WESTMINSTER, Colo. — For the past five years, the 17th Judicial District Attorney's Office has been searching for a way to bring resources and support to domestic violence survivors and their families under one roof.
Finally, the office has found a temporary home for its Family Justice Center inside a suite of offices at the Adams County Human Services Center in Westminster — a space officials believe has the power to save lives.
“This is an important milestone. We've got a lot more work to do, but this, today's milestone, is worthy of celebration," said 17th Judicial District Attorney Brian Mason, who represents both Adams and Broomfield counties. “The need to serve victims of domestic violence exists now. It existed yesterday. It existed five years ago. And so, we wanted to find, first, a place where we could open a Family Justice Center as soon as possible in a temporary location.”
Mason announced the update to a room filled with people, many wearing small purple ribbons as a sign of domestic violence awareness.
Mason said when he first became district attorney, he started the Special Victims Unit, which focuses exclusively on domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking cases. Next, he created the Domestic Violence High-Risk Team, which reviews reports from law enforcement about domestic violence and searches for what contributed to cases becoming deadly.
“The Domestic Violence High-Risk Team is already a success story in this community. And back in 2021 and 2022, we sought a grant through our federal government," Mason told the crowd. “We succeeded, for the first time, in getting what, for us, was a historic grant of $2 million to fund the Domestic Violence High-Risk Team and to serve victims of domestic violence here in the 17th Judicial District.”
Mason said he felt more had to be done.
“The most dangerous time in the life of a victim of domestic violence is when she is trying to get out — that's when the most domestic violence homicides occur. And yet, right now, we put up countless barriers to victims and survivors of domestic violence for them to get the services that they need," Mason said. “A hypothetical victim of domestic violence in Commerce City has to travel 300 miles to get the services that she needs. That alone is an enormous barrier for victims of domestic violence to get help, and it doesn't include the hours that they have to spend at all the places that they go.”
Child care, housing assistance, legal services, counseling, and safety planning are all examples of the needs someone trapped in the cycle of domestic violence may want to access. That's where the Family Justice Center steps in to help, according to Mason.
"Every single jurisdiction with a Family Justice Center has seen their domestic violence homicides go down, and there actually aren't that many of them," Mason said. "There are about 150 nationwide, and in a country of 300 million people, that's not a lot."
According to Mason, this Family Justice Center would be the third in Colorado. There are similar facilities at the Rose Andom Center in Denver and PorchLight in Lakewood.
Roughly two years ago, Mason said several stakeholders and those who have worked on other Family Justice Centers gathered for a listening session to evaluate the needs of the community. Five months later, a strategic plan was developed with two parts: the first, a temporary space for the center, and the second, a permanent home for the Family Justice Center.
“For the last nine months, more than nine months, we've been searching for a space where we can open up a Family Justice Center right away, albeit temporarily, but a place where we can actually start providing services under one roof to victims and survivors of families of domestic violence. And we have found that space thanks to the generosity of the Adams County commissioners and Adams County government. They have donated to this project, to our Family Justice Center Project," Mason said. “Since that generous donation — I'm going to call it a donation — we've been working for several months on a design, because the suite of offices that they have graciously given us wasn't being used for this purpose. And so, we've been working on a design, and we've had multiple stakeholders involved in that process."
Denver7 asked Mason why it has taken five years for the temporary space to be identified.
"It's a pretty big project to address domestic violence in a thorough and comprehensive manner, and this community has had a need for a facility like a Family Justice Center for a long time," Mason said. "We're now in a place where we can deliver on that."
Mason said the Family Justice Center can reside within the Human Services Center for three to five years, according to the agreement with Adams County. The goal is to open the Family Justice Center to the public next year, likely by late summer or early fall.
"I think we are going to outgrow this space very, very quickly. It's a wonderful space, but it's small, and we have thousands of victims of domestic violence every single year. So when we outgrow it, we will need a bigger space," Mason said. “The need exists right now, so we didn't want to wait for the process of planning and designing and building a brick and mortar building from scratch to open. And that's why we're going to open in this space first, with the long-term goal of having a permanent brick and mortar building.”
The space will undergo design changes and reconstruction thanks to funding from Adams County, Mason said.
“This room here right now is a conference room, but this will be redesigned and reconfigured and refurnished as a welcoming, safe place for children of domestic violence," Mason said, pointing to the room.
Crime
Domestic violence deaths in Colorado rose by 24% in 2024, report shows
A report released last week by the Colorado Attorney General’s Office showed a 24% increase in domestic violence deaths in 2024 compared to 2023.
While the report found that domestic violence-related fatalities are more common in rural counties, it determined Broomfield County had the highest number of domestic violence deaths per 100,000 residents when it comes to urban counties. Adams County was in the middle of the list of urban counties when looking at the same metric.
In 2024, all eight collateral victims of domestic violence were children, ranging in age from three months to seven years old. The report also found the risk to children has "significantly increased over the years."
"One of my first memories as a child is witnessing domestic violence where my dad was abusing my mom," said Adams County Commissioner Emma Pinter, who attended the announcement about the Family Justice Center. "It is one of the first things I remember happening in our household, and it led to a lot of instability, and then ultimately, our family broke up. And my mom and her two children, me and my sister, experienced homelessness.”
Pinter said she personally experienced a lack of resources.
“We did not have access to anything like a Family Justice Center," Pinter explained. "We didn't have access to extra food, counseling, doctors' visits, attorneys, none of that. My mom was completely on her own."
A Family Justice Center would have been pivotal, Pinter said, to ensure her mother knew she was not alone in her journey.
“To have somebody help her navigate that, so she wasn't alone, would have been transformative for our family, and possibly could have given us some of the stability that we never had," said Pinter.
Pinter believes her story is one of many that prove a Family Justice Center can be a solution to an incredibly complex problem.
“All of those worries that parents carry, or individuals carry, when they're leaving a violent situation can be addressed in one location," said Pinter. "This is going to take a community effort to make sure that we continue to have funding at a time when the federal government is shutting down and funding is scarce. It'll be a community effort, but this will save lives."
According to Mason, future funding will come from "as many sources as possible." He explained the Family Justice Center will be funded by both public and government dollars, adding that the 17th Judicial District will have to search for funding sources.
If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, help is available through Violence Free Colorado or the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233.
