39.7392° N · 104.9903° W · Denver, Colorado

Field Compass

A free guide to food, shelter, health care and everyday help in Colorado, with live bus times, scooters and bike routes to get you there. In English and Spanish, with no account needed.

fieldcompass.site homelesscolorado.com

Who built it

I built Field Compass while I was homeless.

I had no help, no encouragement and no direction, because those things are not available to someone in my situation. I paid for the server myself with gig work. I wrote it in a tent and in public libraries, wherever I could find power.

It exists because the people who need this information most are the people with the least time, battery and patience to dig for it.

William Lodge, founder and sole developer

By the numbers · October 2026

5,902community resources

284Colorado cities covered

7,515RTD bus and rail stops

~8,200Veo scooters and e-bikes, live

822bike lane and trail segments

392bike parking corrals

2languages, English and Spanish

0accounts or tracking cookies required

Counts are from the live database and feeds on October 20, 2026. Vehicle counts change minute to minute.

What it does

Features

Find help

Search 5,902 resources: food, shelter, health care, mental health, benefits, ID, legal help, jobs, hygiene, recreation and more.
Pathways for people experiencing homelessness, seniors and families.
Results sorted by distance from you, on a list or a map.
Every listing shows its source and what has actually been verified. "Location verified" means the address was confirmed from official city data; hours and availability are not verified, so each listing shows how to contact the place first.
Hours, cost, eligibility, documents to bring, languages and accessibility on each listing.

Kayla, the AI guide

Ask in plain words, typed or spoken, in English or Spanish. Kayla can read answers aloud.
Answers only from real Field Compass records, with links to each one. It never makes up an address, phone number or opening time.
Knows live bus arrivals and nearby scooters, and tells people on SNAP or Medicaid about free Veo rides.
Points to 911 for danger and 988 for a mental health crisis, right away.

Getting there

Live RTD arrival predictions at the stops nearest every resource, with stop numbers.
Live RTD service alerts, detours and stop closures.
Live map of buses and trains, with direction and how full they are.
Available Veo scooters and e-bikes nearby, with price and a link to unlock in the Veo app.
Veo Access for people on SNAP or Medicaid: 60 free minutes a day, then $0.15/min with no unlock fee.
Bike lanes, protected lanes and trails by type, plus bike parking corrals.
One-tap walking, transit and bike directions.

Plans

Turn a need into a step-by-step plan, with what to bring and what to confirm first.
Works without an account. Plans stay on your phone and keep working offline.
Download or share a plan as plain text.

Community

Weather and National Weather Service alerts for Denver.
Community notices, events and plain-language guides that link to official sources.
Report a broken crosswalk button, a blocked sidewalk or an accessibility barrier.
Flag a wrong or outdated listing, with an optional photo. Location data is stripped from the photo on your phone before it uploads.
Each report gets a reference code to check its status later, no sign-in needed.

Organizations and staff

Service providers can claim and update their own listings. Every change goes back to staff review.
A staff admin panel at app.fieldcompass.site for moderating reports and verifying listings.

A real answer from Kayla

Live, October 20, 2026

"When is the next bus near me? I am at Colfax and Broadway."

Colfax & Broadway Station, stop #12850 (26 m away): 1. Route 6 to Auraria via 6th in 1 min 2. Route 15L to Union Station in 3 min 3. Route 83L to Union Station in 7 min Please note: Routes 15 and 15L are detoured due to police activity. These predictions are live and can change.

How it treats people

Design principles

Honest about what it knows

When a live feed is down, the app says so. It never shows "no alerts" when it simply can't check.

No account, no tracking

Anyone can use every core feature as a guest. No tracking cookies are used.

Built for low battery and bad signal

Small pages, compressed data and an offline mode for saved plans.

Readable for everyone

Atkinson Hyperlegible, a typeface designed for low-vision readers, large tap targets and plain language.

How it is built

Technology

Layer	What it uses
App	React 19, TypeScript, Vite 7, Tailwind CSS, Radix UI, React Router; installable web app with offline support
Maps	Leaflet with OpenStreetMap tiles
Server	Node.js 22, Hono, tRPC 11, Zod validation
Database	MariaDB with Drizzle ORM
AI guide	Zhipu GLM-4.5 Flash through the Vercel AI SDK, answering only from retrieved database records
Live feeds	RTD GTFS and GTFS-realtime (arrivals, alerts, vehicle positions), Veo GBFS, National Weather Service API
Languages	i18next with full English and Spanish dictionaries, checked by tests
Accounts	Optional email and password sign-in (scrypt hashing) for staff and organizations
Hosting	Self-managed Linux VPS paid out of pocket: OpenLiteSpeed, DirectAdmin, systemd, Let's Encrypt
Quality	73 automated tests (Vitest), TypeScript strict checks, weekly automatic data refresh
Development	One developer, working with AI coding assistants (Kimi, Claude)

Where the information comes from

Data sources

211 Colorado and Food Bank of the Rockies resource listingsstatewide
City and County of Denver Open Data: shelters, libraries, parks, restrooms, recreation, bike network, bike corralsweekly
RTD Denver schedules and live GTFS-realtime feedsevery 15–120 s
Veo shared scooters and e-bikes (Denver's licensed operator)every 60 s
National Weather Service forecasts and alertslive
City of Denver micromobility program and Veo's Denver page (Veo Access, resident pricing)reviewed Oct 2026
Links to scooter.fyi, a free independent Denver Veo map, for ride navigation and seated scooterspartner link

Field Compass is independent and is not affiliated with 211 Colorado, RTD, Veo or the City of Denver. Listings marked "Not yet verified" have not been checked by staff, so call ahead.