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 .