Montrose City Manager Bill Bell spoke last week at the Montrose Pavilion as part of the city’s annual State of the City program, which featured presentations from several city leaders highlighting progress and priorities for the year ahead.
Bell’s portion of the program focused on community pride, housing partnerships and the city’s evolving approach to homelessness.
“We choose to live here, why we choose to raise our kids here, why we choose to have this be the place that we want to either start our career or finish our career depending where you’re at in the timeline of life,” Bell said. “But my answer to everyone is the people of Montrose is what truly makes it special.”
Throughout his remarks, Bell emphasized the importance of maintaining civility and keeping city government apolitical amid national political division.
“There’s a lot of angst out in the federal government right now across the country right now,” Bell said. “The city of Montrose is apolitical. We are that way based on our charter… based on our code of ordinances… based on the statutory requirements from the state of Colorado.”
He said that culture requires effort from both staff and elected officials.
“It’s not always easy to do the right thing or to stand up for the right thing, but I’m truly proud of those accomplishments we’ve made in that regard over the last couple of years,” Bell said.
Housing Focus
Bell said housing remains one of the city’s top priorities, a focus that dates back to a 2016 community survey.
“We knew from our household community survey in 2016 that we needed to focus on housing,” he said.
He stressed that no single type of housing will solve Montrose’s needs.
“It’s really important to know that having a variety of housing is so important,” Bell said. “You can’t just build single-family homes, you can’t just build multi-family apartments… not one thing is the solution for our community.”
Since 2023, the city has secured or helped obtain more than $17 million in grant funding for housing, land acquisition, infrastructure and preservation of affordable housing, according to presentation slides. That includes:
• $10,050,000 in Proposition 123 funding
• $2,000,000 from the Energy Impact Assistance Fund
• $5,000,000 in CDBG funding for housing preservatin
• $176,000 in state planning grants
Bell also pointed to Base Camp Apartments as a milestone.
“The first multi-family apartment complex greater than 10 units was Base Camp Apartments. In the history of Montrose, that was a huge deal for us,” he said.
He said multifamily housing is important for young workers and retirees alike.
“We have a lot of young people entering the housing market that don’t have money saved up to buy a home and we want them as workers in our community,” Bell said.
Addressing Homelessness
Bell acknowledged that in the past, the city avoided taking a direct role in homelessness issues.
“For years… we as a city honestly buried our head in the sand,” he said. “We tried to avoid getting into the world of the unhoused… because we didn’t see it as our responsibility as a small rural city.”
That approach has changed.
He highlighted the city’s unhoused roundtable, which met monthly over the past year and included former unhoused individuals and service providers.
“What I found most valuable in those meetings was the civility… the ease of dialogue and the communication that we had,” Bell said.
The city is now considering creating a task force and evaluating options for a potential facility.
“We now have some action plan steps that we need to take,” Bell said.
He also emphasized that government processes take time.
“Problems that have arisen over decades — you can’t really solve those problems in a day or a week or just even a year,” he said.
Partnership with Shepherd’s Hand
Bell singled out nonprofit The Shepherd’s Hand as a key partner in addressing homelessness and community needs.
“One of the biggest things I’m proud of from that process was the partnership with Shepherd’s Hand,” Bell said.
“They’ve played a huge part in serving the unhoused community and not just unhoused community but just people in need in general.”
He encouraged residents to support local nonprofits.
“All of these projects we talk about takes time, takes resources, takes money, and takes people,” Bell said. “Please ask questions on how you can get involved.”
Justin Tubbs is the Montrose Business Times editor. He can be reached by email at justin@montrosebusinesstimes.com or by phone at 970-765-0915 or mobile at 254-246-2260.
