Carl Barnes has lived outside before. The 50-year-old described having to find an “incognito” place to sleep every night. Even though Grand Junction has had a fairly mild winter, it can still get very cold.
“You get down and out and in the dumps, and it's hard to pick yourself back up and move on,” Barnes said. Though he likes to tell jokes, he talked about his situation in a matter-of-fact way, the same way he described how a chainsaw accident left his eye permanently weepy and bloodshot.
He stood next to the temporary shelter bed where he’s slept the last three months. It’s the bottom bunk, just like he wanted, in a simple dorm with white brick walls shared with other unhoused men. At full capacity, it can serve about 150 people.
On Saturday morning, the 100 or so people sleeping there now will have to move out. HomewardBound of the Grand Valley, which runs the Grand Junction shelter on North Avenue, said it doesn’t have the money to keep it going. Barnes is one of many residents worried about where they’ll end up.
“I'd like to at least be treated like a human or at least not like a second-class citizen,” he said. “I was born here.”
Mesa County has the largest population of unhoused people on the Western Slope, more than 2,400 according to the latest estimate by the Mesa County Collaboration for the Unhoused, which brings together nonprofits and the local housing authority. Every year, hundreds of these residents would spend at least some time in the shelter on North Avenue. It’s the largest overnight shelter between Denver and Salt Lake City, and one of two shelters in town run by HomewardBound.
By this weekend, there will only be one, after all those services are consolidated into the Pathways Family Shelter on 29 Rd.
HomewardBound’s chief operating officer, Chris Masters, keeps thinking of all the people who will now be forced outside.
“I'm going through this grieving process,” said Masters, who’s almost always flashing a huge smile. But not today. “Man, this is tough to talk about,” he said, choking up a bit.
After an emotional pause, Masters described how dangerous it is to be unhoused. Last year, 39 people living outside died in Mesa County. Without the services at the shelter, Masters is worried that number could climb.
“I'm not okay with there not being a shelter. I'm not okay with people dying. I'm not okay with people being hungry. I'm not okay with people not having access to medical care,” he said, “and I need this community to not be okay with that as well.”
Solving homelessness an ongoing challenge in Grand Junction
The question is what more the community can do. Months ago, when HomewardBound announced the shelter would close, local donations poured in, helping the shelter to stay open through most of the winter. But a bleak funding picture remains. Federal and state money has been slashed, and Grand Junction Mayor Cody Kennedy said the city has filled the gap as much as it can.
“It's easy sometimes to think that the city has a money printer in the back room and that we can solve all the problems, and we really can't,” he said.
He pointed to the nearly $500,000 the city gave to HomewardBound last year, including $185,000 that helped keep the North Avenue shelter operational during the winter. This year, they’re spreading the money out among many other aid organizations.
Kennedy said that’s because people need more help than just shelter and food.
He said they need things like health care, drug rehabilitation, employment and permanent housing to move out of homelessness. “What's happened hasn't solved the problem,” Kennedy said. “How can we do something different?”
He wants to see measurable results. Kennedy initially supported a temporary resource center for unhoused people that was a joint effort between the city, HomewardBound and the United Way. It was meant to be a one-stop shop for unhoused residents, giving them access to support to get them back on their feet. But after opening downtown in 2024, it ended up closing a year early after complaints from nearby residents and businesses.
Nowhere to go
The closure of HomewardBound’s shelter this weekend will leave some people out in the cold — and not just people. HomewardBound is also closing its nine backyard tiny homes, where guests can sleep alongside their pets. Dubbed Homeward Hounds, the small structures right outside the shelter are only about four years old.
They’re where a 7-month-old canine resident named Rick has been staying alongside his 64-year-old human, Greg Forrest.
Forrest was clear that there was no way he would have entered a shelter without his beloved Cane Corso.
“That’s my boy. That’s my son,” he said, patting Rick’s black-and-white fur. “It’s the only child I’ve got.”
Like many people in the shelter, Forrest never thought he’d be unhoused. Then a divorce and a heart attack derailed his life.
“Never asked for help in my life. I'm a grown man. I could do it myself, but sometimes we have to ask for help,” he said.
Forrest is grateful for the leg up the shelter gave him, and said that he and Rick will soon be traveling back to his home state of Iowa. For future unhoused people, however, there will be extremely limited shelter beds in Grand Junction.
HomewardBound’s other facility, its Pathways shelter, will cater to the area’s most vulnerable residents, including families with children, people with complex medical issues, veterans and LGBTQ+ people.
That’s sobering for Masters. Not only does he work for HomewardBound. He used to be one of the unhoused people who lived in its closing shelter. The support he received there was invaluable.
“It is a tough thing because if it were not for North Avenue Shelter, I might not be talking to you today,” he said.
While Masters believes the shelter's closing was inevitable, that doesn’t make it any less painful.
