William Sweeney

I began working as a volunteer, visiting patients on the back wards of the
huge “mental hospitals” that existed in the late Fifties. As the transition
to the modern system of community residence and community-based services
began, I helped to found the St. Francis Center in Denver (perhaps he first
purpose-built day center in the nation) and was a volunteer and board member
there until about 20 years ago. I have volunteered for a variety of Boulder
agencies, including The Boulder Shelter for the Homeless and St. Benedict’s
Health and Healing, as well having many roles in non-profit governance,
given by backgrounds in law, finance, accounting, and administration. I
helped to found BOHO, a sheltering agency in Boulder staffed entirely by
persons of lived-experience, and directed it for several years until it was
merged into the Bridge House, where I continue in a strategic role. In my
professional life, I had jobs in just about every section of a
high-technology or communications company, and retired from that about
twenty years ago. I am a licensed attorney. I am a founding member of the
Colorado Safe Parking Initiative, and I also work with the Food Security
Network, Metro Denver Homeless Initiative, the Homelessness, Housing
Precarity, and Disaster Network, and Haven Ridge.