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United Way of Mesa County presents programs, homelessness outreach and ALICE data to Fruita council
Summary
United Way of Mesa County updated the Fruita City Council on its Community Impact Fund grants, Book Exchange, volunteer platform and homelessness outreach, and offered to work with the city on local needs; presenters highlighted ALICE data showing many households at financial risk.
United Way of Mesa County representatives on presented an overview of the nonprofit’s local programs and outreach to the Fruita City Council, describing grantmaking, volunteer services, childhood book access and a three-pronged homelessness effort that includes a hotline, mobile outreach and a service hub.
"My name is Kira Seppi. I'm the community impact and outreach manager with United Way of Mesa County," Seppi said, opening the presentation. She described the nonprofit’s four impact pillars — youth opportunity, healthy communities, financial security and community resiliency — and stressed that the local United Way is governed and funded locally: "We share the United Way brand, but all decisions and funds stay here in Mesa County," she said.
Seppi said the Community Impact Fund awarded grants to just over 25 programs across 19 nonprofits in the past year. The application process uses volunteer allocation panels to vet applicants and make funding recommendations to the United Way board.
Faith Rodriguez, executive director, described three United Way impact programs: a Book Exchange network of free little libraries, a volunteer-united platform that lists local volunteer opportunities and a "United to Solve Homelessness" effort that uses community education, a homelessness hotline that deploys outreach coordinators, mobile outreach teams that visit encampments and a service hub where providers meet clients for peer services and basic health care. Rodriguez said the hotline routes calls to an outreach coordinator who can deploy to sites: "If there's somebody unhoused that's either in mental health crisis or disturbing a business, he goes there right then and there and helps the situation," she said.
Seppi and Rodriguez discussed ALICE (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed) households, saying United Way and other Colorado United Ways worked on a study showing a high number of households at risk of losing housing. Seppi cited a past figure from United Way outreach that in an earlier report "85% of Mesa County residents were two paychecks away from losing their home," and said the United Way can break ALICE data down by ZIP code for local planning. Seppi said the organization will release point-in-time homeless count data when federal HUD systems resume normal operations following a government shutdown; she said preliminary counts are available but not yet public.
Councilors asked operational and geographic questions about the service hub, hotline, mobile outreach and whether United Way could provide ZIP-code-level ALICE data for Fruita. Seppi said ALICE data can be broken down by ZIP code and that the organization could provide maps and briefing materials. Rodriguez said the United Way has a partner service hub in Grand Junction that operates by appointment and is used to schedule clients for in-person services identified by outreach staff.
United Way staff invited the city to collaborate on community needs and to share materials in the city's communications channels. Seppi and Rodriguez asked councilors to share potential community needs that could inform future impact programs.
No formal council action was taken; council members requested a copy of the United Way presentation slides and asked staff to circulate the materials.
