Douglas and Arapahoe county officials on Wednesday celebrated the opening of a newly upgraded residential facility focused on helping homeless families.

The care facility’s mission includes serving families that entered through Douglas County’s homeless program. The long-term care facility is operated by Colorado nonprofit The Family Tree, an agency focused on working with domestic abuse, child abuse and family-related homeless cases. It’s located in Aurora.

The new residential care center for homeless families is called the GOALS facility, which stands for the “generational opportunities and achievement long-term success program.”

The GOALS care program can last between four-to-nine months. Although The Family Tree’s existing program normally sees individuals exit to independent/permanent housing within six months, according to Family Tree’s Chief Impact Officer Cassie Ratliff.

The Family Tree’s mission is to “partner with all people to prevent and overcome interconnected issues of homelessness, domestic violence and child abuse, to promote safety, healing and stability across generations,” Ratliff said on Wednesday.

They call it trauma-informed care.

The Family Tree’s GOALS facility, at 14997 East Oxford Ave., was partially funded by a $1 million federal grant facilitated by Colorado Rep. Jason Crow through congressionally designated money to renovate the existing building. The Douglas County Human Services Department’s child welfare and temporary assistance for needy families funds will pay $250,000 a year towards the operation of the facility, according to officials.

GOALS programs include early childhood education, adult education, employment training, finance and parenting classes, substance abuse peer groups and other wraparound services.

In 1976, Family Tree began in Jefferson County by first addressing domestic violence and child abuse. Then, in 1989, the nonprofit human services agency coined homelessness as another priority.

“We’re the only organization in the Denver Metro area that is working on addressing the interconnected issues,” Ratliff said. “Family Tree utilizes this two-gen approach for everyone in the family. Everyone residing at goals has a private room, access to communal living areas, bathrooms, kitchens.”

Each room features beds and bunks for families, while bathrooms are fitted with showers and bathtubs to provide parents opportunities to give their children a bath.

“Family Tree offers a safe place, well, a safe place to live while residents work with Family Trees and our community partners to develop long term goals for stability and economic independence,” Ratliff said.

So far, two families have successfully applied to enter the GOALS facility, according to Douglas County officials.

Those entering the GOALS program are likely homeless people receiving care from Douglas County’s Homeless Engagement, Assistance and Resource Team (HEART), according to Douglas County Commissioner and the county’s “homeless czar” Abe Laydon.

“Now we have the dignity of knowing who somebody is relationally and then getting them to a place like this if they qualify. So this is primarily for families, but I’m envisioning a scenario where you might have a mom suffering domestic violence, for example, who does not know where to turn because of the nature of community referrals.”

“You have the HEART team that will get to know that person,” Laydon said.

HEART is a collection of outreach professionals in five Douglas County cities that address homeless people on the streets. Douglas County’s homeless initiative is based on a “handouts don’t help” campaign against giving money to panhandlers, but instead calling HEART “navigators” to wherever homeless people are.

“Douglas County is solving homelessness by elevating the response and providing resources,” Laydon said.

For Douglas County Commissioner Lora Thomas, she said the GOALS facility is a testament to a good working relationship between two neighboring counties.

“Everything we do that’s really successful is about a partnership,” she said.

“This is wonderful, because families who find themselves in need can get not only their needs met, but the structure in place to go forward to provide for generations,” Thomas said.

“This is really an exceptional place,” said Arapahoe County Commissioner Carrie Warren-Gully. “We are so delighted that more families will have the opportunity to come here and disrupt the status quo with their stay here.

“In Arapahoe County,” she said, “we believe in the two-gen approach. Instead of just supporting the parents or just supporting the children, we’re looking at the family as a whole.”