A place for healing and starting fresh.

Crossroads Safehouse is a place where victims like this father and his sons can escape to find shelter and the help necessary to begin healing and build a new life free from abuse and harm.

A gentleman came to the shelter with his 2 kids from New Mexico. He had grown up in a family of all sisters who had taught him what it was to be compassionate, caring, and patient. He had been in a relationship and had two beautiful children that he loves with all of his heart. After a few years that relationship did not work out, he and his children moved on with their lives and settled in New Mexico.

While in New Mexico, he met a woman and they became fast friends. She was kind and interested in him. She loved his kids. They spent a lot of time getting to know each other and he felt that he had finally found someone he could be with for the rest of his life.

However, after a year into the relationship, he noticed a change. She started to control where he was going and what he was doing. He no longer felt like he had the freedom to move around in the world as he had before. She monitored what he was spending his money on, which he was earning. She started to treat the children with resentment. He felt as though his whole world had flipped on him.

He tried very hard to leave the relationship and when he did, she became violent. She would hold his children hostage or wait until he fell asleep and hit him in the face until he promised not to leave.

The day came when he had the opportunity to grab his children and leave, and he took it. He left all of his belongings, got on a bus and headed to Fort Collins to Crossroads Safehouse. During his shelter stay, he got his children enrolled in school, got his license, got certified to be a mechanic, got a job, and started saving for a place to live. He was starting to heal and get settled. Until, a phone call came in from a friend that let him know his ex had found where he was in Fort Collins. He knew he had to move again because she would not let him and his children be. He took the money he saved while at the shelter to move him and his children out of state and closer to family in hopes that he could rebuild a life for him and his children.

~Shared by an advocate with the permission of a past Crossroads Safehouse resident.