A mission platform
Williams Compass
Built from lived experience. Driven by dignity.Designed to help people find their way.
Williams Compass is a mission platform by William Lodge, created to turn lived experience with homelessness into practical help, community resources, and technology that helps people find their next step — and to build a clearer, more accurate public understanding of what homelessness actually looks like.
Flagship project
Field Compass
Field Compass helps someone answer one urgent question: where can I actually go right now? Instead of an overwhelming list, it asks a few plain-language questions and points toward a shelter, food source, clinic, or service — with the intake rules explained plainly, built for people experiencing homelessness, case workers, and outreach teams alike.
Community resources
Find help in your community
Williams Compass maintains region-specific resource sites for Colorado. Each one is a separate, focused destination — not a single crowded directory.
Denver
Denver-focused resource information — shelter, food, hygiene, transportation, and documents — organized for the city.
Visit homelessdenver.com ↗Boulder
Boulder-area resource information using the same verified-resource approach as Denver, built for the local system.
Visit homelessboulder.com ↗Colorado
Statewide resource information for people and communities across Colorado, beyond Denver and Boulder.
Visit homelesscolorado.com ↗Mobile outreach
Meeting people where they feel comfortable
Outreach doesn't always mean a desk and an appointment. It means bringing useful technology to wherever someone already is — and being honest about what's built today versus what's still ahead.
Finding community resources
Field Compass already helps point people toward shelter, food, hygiene, and other services with plain-language questions.
Vital documents & replacement processes
Help understanding how to access or replace an ID, birth certificate, or other vital document, and what each process actually requires.
Court documents & legal help
Help organizing court-related paperwork and connecting with qualified legal assistance — not legal advice itself.
Reconnecting with family
Support reconnecting with family or trusted people, only when and how the person wants that help.
Online forms & digital systems
Help navigating online forms and digital systems that are often assumed to be simple, but frequently aren't.
Understanding next steps
Plain-language guides, written from lived experience, already live in the app to help explain available services.
Research & accountability
Better information starts with lived experience
Too many decisions about homelessness get made with incomplete information — about how many people experience it, what they actually need, the barriers they run into, and the gaps in existing services. Lived experience, careful documentation, and public-interest research work together here to make that picture more accurate.
Latest
Writing & reports
Nothing has been published yet. New writing and reports will appear here as soon as they go live.
About
I learned to see people as people.
Through setbacks, instability, and limited resources, William Lodge taught himself full-stack development, AI tools, server management, and mobile workflows — all while figuring out how to survive. Williams Compass grew out of that: the belief that experience can become guidance, and a person who has been lost can still help others find their way.