2 weeks Ago
By Michael Block Fighting homelessness can sometimes seem like pushing a big rock up a steep hill. So when there’s good news, it’s great to point it out and build on it. Last month, the 2024 Point-in-Time (PiT) count of homeless individuals came out.
This is a national exercise done every year in January so that cities and states can see not just how they’re doing, but how the reasons for homelessness change over time, and potential solutions as well. In 2024, Boulder County was the only large Front Range homeless population that shrank from 2023 (by 13%). You may have noticed this anecdotally, in the visibility of homeless encampments around the city and county.
So, what’s going on? A few things. For one, Boulder city and county, Longmont and Lafayette, together with nonprofit partners like All Roads (we changed our name from Boulder Shelter for the Homeless this summer), have been focusing relentlessly on getting people OFF the streets. Just a couple weeks before the PiT was conducted in January, we partnered with Element Properties to open a new permanent supportive housing building for formerly homeless residents of Boulder called Bluebird.
The building is 100% dedicated to ex-homeless adults, to put their lives back together in the safety of a real home. That was 40 people in one shot. We are also doing the same thing in smaller chunks in other places.
In 2023, just All Roads (one of several housing-focused nonprofits in Boulder County) placed or maintained over 300 formerly homeless adults in permanent housing. This October we and Element plan on opening a new, 55-apartment building in Longmont, and hope to get that 300 number up close to 400 by mid-2025. All of these projects, supported by City Councils, staff and County Commissioners, and generously funded by private donors like you as well, are part of the hard-earned wisdom in the homelessness response space called Housing First.
While it has unfortunately become somewhat of a political football lately, the tenets of Housing First are really just common sense. Think about the most vexing, complex, challenging issue facing you in your life. Now imagine trying to address it effectively without a home, without a place to sleep safely, without a doctor and supportive family members.
This is how homeless people have to overcome their challenges — whether they be mental or physical health, substance abuse, or job-related — and often it’s all but impossible. So our motto is housing then treatment. And it works very well, as we’re seeing now here and have seen in other cities.
You might have also been aware that All Roads opened a Day Services center at our building on North Broadway this summer. That, too, is part of our and the city’s commitment to Housing First. The more people we engage in a relaxed, stress-free atmosphere during the working day, the more people we can get on the road to a home of their own.
I’m happy to report early reports are very positive. We have up to 100 people a day at the Shelter, taking advantage of services offered by our nonprofit and city partners, and we’re seeing more and more people we didn’t know before, a very positive sign. No one in the homeless response world is fooling themselves that any of this is easy.
There is still a huge disconnect between the need for housing all over the country, and units in the pipeline. So those most vulnerable, who are most unlucky, are the ones who end up without a chair — or a bed — when the music stops. I’m proud of our city and county that we run toward those people not away, treat them as our neighbors and seek to fix the problem rather than shuffle it away, as so many communities do.
So let’s take a moment to celebrate the progress made. We have a lot farther to go, but this awful problem can be solved. We know how, and person by person, we’re getting there.
Michael Block is the CEO of All Roads (formerly Boulder Shelter for the Homeless)..
