Morgridge Family Foundation Donates $200,000 for Montrose Domestic Violence Housing

“There is an urgent need for a long-term safety net,” said Chantelle Bainbridge, a Victims Advocate for the Seventh Judicial District’s Domestic Violence Task Force. “We are incredibly grateful to the Morgridge Family Foundation for recognizing this critical community gap and providing funding to bring this sanctuary to life.”

That sanctuary is San Juan Landing. It’s a planned 10-unit housing development in Montrose designed to keep domestic violence victims, their families, and yes, their pets, off the street. The Morgridge Family Foundation just dropped $200,000 into the pot. It’s a solid chunk of change, but it’s not the whole pie. The total fundraising goal sits at $2.2 million.

Let’s do the math. $200,000 covers roughly nine percent of the total cost. It’s a start. It’s a down payment on stability. But if you’re waiting for the foundation to foot the entire bill, you’re going to be waiting a while. The press release explicitly states that Morgridge is challenging local businesses and stakeholders to match their investment. They want the community to pull its weight.

Carrie Morgridge, CEO and Co-Founder of the foundation, didn’t just write a check because it looked good on paper. She talked to the police. She listened to officers in the district who told her a grim reality: police can remove a woman from an abusive home for the weekend, but by Monday morning, she often has to return to the exact same environment. That’s not a solution. That’s a revolving door.

John and Carrie Morgridg believed that revolving door was unacceptable. So they’re investing in CASA of the Seventh JD, the organization leading the charge on this housing push. This isn’t their first rodeo with CASA either. Carlton Mason, the Executive Director, noted that their relationship goes back to 2017, when John and Carrie helped fund First Place on Second Street. That project houses young adults aged 18 to 24 emancipating from foster care or at risk of homelessness. It’s a different demographic, but it’s the same logic: secure housing prevents the slide into deeper crisis.

San Juan Landing aims to solve a specific, often overlooked barrier to escape: the pets. Victims frequently delay leaving abusive relationships because they fear for their children or their dogs, and finding pet-friendly housing in a pinch is a nightmare. This project includes secure fencing and on-site programming. It’s not just four walls and a roof. It’s a controlled environment.

Melissa Hall, Chair of the Seventh JD DVTF, called the donation a step closer to building a “much-needed solution.” That’s polite language for “we needed this money to keep the lights on.” The project is currently in the fundraising phase. It’s not breaking ground next week. It’s not opening its doors in six months. It’s a multi-year play that requires matching funds from local businesses to unlock the full potential of the Morgridge investment.

For context, Montrose is a mid-sized city. A $2.2 million housing project for ten units means each unit effectively costs $220,000 to build or acquire and outfit. That’s tight. That’s aggressive. It assumes land is already secured or cheap, and it assumes construction costs haven’t spiked since the last time they ran the numbers. If those assumptions hold, it’s efficient. If they don’t, the $200,000 donation becomes a smaller slice of a much larger, more expensive pie.

The immediate impact? Less time spent in temporary shelters or doubling up with relatives. More time spent in a secure location with the resources to heal. The financial impact on locals? It’s a private donation, so your property taxes aren’t jumping to cover this specific $200,000. But the pressure is now on local businesses to match that investment. If they don’t, the timeline stretches. If they do, we get a permanent fixture for victims who can’t wait another weekend to go back to the chaos.

The Morgridge Family Foundation is betting that the community will catch up to their vision. The question isn’t whether the money is there. It’s whether the rest of Montrose will open its wallet to match it.