Each year, the Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame casts light on the historical women of our state, recognizing and preserving the history of their accomplishments.

It is an honor that one of our founding members, Libby Bortz, was among the 17 trailblazing women inducted into the Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame during the annual Gala on March 15 in downtown Denver.

Libby helped establish the Littleton Housing Authority (now called South Metro Housing Options) in 1971 and served on our board for 47 years. In 1994, SMHO built Libby Bortz Assisted Living, which bears her name in honor of her dedicated service. This was the first assisted living center in the U.S. to be built by a public housing authority. And her list of accomplishments continues in the areas of mental health, education, housing, criminal justice, and civil rights.

Libby identified an educated heart as the motivator behind much of her work in Littleton. “The opportunity to have decent housing, to live in a community where you feel you can be productive and safe, to have an education that allows you to certainly earn a decent living as well as giving you some satisfaction and pride — I think that’s what having an educated heart means,” said Libby Bortz.

Libby Bortz, now 88, grew up in a small town in New York and attended the University of Michigan School of Public Health. After that she moved to Littleton, CO and earned a master’s degree in social work from the University of Denver and began practicing as a clinical therapist. In this role, she saw many female clients and started to connect the dots between mental health, education, and housing.

“Two-thirds of all people who came into the mental health center at that time were women,” she shared. “And they were women who, due to divorce, desertion, separation, or debt, were on their own.” So she developed courses and programs for women at Arapahoe Community College and helped ACC open a women’s resource center.

She also sat on the Littleton Council for Human Relations, a group that worked towards integration in Littleton and brought Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to Littleton in 1963.

Read the full story by Nina Joss in the Littleton Independent HERE.

Picture taken by Nina Joss, CO Community Media, and used with permission. Quotes also provided by Nina Joss.