Tim Harty, The Business Times

April 15 gets circled on most calendars as the annual deadline to file taxes for individuals and many businesses.

In Grand Junction next year, April 15 will be marked by a few downtown business owners for a celebration as they say farewell to a neighbor they didn’t like much: the HomewardBound of the Grand Valley Resource Center at 261 Ute Ave.

Complaints by business owners about the homeless population served by the center were growing in frequency, and the Grand Junction City Council responded during a meeting on Nov. 23. It voted to terminate the lease at that location, effective April 15, 2025, a year earlier than originally scheduled. Then, the discussion turned to searching for a new location.

Downtown business owners who were interviewed for this story know there’s a need for the services homeless people receive at the HomewardBound Resource Center, which opened in January 2024. And they think many of the people who go there for those services are good people.

But there’s also an element that is unseemly and sometimes criminal and dangerous. And that’s to whom the nearby business owners want to bid adieu.

Gone, they hope, are the days of some homeless people:

• Creating encampments on downtown streets, especially during the ongoing road construction on Ute and Pitkin avenues. Steve Reimer, who co-owns four downtown hotels with his brother Kevin, said some guests can see from their rooms the homeless encampments that are just a few blocks away.
• Trespassing on property of businesses and individuals. Van’s Car Wash owner Ben Van Dyke said he has called police several times to have trespassers removed, and one time a homeless person climbed on the hood of an employee’s pickup and was screaming at the employee inside.
• Accosting customers in business parking lots or employees inside business buildings. That includes a couple instances of people being threatened with knives, according to Grand Junction City Council member Cody Kennedy, who blogged about it on Oct. 31 (go online to: codyforgj.com/blogs/f/the-struggle-is-real).
• Using or selling illegal drugs.
• Vandalizing business property or leaving behind trash, including human waste, on business premises.

Jeremy Scheetz, exulted ruler of Grand Junction’s Elks Lodge, said the Elks had to install security cameras because of the property damage that was being done. “We’ve had three broken windows,” he said. “For one, someone through a beer growler through it.”

Kennedy said there’s a need for the resource center and its altruism, but selecting 261 Ute Ave. was a poor choice.

“It’s absolutely not the right place for it,” he said. “It’s a really bad place for it, actually. Between two busy roads, right next to a lot of businesses, I mean, it’s just created a lot of problems.

“And I’m not saying that they haven’t served a lot of people or done a lot of good. Except that with that, you have to acknowledge that they have brought a lot of challenges to the local businesses, and people are not feeling safe.”

The unsafe element has been of utmost concern for Steve Reimer as the presence of homeless people nearby has been noticed by hotel guests, some of whom leave negative reviews online about the hotel because they felt unsafe in the parking lot or while walking nearby streets.

Employee safety has to be considered, too, as Reimer explained employees working at the hotel front desk have to determine quickly whether a person is a guest or someone who shouldn’t be in the hotel.

“And then at that point they have to, if they figure it’s going to be a problem, confront that person, ask them if they’re a guest, and if they’re not, deal with the consequences of having interaction,” he said. “And sometimes those interactions can get pretty aggressive pretty quickly. Sometimes they are very benign, and the person turns around and walks away and goes out of the hotel. But it’s a continuing problem, and it’s frightening for some of our staff. It’s occasionally dangerous.”

As a result, Reimer added, “For the first time in our history, and that history goes back 24 years now having at least one hotel downtown, we’ve hired private security to be in our hotels from about 6 p.m. to a little after midnight. That’s usually when most of this has happened, and it’s a time when we have less staff on hand to deal with those issues.”

The hope for Reimer and other nearby business owners is in about four months they won’t have to deal with those issues anymore.

But someone else will, because the Resource Center needs a place to operate.

“Ultimately,” Kennedy wrote in an email, “we need a location that people can safely gather without causing such a negative impact on businesses and residences.”

DOWNTOWN AND HOMEWARDBOUND ISSUES

TWO THINGS CAN BE TRUE

Grand Junction City Councilman Cody Kennedy said he draws criticism from some supporters of the HomewardBound Resource Center when he points out problems associated with the center and the homeless people it helps. Kennedy said those supporters are right about all of the good things the resource center does, but that doesn’t mean he’s wrong.

“Two things can be true at the same time, right?” he said. “One is that: Yes, there are people that need help that are dealing with serious mental-health issues, that have addiction issues, that have had other hardships that are beyond their control in their life.

“And there can be a serious criminal element as well. When we talk about the amount of people that were smoking meth in broad daylight in their courtyard, that happened. Like, you can’t argue. That literally happened. The police department saw 50 violations in three dates, right? This was in the resource center’s courtyard. They went in there … they could have taken 16 to jail that day. They only took eight. But it was a bad deal.

“But at the same time, they put out 100,000 pounds worth of food over the last year, and there’s been other good things they’ve done.”

CALLING THE COPS

From the time the Resource Center opened its doors at 261 Ute Ave. in January 2024 through November, there were 201 calls for police service to its address, according to police records requested by The Business Times.

The most calls for police in a month through September had been 22, occurring twice (April and August). Then came October, when the calls to the Resource Center increased to 30. Then, November topped that with 46 calls for service.

Residing at 305 Ute Ave., Van’s Car Wash is a next-door neighbor of the Resource Center. Police records show there were nine calls for service to 305 Ute Ave. in 2023. Through November this year, there have been 33 calls for service to the address. None of the calls were for trespassing last year; 13 have been for trespassing this year.

DO THEY REALLY MEAN IT?

When the Grand Junction City Council decided its lease at 261 Ute Ave. will end April 15, 2025, a year earlier than the lease originally was scheduled to end, Jeremy Scheetz, exulted ruler of the Grand Junction Elks Lodge, felt relief tempered by hesitation.

“They’re looking for a brick-and-mortar building,” he said. “What happens if they find one in March, but it’s not move-in ready? Are they gonna keep the resource center open (downtown) till it’s ready? Or is it a hard date, even if we don’t find something, April 15?

“So, it’s a relief that they’ve finally come to a decision on it, but there’s also a lot of hesitation with us and the downtown business owners as to if that’s really gonna happen.”

COMPLIMENTARY BREAKFAST, ANYONE?

The most common interaction with homeless people that Steve Reimer has seen at the four hotels he co-owns in downtown Grand Junction is trespassing.

“We get a lot more people that aren’t hotel guests trying to access our hotels,” he said, “especially at night, but even during the day, too, whether it’s trying for whatever reason: to get out from the cold; or in the summertime get out of the heat; or to utilize bathrooms; or we have complimentary breakfasts in all four of our hotels, to come in there and try to act like guests and get breakfast.”