The Colorado Coalition for the Homeless may get an additional $3 million from the city in 2024 to expand its outreach services. The contract aims to support Mayor Mike Johnston's homelessness efforts, with the goal of connecting with people on the streets more than 11,000 times, securing 330 households long-term housing and getting 670 households into non-congregate shelter.
City Council passed the contract out of the Safety, Housing, Education and Homelessness committee Wednesday. The full council will consider it in the next few weeks.
Under the proposal, the Coalition would work with Urban Peak, the nonprofit shelter for homeless youth, and St. Francis Center, another homeless shelter, to add seven additional full-time staff for encampment outreach, bringing that total to around 31 outreach staff. The money will come from the voter-approved Homelessness Resolution Fund, funded by a 0.25% sales tax.
Coalition Chief Communications and Public Policy Officer Cathy Alderman said that a lot of the outreach team's work involves connecting with people living on the streets who do not live in encampments, who are more likely to be youth and families. But some of that staff has focused more on encampments lately with Johnston's push to close them and move people into shelter.
"The expansion to this contract is to focus more on some of these encampments, but while we continue to find the people who are not connected to those encampment communities and are not connected to encampment providers," she said.
This contract comes after City Council voted down a different $6.4 million plan with the Coalition that would have launched a new outreach team for encampments. Councilmembers worried that contract was too costly for the scope of the work, and questioned whether the city might be duplicating services.
Wednesday's plan saw more support from Council.
"I appreciate the thinking of this contract," said Councilmember Darrell Watson, who expressed concerns about the previous plan. "I wish my sister had this collaboration when she was dealing with her mental health and addiction issues. She may not have died on the streets."
Editors' note: This article has been updated to correct Alderman's title.
