Chasing The Cure

The Home originally sheltered only orphaned or neglected children of tuberculosis victims, but it soon expanded its mission to help combat delinquency among Denver’s Jewish children. An arrangement was made with Judge Ben B. Lindsey to send first offenders to the home rather than to a detention center. (Judge Lindsey created the Colorado Juvenile Court system.) The Home also began taking in orphaned and needy children from other cities. The aim of the Home’s founders was to provide a cultured, stimulating, and Jewish environment for the children, as close to family life as possible.

The Home expanded and became a national organization in the 1920s with an office in New York City in addition to the office in Denver. A cottage plan was adopted, where children were housed in small group homes to recreate a more family like structure. The Sheltering Home provided not only food and shelter, but high level educational resources. According to William Cohen, the longtime superintendent, although the children followed tightly regulated schedules with a host of extra-curricular activities, were assigned chores, and were encouraged to develop good study habits, “from its inception the Home was characterized by the absence of institutionalism of any kind.”