Grand Junction’s “Build for Zero” initiative

Grand Junction’s Homeless Coalition synergizes with non-profit Community Solutions to implement Grand Junction’s Build for Zero initiative.

By Will Locasio, Arts & Entertainment Editor Photos by Summer Fredlund

Grand Junction’s Coalition for the Homeless meets once a month for their update and development session at the Mesa County Library. The meeting takes place on the third Thursday of every month and usually a specific organization within the Coalition for the Homeless is given the opportunity to update the group on what they’ve been working on to help the chronically homeless population. 

Presenting at the April 20th meeting was Community Solutions, a non-profit organization pushing the “Build for Zero” initiative in Grand Junction and other cities experiencing chronic homelessness in Colorado. Build for Zero is a new phrase that is centered around building and establishing enough services and affordable housing to make significant strides in decreasing the homeless population in Grand Junction. 

Community Solutions emphasized that an incredibly important aspect of making Build for Zero work in a community is keeping a diligent watch over the unhoused population to make sure that more people are being housed and taken off the streets per month than new victims of homelessness arriving in the streets. Community Solutions established a way to keep track of the “inflow,” of unhoused people in Grand Junction, those who add to the current population, and are trying to set up a consistent and efficient system to house those that need it at a higher rate than per month than the inflow to the streets. Community Solutions data from other towns in Colorado showed that Build for Zero has proved to be effective at establishing this ratio of inflow and outflow from the streets. 

According to Community Solutions, in 105 communities, the Build for Zero initiative has housed over 158,000 individuals throughout the state of Colorado. “Functional zero,” is another phrase that Community Solutions used to define their solution to house more people per month than are entering homelessness. A major effort is also being put into ending veteran homelessness across Colorado. According to Community Solutions, veterans face a diverse set of difficult issues after coming back from service, including physical health and conditions such as PTSD.  

Community Solutions considers homelessness a fixable problem, but it will not be an easy, linear, or hasty fix. Through their system of keeping homeless people documented by name in their organization log, they can keep real time track of the results of our Build For Zero efforts to see if they are working towards a healthier and safer community. 

The Grand Junction housing authority will reconvene on May 18^th.