Grand Junction’s largest homeless services provider will close one of its shelter locations in the coming months, eliminating a facility that had housed 140 guests per night.
HomewardBound of the Grand Valley, earlier this month, announced that its North Avenue shelter no longer had sufficient funding to remain open on weekends. The news came the same weekend that Grand Junction experienced a significant rainstorm. In light of that, the nonprofit announced a campaign to raise $150,000 to restore services.
In a release today, HomewardBound announced it had reached that fundraising goal and would restore weekend service, but only until Jan. 5.
“In early 2026, HomewardBound will vacate the North Avenue Emergency Shelter and consolidate services into the Pathways Family Shelter. The Pathways building, opened in 2019, was designed specifically for shelter operations and can house 100 individuals with the ability to temporarily flex up in capacity to accommodate individuals on the coldest nights of the year,” the release said, adding “once the North Avenue building is vacated, it will be made available for lease or sale in 2026.”
HomewardBound points to general budget concerns as the reason for the change.
“Over the past nine months, HomewardBound has been facing a changing funding landscape as Federal funds have been scarce, State funding was reduced given the budget crisis, and private foundations and donors have been overwhelmed by requests or have shifted their focus away from shelter operations,” the release said. “It is anticipated that these trends will continue into 2026.”
Grand Junction has more than 700 unhoused residents according to its most recent point-in-time count. In Mesa County as a whole, that number is estimated to be closer to 2,300 individuals in need of shelter.
Grand Junction Mayor Cody Kennedy said he has been meeting with HomewardBound representatives regularly about the pending changes. His hope is that a solution can be found for the rest of the cold season ahead of a shift in strategy.
“My hope would be that we would stretch that service out a little longer so that we're not closing it in the coldest time of the year,” Kennedy said, though he acknowledged that it would ultimately be the service provider’s call.
While Kennedy’s short-term concern is for the winter months, he said he would like to see greater collaboration between the city and county on unhoused efforts moving forward. Grand Junction has provided millions of dollars in recent years to work on unhoused services. That included standing up a downtown resource center operated in part by HomewardBound. The resource center closed earlier this year.
Though the Grand Junction City Council has not taken up the issue yet, Kennedy said he would like to explore a partnership with Mesa County Public Health, wherein the city might direct funds to the county to disburse to housing efforts across the region.
“What if the city just really got in line with the county and supported the Department of Public Health with the funding that we've been trying to kind of dole out to various organizations and said, ‘Hey, let's work together with the county and maybe we reach out to Fruita and Palisade and we work as more of a comprehensive Grand Valley-wide effort to do the best we can with what we have,’” Kennedy said.
HomewardBound of the Grand Valley said the North Avenue shelter will resume weekend operations on Nov. 7 and will operate 7 days a week through Jan. 5. It will then consolidate its services to its Pathways Family Shelter.
