An experiment in criminal justice-related group living that unsettled a Grand Junction neighborhood and has Colorado lawmakers questioning a year-old housing law has quietly folded after less than six months in existence.
A nonprofit program called A Special Place shut down three homes in Grand Junction that had been operating as supportive living quarters for around 40 adults with criminal and mental health issues.
That doesn’t mean the idea of supportive criminal justice housing in neighborhood settings has gone away. A for-profit mental health provider has plans to take over A Special Place’s former homes with a promise that they will be better managed.
One of the Special Place homes had ignited controversy in a close-knit neighborhood where the residents, including retired physicians and attorneys, were shocked to discover what appeared to be a poorly regulated extension of the criminal justice system operating in a large home in their midst.
Police cars were dropping off men in shackles and handcuffs. Neighbors witnessed men smoking marijuana outside the home and found empty liquor bottles in the streets. They said some of the men stood in the front yard and yelled at neighbors.
The neighbors hadn’t been advised that the home had become a place to house men who had been found incompetent to appear in court because of mental health issues. Some were on parole or probation. Some had been moved to the home from jails.
Neighbors complained to city officials, to the Grand Junction City Council and to state legislators about what appeared to be a group home operating with no licensing.
They learned the home, with its many unrelated residents, was allowed to exist because of a change in Colorado law.
The passage of House Bill 1007 in 2024 removed limits on how many unrelated people can live together in a home as long as health and safety standards are met. It left the door open for private homes to become housing options for the criminal justice and mental health systems without requiring licenses.
The law was not drafted to help the criminal justice system. It was designed to allow college students and workers in overcrowded college and mountain towns to share housing. Previously, the limit had been four unrelated people living in a home.
“I had a feeling there would be problems with this,” said state Sen Janice Rich, R-Grand Junction, who voted against House Bill 1007. She said she plans to revisit the bill next year to avoid problems with the unintended consequences of operations like A Special Place.
Homes closed, but need for supportive housing persists
While A Special Place caused neighborhood turmoil, it was lauded by many in the Grand Valley criminal justice system.
Grand Junction Mayor Cody Kennedy, a former police officer who owns the homes, said they offered a much-needed service to fill gaps in the criminal justice system.
Kennedy rented the homes to psychiatric nurse practitioner Carrie Shahbahrami. Shahbahrami operates a psychiatric counseling service, LifeSpan Psychiatry, that works closely with law enforcement and the Mesa County court system. LifeSpan provided counselling services for A Special Place residents.
Twenty-first Judicial District Attorney Dan Rubenstein said the homes gave his office an alternative to keeping people in the county jail who didn’t need to be there — those with behavioral and addiction issues who didn’t pose a threat in the community.
He said the loss of A Special Place creates “definitely more of a challenge” for his office.
Shahbahrami, who has worked for years in concert with the Mesa County criminal justice system, said she has seen people languishing in jail because they had nowhere else to go. That problem was heightened last year when the only inpatient psychiatric hospital, West Springs, shut down. There was also a change in leadership at the Mesa County Behavioral Health Department.
“There were a lot of changes and a lot of uncertainty. We were trying to handle the crisis as we could,” Shahbahrami said.
The homes were overseen on a daily basis by what Shabahrami termed “peer-driven supervision.”
The homes were presented as places for sober living
A handful of those former peer supervisors and residents of the Special Place homes volunteered to talk to The Colorado Sun about what went on in the homes, including the most controversial residence at 448 Bookcliff Drive. They said that the neighbors’ impressions of the home’s dysfunction were accurate.
They requested that their names not be used, as it could impact future employment or participation in the mental health sector in Mesa County.
A former worker at 448 Bookcliff said she oversaw 15 men at the home on her own. She said oversight of the home by Shahbahrami and other LifeSpan nurses and counselors was very lax. There were rules such as a 10 p.m. curfew and drug screenings, but they were not enforced.
She said that psychiatric medications were left in an unlocked office; there were no consequences for using illegal drugs or for fighting.
She said some of the men and women in the three homes sincerely wanted to improve their lives, but they were stymied by the poor operation of the homes.
“You had individuals there who didn’t care about the rules,” she said. “They basically were just looking for a place to sleep, get high, and sometimes get drunk.”
Another worker said he was not certified to dispense powerful antipsychotic drugs and had no training in life-saving measures. He said he and most of the others hired to oversee the homes had previously suffered from addictions and mental health problems. Colorado allows for this type of oversight by peer counselors.
One worker said the operators of A Special Place did not seem interested in hearing the workers’ concerns. She said serious behavioral and drug problems with some of the residents did not appear to be reported to probation or parole officers.
She said workers were told not to give information to neighbors who were expressing concerns about what was taking place at the Bookcliff house.
“I personally wouldn’t want my grandkids around that house,” she said.
A previous resident at Bookcliff said a home that was presented to him as a sober living alternative after he had been hospitalized at an inpatient mental health facility turned out to be a place where drug use was open.
Some residents, he said, were dangerously mentally ill and could easily be triggered into violent behavior.
He called life inside the Bookcliff home “a free-for-all.”
Shahbahrami said those placed in the homes were vetted by local law enforcement agencies.
Shahbahrami pointed out that neighbors’ worries about having criminal offenders in their midst were misplaced because “there is substance abuse on every block in Grand Junction.” Those living in Special Place homes at least had some supervision, she said.
The homes were financed through donations and payments from Medicaid and Medicare for those residents who had coverage. Some of the residents paid varying amounts of rent.
She said the homes did not have to go through a licensure process that would have triggered notification of neighbors because the state has no such requirements for what she termed “supportive housing.”
Homes classified as group homes where care is provided for residents who can’t take care of their daily needs, must be licensed. The home at 448 Bookcliff was previously licensed as a group home for a small number of men with disabilities. The owners lived on the premises and provided the care for more than a decade. There were no complaints from neighbors.
One stop in the continuum of care
Ava Health, the entity that plans to take over A Special Place’s closed homes this month, is promising better management of the homes.
“I think we know what the problem with those houses was, and we can avoid those problems,” Ava Health chief operating officer Ian Gershman said.
Gershman said Ava will manage medications and will require participation in structured activities for residents, including regular therapy. Gershman said his company is in the process of being licensed through Colorado’s Behavioral Health Administration.
“The houses will operate in a safe and effective way,” Gershman said.
Gershman vowed to meet with neighbors and let them know how Ava plans to operate the homes. Neighbors said they have not yet been contacted.
Gershman said the residential homes will be one part of an Ava continuum of care that will include an inpatient facility that Ava plans to open at a former spa and yoga retreat on the Grand Mesa.
Gershman said long-term goals for Ava include buying more houses that can serve as supportive housing and purchasing businesses, including a coffee shop and a car wash where residents in supportive homes can work.
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