When a Community Solution Needs a Community Commitment

by Caitlin Bergeron | United Way of Weld County

I was born and raised in Greeley. Like many people who grow up here, I left for a time — and then chose to come back.

I came back because this community matters to me. I came back because Weld County has always felt like a place where neighbors show up for one another, where people work hard, care deeply, and step forward when something important needs to be done. That sense of connection is part of what makes this community special.

It is also why conversations about homelessness matter so deeply right now.

For the past seven years, the Housing Navigation Center and Shelter has served as one of Weld County’s most important community resources for individuals and families experiencing homelessness. It has become far more than a shelter. It is a centralized hub where people can access coordinated support from 16 partner agencies, connect with case management services, receive meals, take a shower, wash clothes, and begin the difficult process of rebuilding stability and dignity.

This work matters. And the need has not disappeared.

Recently, a potential partner organization that had been preparing to assume operations of the Housing Navigation Center and Shelter withdrew from negotiations due to unforeseen circumstances. While disappointing, this moment also presents our community with an opportunity to have an honest conversation about responsibility, sustainability, and what it truly means to solve complex social challenges together.

The reality is this: homelessness is not a United Way problem. It is a community problem.

And community problems require community solutions.

Across Weld County, organizations of every kind speak proudly about collaboration, community safety, compassion, prevention, and caring for our neighbors. Hospitals speak about community health. Schools speak about stability for students and families. Businesses speak about economic vitality and a safe, thriving downtown. Faith communities speak about dignity and compassion. Nonprofits speak about collective impact and partnership.

The Housing Navigation Center is where those values become action.

For seven years, United Way of Weld County has stepped into a role far beyond what most United Ways across the country are designed to do. Traditionally, United Way organizations focus on collective impact work — convening partners, identifying gaps, coordinating resources, and helping communities solve problems collaboratively. Direct operation of a shelter, however, requires intensive staffing, facility management, security coordination, fundraising, compliance oversight, and around-the-clock operational leadership.

Those responsibilities are substantial. Annual operating costs average approximately $3 million. And while United Way has been fortunate to receive support from generous Cornerstone partners, donors, and local foundations, those investments were intended to strengthen the broader mission and long-term impact work of United Way across Weld County — not to indefinitely place a lot of the operational and financial responsibility of a community-wide homelessness response onto one organization alone.

The financial realities facing nonprofits today have made that imbalance increasingly difficult to sustain. Like many organizations across our region, United Way of Weld County recently announced budget reductions, organizational restructuring, and the difficult decision to eliminate several staff positions in response to declining revenues, changing funding sources, and growing economic uncertainty. Those decisions were painful, but they also reinforce a larger truth: no single nonprofit can continue carrying community-wide challenges alone. If we expect critical services like the Housing Navigation Center and Shelter to remain available, they must be supported as shared community infrastructure.

When one organization steps in to fill a gap and ends up shouldering the operational burden of such a critical community-wide resource, sustainability becomes fragile.

The Housing Navigation Center and Shelter exist today because our community recognized that fragmented services were failing people. Instead of forcing individuals to navigate multiple agencies scattered across the county, partners came together under one roof to create a coordinated, accessible system of care. That vision has proven effective. Every day, community members walk through those doors seeking not only shelter, but connection to mental health support, housing assistance, healthcare, employment services, and pathways forward.

If we believe homelessness impacts all of us — our neighborhoods, healthcare systems, schools, businesses, first responders, and public spaces — then we must also believe all of us share responsibility for addressing it.

An investment in the Housing Navigation Center is not simply a donation to United Way. It is an investment in community coordination, public safety, housing stabilization, prevention, and human dignity. It is an investment in reducing strain on emergency rooms, law enforcement, schools, and crisis response systems. It is an investment in a more connected, functional, and compassionate Weld County.

And importantly, this is solvable.

Three million dollars is a significant operational cost for one organization to carry alone. But spread across municipalities, healthcare systems, businesses, philanthropic organizations, faith communities, and residents who care about the future of Weld County, it becomes a manageable community investment in shared infrastructure and shared outcomes.

As public systems reassess priorities, philanthropic resources become more constrained, and nonprofits face increasing financial pressures, collaboration becomes even more essential — not less. Reducing investment in prevention does not eliminate homelessness; it simply shifts the burden elsewhere, often at greater financial and human cost.

This is not a call for one organization to “fix” homelessness. No single agency can. Instead, this is a call for Weld County to decide who we want to be.

Do we want to be a community that looks away from difficult problems because they are complicated and expensive? Or do we want to be a community that recognizes caring for vulnerable neighbors is not someone else’s responsibility but a shared commitment?

A strong community is not defined by whether hardship exists. Every community faces hardships. A strong community is defined by how people respond to it together.

I want to live in a Weld County where people matter — housed or unhoused. I want to know that when our neighbors experience the hardest moments of their lives, our community refuses to look away. I want to live in a place where compassion and accountability coexist, where collaboration is more than a mission statement, and where we recognize that stability and dignity for one part of our community strengthens all of us.

If you believe Weld County should be a place where no one is left without shelter, support, or a path forward, now is the time to act. Contact United Way of Weld County to learn how you, your organization, or your community group can become part of a shared solution — through funding, partnership, advocacy, or direct involvement. This work cannot continue with good intentions alone; it requires committed partners willing to step forward together.

The question before us is not whether this resource is needed. The answer to that is visible every day.

The question is whether we, as a community, are willing to sustain it together.

A note from Publisher Blaine Howerton

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About the Author
Caitlin Bergeron serves on the Board of Directors of United Way of Weld County.

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