Hunt Family Housing Grand Opening

By Veronica Ambuul

PHOTO: Hunt Family Housing Ribbon Cutting, August 20 2025. Group picture after cutting ribbon. Photo courtesy of Catholic Charities of Central Colorado.

COLORADO SPRINGS. When Catholic Charities of Central Colorado purchased the former Helen Hunt Elementary School in late 2022, dry erase boards, maps and other items left behind by teachers and students still hung on the walls. The school, which opened in 1902 and operated for more than a century, had essentially stood frozen in time since it was closed due to declining enrollment in 2016. Various nonprofits had occupied parts of the building, including Catholic Charities, but its age and other factors made substantive renovations a challenging prospect.

Nonetheless, as Catholic Charities worked to help low-income families in the neighborhood become stable and self-sufficient, there was one hurdle the agency kept coming up against — housing.

“The impetus for family housing really came from our case managers, who were working with families over a long term — families who were living in their cars, in shelters, or who were moving from hotel room to hotel room,” said Andy Barton, President and CEO of Catholic Charities of Central Colorado. “What our staff found, working with them from a period of six months to two years, was that there were all these (other) barriers they could overcome, but they could not get these families stable due to lack of housing.”

So, when the foundation that previously owned the building announced plans to put it on the market, Catholic Charities felt it simply could not pass up the chance to develop its own transitional housing that would be accessible to its clients.

“When we had the opportunity to purchase the Hunt Campus in 2022, the dream of developing housing to help homeless families became a reality,” Barton said. “The community needed this housing so desperately, we didn’t feel like we had the luxury of waiting around on it.”

Nonetheless, it was not immediately clear how the 100-year-old property could be transformed into liveable space. Located at 601 S. Institute in the Hillside neighborhood of Colorado Springs, the building had a lot of historical charm but also had high ceilings and large rooms that weren’t necessarily conducive to modern, energy-efficient housing units. That’s when Colarelli Construction stepped in with creative solutions, Barton recalled.

“Vince Colarelli and his team came in early in this process and played a role in determining the feasibility of converting a turn-of-the-century school building into housing,” Barton said. “One of the key moments was to figure out how or if we could renovate the space while avoiding the mitigation of asbestos. What we determined was that, with these big rooms and high ceilings, you can build within the space and there’s very little demolition that had to take place.”

Over the next two and a half years, the building was gradually transformed to 24 one-, two- and three-bedroom units spread over two floors. A ribbon cutting and grand opening took place Aug. 20, and residents began moving into the new apartments in early September.

As much time and effort as Catholic Charities has put into constructing the housing units, it is always with an eye on helping families get to a point where they can move out and into their own permanent housing, Barton said.

“The families pay 30 percent of their income as rent,” Barton said. “It makes a huge difference when we can talk to a landlord and say, ‘We’ve been working with this family for 18 months; they’ve been paying their rent on time and they’re ready to move into an apartment.”

For more information on the Hunt Family Campus and how you can help, visit https://www.ccharitiescc.org/hunt-family-housing-capital-campaign/.