Brandon Leuallen, The Business Times

The City of Grand Junction established a three-year funding program in 2025 to help local organizations expand homelessness prevention, stabilization, shelter and housing services.

The request for proposals allowed organizations to seek up to $500,000 and submit budgets covering as many as three years. Funding remains subject to annual City Council approval, available city resources and demonstrated program performance.

According to a presentation by City of Grand Junction Housing Manager Ashley Chambers during an Aug. 3 City Council workshop, nine organizations submitted requests totaling $3.65 million. Three proposals were selected for interviews, and City Council approved a combined $425,000 for the recipients on Nov. 19, 2025.

Grand Valley Catholic Outreach received $75,000, Hilltop Community Resources received $250,000, and the Joseph Center received $100,000. The organizations are seeking a combined $475,000 for 2027 after reporting expanded shelter capacity, eviction-prevention efforts and progress moving people into permanent housing.

Hilltop, working in partnership with United Way of Mesa County, is requesting $300,000 for the second year. Hilltop reported serving 229 people between January and mid-July through its Latimer House and Connections programs.

The organization expanded its young-adult shelter from five bedrooms to 11, providing capacity for between 11 and 33 people, depending on how the rooms are used. It also established a five-room bridge shelter for people who have secured permanent housing but must wait before moving in.

The bridge shelter allows participants to remain sheltered and continue receiving case management rather than return to homelessness while waiting for housing to become available.

Hilltop’s Latimer House served 126 survivors of domestic violence and their children. Eleven adults and 10 children moved from the safe house into permanent housing during the reporting period.

The Connections program served 103 people. Among those who left the program, 21 entered permanent housing, and 13 moved into transitional or temporary housing.

United Way’s Outreach and Service Coordinator reached 315 unduplicated clients between January and mid-July. The program connected five people with permanent housing, 13 with employment, workforce training or public benefits, and 47 with medical, mental-health or nutrition services.

The program sends staff into parks and encampments to provide limited supplies and connect people with established community services.

Council member Cody Kennedy questioned whether city funding should focus more directly on addiction treatment, behavioral-health services and permanent housing rather than delivering supplies to encampments.

United Way Executive Director Cassidy Lujan said water and other basic supplies are used as an initial point of contact to help people become stable enough to engage with service providers.

“If someone is worried about where their next water source is going to come from, they’re not going to be looking to schedule an appointment,” Lujan said. “The main goal of our programming is to reduce barriers to housing.”

Grand Valley Catholic Outreach assisted 48 households containing 108 people between February and June. The organization reported that 92 percent remained housed one month after receiving assistance.

Catholic Outreach Financial Aid Director Scott Montgomery said the renters served by the program spend an average of 92 percent of their income on rent. To qualify, households must earn no more than 80 percent of the area median income, face an imminent risk of homelessness and have some source of income that could allow them to remain housed after receiving assistance.

“Our eviction-prevention program prevents those already housed from joining the ranks of the homeless,” Montgomery said.

He said Catholic Outreach reviews each applicant’s income and expenses and helps households identify ways to increase income or reduce costs. The program only intervenes in evictions involving unpaid rent. Montgomery said it is generally too late to stop an eviction once a judge has ruled for the landlord and issued a writ of restitution.

Catholic Outreach’s $75,000 request for 2027 would be used entirely for direct rental payments to landlords, with no funding allocated for personnel or operating expenses.

The Joseph Center is requesting another $100,000 to support its expanded Golden Girls transitional-housing program, Family Center, day services, workforce readiness, child care, case management and behavioral-health-recovery services.

The Golden Girls program increased from four beds to 16 after the organization purchased two buildings with federal pandemic-relief funding previously awarded by the city.

Joseph Center founder and Executive Director Mona Highline said 48 women have entered the program since October 2025, with 23 moving into permanent housing. Eight obtained housing without rental subsidies.

The Family Center served 26 families during its first year. Six moved into permanent housing.  Highline highlighted that five of the six did not require housing subsidies.

Highline said the Joseph Center also has spent more than $30,000 this year preventing evictions and helping people cover their first month’s rent. The organization received more than 50 requests for eviction assistance during each of the previous two months and is increasingly working with residents in their 80s who face displacement.

HomewardBound update

HomewardBound of the Grand Valley provided a separate update on its 112-bed Pathways Family Shelter after closing its North Avenue shelter in February. Its funding request is separate from the city’s three-year request for proposals program.

HomewardBound Board Chair Brittany Bear and Chief Operating Officer Chris Masters said a separate $185,000 city allocation for 2025-26 allowed the organization to keep the North Avenue shelter open through February, consolidate operations at its 29 Road shelter and implement a new service model.

The organization reduced its annual operating budget from $2.6 million to $1.7 million and staffing to 18.5 full-time-equivalent positions.

Between March and June, Pathways recorded 8,416 occupied bed nights, with nightly occupancy ranging from 60 to 90 people. Case managers completed work plans for 95 percent of clients and submitted more than 225 housing applications or referrals. HomewardBound reported placing 57 clients into housing, its highest housing-placement rate in the organization’s history.

HomewardBound is requesting $225,000 from Grand Junction for 2026-27 and $260,000 for 2027-28. It is also requesting contributions from Fruita, Palisade, De Beque and Mesa County.

The organization wants local governments within Mesa County to collectively provide approximately 20 percent of shelter-operating costs within two years while it raises the remaining 80 percent from private donations, foundations, partnerships and other sources.

Kennedy said committing the city to a percentage of HomewardBound’s operating expenses as a funding model would be a “nonstarter” for him. He said city funding should be strategically directed toward programs that produce measurable progress toward permanent housing rather than for organizations to use simply for operations not directly tied to measurable progress.

Council member Ben Van Dyke questioned why Grand Junction should assume such a large share of the cost when HomewardBound describes Pathways as the largest shelter between Denver and Salt Lake City, serving a 12-county region.

Council member Scott Beilfuss said he was impressed by HomewardBound’s transition to its new operating model and encouraged other council members to tour the Pathways facility to see its work firsthand.

Bear said HomewardBound has begun requesting financial support from other local governments within Mesa County, and she argued that people generally do not move to Grand Junction specifically for shelter services.

“What we’ve heard is they’re coming here for jobs, and the jobs just don’t work out, or the jobs still can’t get them to first and last month’s rent,” Bear said.

Bear added that nearby Bureau of Land Management property provides places to camp that may be more accessible than those in some surrounding communities.

Mayor Laurel Lutz reminded council members that HomewardBound’s presentation was scheduled as an operational update, not a formal funding request.

The Aug. 3 workshop was a preliminary step in the funding process for 2027. Council did not approve any allocations and will consider the requests during upcoming budget discussions before adopting the 2027 city budget later this year.