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With many teenagers needing to escape abusive or negligent homes, one facility in Roswell has provided a refuge for youngsters needing a safe place to live for more than 40 years.

According to Assurance Home for Children Executive Director Ron Malone, the idea for the home began after the Chaves County Boys Home, which housed delinquent boys, closed in 1975.

"It just didn't have a whole lot of community support," Malone said. "But there were a lot of people in Roswell who knew that there was some need."

Assurance Home was incorporated that same year, he said. But it took four years before they had a facility that could accept children.

Malone, who has been with the organization since it was founded, said first they had to determine what type of facility was needed.

"What we found out is that children who were abused and neglected or mistreated were really susceptible to becoming involved in law enforcement, or just involved with having unsuccessful lives, or just not doing much with their lives," Malone said.

The group decided to open a home for abused and neglected kids.

After four years of raising money and gathering resources, the group opened a home in 1979 on the former Walker Air Force Base in the old terminal building.

"That was an awful building," Malone said, "but we were able to lease that building from the Air Force for just $1 a year."

He said the building was built to be a temporary building and was never meant to be a permanent structure.

After the first winter at that location, which cost $1,200 a month to heat, the home's board decided that it could probably find another place and pay less than what they were paying in heating bills.

They looked at different properties and found a farm house on East Eighteenth Street that fit their needs.

"When we bought this property, it was just a little farmhouse," Malone said. "(It) had three acres of land, and we were thrilled to death to have this."

He said one attraction of the property was that while it is inside city limits, it feels like it's in a country setting.

From a 2,000-square-foot adobe farm house, it has been transformed into a more than 6,500-square-foot home, with outbuildings including a library, a therapeutic office, a chapel, apartments for transitional living and more, set amongst tranquil gardens, ball courts and livestock pens.

"We have seven bedrooms and seven bathrooms," Malone said. "We have a pool room and a TV room and a living room, and of course, the kitchen and our dining room."

But many teens arriving at the facility need more than just buildings to overcome the trauma associated with coming from an unsettled environment, so an environment filled with artwork and beauty has been created with the intention of helping the children heal and feel hope.

"We have kids who, for whatever reason, they just don't have the families," Malone said.

Many of the kids that come to the home have been abandoned or are homeless and have experienced a lot of trauma leading to anger and trust issues, he said.

"When children come here, they realize this place is different," Malone said.

"Most of the young people who come here, they're just like anybody else, they want people to love them and care about them, and once they find that we truly do love them and care about them, they seem to thrive and do really well," he said.

Malone stressed that none of the children who come to the facility are there because they have done something wrong.

In addition to offering a safe and stable environment, Assurance Home is considered a therapeutic home, with licensed therapists on staff.

Staff must be on hand at the home for 24 hours a day, Malone said.

He said the staff currently consists of 23 employees who are taking care of 18 teenage children and young adults.

"Our ultimate goal is just to help kids grow up to be good adults and someday, good parents," he said. "We hope that by living here, they'll learn how to care for each other and have relationships that are nurturing and caring, and that's what helps make them good parents in the future."

Malone said there are many people who are responsible for the success of the program.

"We have a local board of directors, and they're made up of community leaders that are more than just community leaders, but people who have really big hearts and who really care a lot about what happens to the young people," he said.

The home is financed through government contracts and private donations.

"When you look around our home, everything we have has been given to us," Malone said. "We have beautiful art. We have antiques. We have really nice furniture."

"We just rely on kindness for our existence," he said.