What this is
We lease ordinary three- and four-bedroom houses in ordinary neighborhoods. You get a bedroom, a key, and a case manager who works for you — not a mat on a floor and a line at six in the morning.
You can stay up to eighteen months. We expect most people will need about eleven. You leave when you have somewhere of your own to go, and nobody is discharged to the street — that is written into how we operate, not something we say.
Our founder is not a veteran and did not serve. He is a civilian, and you should hear that from us rather than from someone else. The military experience this work needs sits with the veterans who govern this organization — the board is veteran-majority by bylaw — and with the veterans who will staff the houses.
Who it is for
This program exists for the veterans other programs screen out. If you have been told no before, read this list before you decide it is not for you.
If you are a woman veteran who has survived abuse of any kind, including military sexual trauma: the first house we open is yours. Four bedrooms, four beds, every room single occupancy, and a door you lock yourself. Thirty percent of everything this organization spends is reserved for women veterans, permanently, by our own bylaws.
How to get in
There is no address on this page and no door to walk up to. That is deliberate, and it is not about keeping people out.
Our women's houses shelter people who left someone. Publishing an address would put them at risk, so we publish none — not here, not on a sign, not in a grant application. And because we will never have one staff member meet a stranger alone, every first meeting is arranged in advance at a partner's office, with two people present.
Mt. Carmel Veterans Service Center, the VA, the Colorado Springs Vet Center, Volunteers of America, or the El Paso County Veterans Service Office. If you are already working with a caseworker anywhere, tell them you want to be referred to Second Watch.
If you do not have a caseworker, email us. We will find the right agency, make the introduction, and stay in it — you should not have to navigate five organizations to get one bed.
Two of us, in a private room, with time set aside. You will not be asked to tell the worst thing that ever happened to you in order to qualify. Intake happens over the first seventy-two hours, not in one sitting.
Same day where a bed is open and safety requires it. Nobody waits on the street overnight for a paperwork appointment.
If tonight is the problem
We are transitional housing, which means a bed in weeks, not in hours. If you are in crisis right now, or you need somewhere to sleep tonight, call one of these instead. There is no wrong door and no cost.
Free and confidential, twenty-four hours a day. You do not have to be enrolled in VA care, and you do not have to be suicidal, to call the Veterans Crisis Line. Any discharge status. It is answered by people who will not make you explain yourself first.
What we ask of you
Against residents, staff, neighbors or visitors. This is the one rule with no graduated response behind it.
Any weapon, any person, any time. We help arrange lawful off-site storage rather than making it your problem.
A housing plan within fourteen days, reviewed monthly. Weekly sessions at first, less often as you go. Missing one triggers a phone call, not a penalty.
Bedrooms are private. Nobody enters anyone else's — including staff, except in a medical emergency.
Set against your income and collected once you have one. Every dollar is returned to you when you exit — it is a savings mechanism for your deposit, not rent.
Use in your own room triggers a conversation with a clinician, not discipline. Dealing anywhere, and use in common areas, are different and are not permitted.
For referral partners
If you are a caseworker, a discharge planner, a chaplain, a VSO, or anyone who ends a conversation by telling a veteran there is nowhere to send them — this is written for you.
Documented history of violence, active warrants, known weapons access, and your own safety notes. We do not schedule a first meeting without a completed screening record. This protects your staff as much as ours.
We would rather coordinate with the case manager a veteran already trusts than restart them from zero. Co-case-management is the default, not the exception.
We house; you continue what you already do well — benefits, counseling, employment, legal. We are not trying to become your program, and we will not duplicate a service you already provide.
Our staff drive residents to appointments and walk in with them. When someone needs what you have, they arrive with a person, not a phone number.
Our budget funds certification for two of our own de-escalation instructors. Once they are certified, that training is available to partner staff at no cost. It is the least we can offer organizations we are asking a great deal from.
If we have no bed, you will hear that quickly and with a suggestion attached. A referral that disappears into silence costs you a veteran's trust, and we know it.
We are seeking referral agreements now, ahead of our first house opening — none is signed yet. If your organization wants to be one of the first, write to us. A first conversation costs nothing and we will bring a draft.
Reaching us
Tell us who you are, whether you are a veteran looking for housing or someone making a referral, and how to reach you. If you are not sure we are the right fit, write anyway — we will tell you honestly, and if the answer is no we will tell you where to go instead.
Phone line
(719) 428-6710 · Mail: 3578 Hartsel Dr Ste E #355, Colorado Springs, CO 80920 · [WEBSITE]