.com
