Guia de Recursos Para Personas sin Hogar

The Matthews House Partnership

The Matthews House mission is dedicated to breaking the cycle of poverty, abuse, and neglect by providing essential support and resources to youth and families in Northern Colorado. In the fall of 2025, The Matthews House was awarded a Basic Center Program grant through the Administration for Children & Families. As part of the grant, Outreach Fort Collins is excited to announce our partnership to provide dedicated street outreach services to youth ages 15 – 24. 

The grant highlights the mutual ongoing efforts to support vulnerable youth through low-barrier entry and continued wraparound care. From an Outreach perspective, this includes proactive outreach, crisis intervention, basic needs distribution, and warm handoffs to shelter as well as to other community agencies. The grant states,  “OFC provides daily, consistent face-to-face street outreach focused on connecting with youth experiencing homelessness or housing instability.  Our full-time Outreach Specialists walk the streets of Fort Collins every day, prioritizing visible, consistent presence in areas where youth and young adults are known to congregate, such as libraries, parks, transit stops, and commercial corridors. This constant engagement builds familiarity and trust with youth who may otherwise be disconnected from services.” It is through that familiarity and trust that our team can then loop in staff from The Matthews House to continue on with the deep and important work.

We are fortunate to have already had a great partnership with The Matthews House and to have successfully connected young folks to their variety of resources. This grant allows us to further that partnership with intentional efforts to streamline referrals and to be in regular conversation surrounding collective goals. Some of the referrals we’ve gotten to be part of include working with their educational liaison, Jacqui. She was able to steer several young folks on the street to different educational opportunities both at the secondary and post-secondary level(s). In addition to this, we have been able to encourage adolescents to seek shelter through The Landing. This shelter is through The Matthews House but based out of Loveland. The Landing provides individuals aged 15 – 21 trauma-informed, wraparound services including case management, educational connections, therapy, and community-building activities. There have been several instances where we were able to put a client on the phone in the moment with someone from The Landing who was then able to answer questions and provide some warmth regarding going there for shelter. Having these firsthand experiences of partnering with one another has shown us time and time again the importance of community connection when working with folks experiencing homelessness.

We are extremely grateful for this partnership and excited to see where this opportunity will lead — both for our collaboration and the young folks we meet on the street!