PERSPECTIVE: Compassion is not enough
Homelessness. The problem is simply too big and too tragic to ignore. You can see it almost anywhere you go in Colorado’s urban areas: tents, makeshift shelters, and people struggling to find cover from the elements. We have watched our city and our state grapple with the challenge of homelessness for too long.
The issue dominated the Denver mayor’s race and it continues to rank as one of the top issues for voters across the region. It’s no wonder. Homelessness is a heartbreaking problem that is entangled with a host of other public policy challenges, including substance abuse, mental health, housing and crime.
For years, we have demonstrated our commitment and our compassion to finding solutions with little to no success. Among major metropolitan areas, the Denver metro region now has the nation’s 10th-highest number of people who are experiencing homelessness.
To solve the issue, we need more than compassion. We need facts and data. We need to know what is working and what is not. A recent study by the Common Sense Institute (CSI) takes a deep dive into the growing numbers, rising costs, and a range of impacts that provide a very clear picture of the challenge.
We are a compassionate state. I have witnessed the generosity of people around Colorado on many occasions. Whether it’s time or money, almost all of us have participated in food drives, coat drives, or just given a stranger money on a downtown street corner. Compassion is not enough. If we are going to solve the problem, we must take a hard look at the data and understand what is working and what is not. We care too much about our state to let this issue go unsolved.
Exhibit A: Denver
The Denver metro region is not the only area in the country witnessing a troubling spike in the number of unhoused individuals on streets and in shelters, but it stands out as one of the worst.
Certainly homelessness is a nationwide issue. There are nearly enough individuals experiencing homelessness in the U.S. to fill the city of Baltimore — 582,000 overall.
Nationally, that number didn’t rise between 2021 and 2022. However, in the Denver metro area, the story is much different. The number of unhoused persons is higher and rising faster than elsewhere, according to the most recent analysis from CSI.
The number of individuals experiencing homelessness in the Denver metro area has spiked in the last half decade. According to the most recent Point in Time Survey from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the number of individuals experiencing homelessness grew 21% from 2021 to 2022, then ballooned another 36% from 2022 to 2023.
It would be comforting to blame Denver area woes on a national trend, but it simply isn’t the case. Among the 342 non-statewide areas tracked by HUD, the Denver metro area’s homeless numbers grew by the 15th-highest total between 2016 and 2022. The Denver metro area has the nation’s 10th-highest number of people who are experiencing homelessness among HUD’s major city Continuum of Care areas.
While it is a metro-wide issue, it’s also very specific to Denver proper. Denver alone accounted for 64% of the metro’s homeless in 2023 while housing less than a quarter of its general population.
It would be comforting, too, to blame the issue on a lack of spending. Over the last three years, however, Colorado has spent upwards of $2 billion on homelessness according to a CSI accounting, concentrated largely in the Denver metro region.
A search for solutions
Mayors and city councils are struggling with this issue. They clearly understand the humanitarian concerns as well as those of residents and businesses. Denver Mayor Mike Johnston offered homelessness mitigation to voters as one of his main campaign platforms.
His proposed solutions focus largely on “housing first” policies — that is, the solution to homelessness is to move individuals into fully-subsidized homes, sometimes complete with wraparound services for substance abuse, job placement, mental health, etc.
Those programs are expensive. Denver will spend at least $635 million on associated programs and services this year.
According to CSI’s accounting, current Denver metro spending includes:
$254 million – Denver Health
$225 million – Denver nonprofit spending
$58 million – New budgeted federal spending
$50 million – New budgeted HOST spending
$44 million – New budgeted state spending
Noble as the intent is, the accompanying spending simply cannot last. Much of it will dry up in the next few years, coming as it does from one-time federal or state funding sources.
Tragic findings
As spending has risen, so too have the worst kinds of metrics regarding people experiencing homelessness.
CSI’s findings are tragic. There are over 1,300 children without homes in the metro area. One out of every seven of the people experiencing homelessness here are under 18.
“Homeless” doesn’t always mean without a roof. It also includes those staying in shelters or supportive housing who do not have a permanent address of their own. More and more, however, the share of the growing number is sleeping on the street. This is the highly visible “unsheltered” segment of the unhoused population — those urban campers on sidewalks and beneath overpasses and in parks and highway turnoffs and rail yards. One third of the metro area’s unhoused are unsheltered.
Ideally, services catch those who are on their way into homelessness before life on the street can set in, but the data shows they are staying that way for longer and longer. The “chronically homeless” segment of those experiencing homelessness are individuals who, for whatever reason, are not using services as a springboard into self-sufficiency.
Gruesome kinds of death are also a big part of the picture. There were 226 deaths among those experiencing homelessness in Denver last year alone. Two-thirds die of addictions — either drugs or alcohol. Overdose is the single largest cause of deaths, with overdose rates several times higher than the general population. One in 10 of these deaths are the result of beatings, stabbings and shootings.
Are programs working?
The hazard to the public’s safety and welfare are clear, but it’s unclear how well our programs and services are working — or if people experiencing homelessness are using them to their fullest.
Though some have been growing, Housing Inventory Counts show that none of the Denver metro area’s housing offerings for individuals experiencing homelessness have ever fully participated in the region’s data management efforts through the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS), with two exceptions.
Participation rates for emergency shelters rose from 2016 to 2022. They fell for transitional housing, safe-haven housing, and permanent supportive housing.
A recent media report found about half the unhoused people who used a sanctioned campsite went back to homelessness afterward. Prior reporting from the city showed that, even in the midst of the pandemic in 2020, there remained sufficient shelter capacity.
Economic impact
There is an economic ripple effect in play here. It isn’t only tax dollars in the mix.
Individuals experiencing homelessness are stressing the city’s health-care landscape. Denver Health spent $254 million on care for unhoused people in 2022 — $65 million more than in the year before. It’s likely to continue spending more. Reports show individuals experiencing homelessness are using more services per person now than three years ago.
The broader urban economy takes a hit as well. Denver’s Triangle Bar closed its doors entirely this year over safety concerns due to homelessness. I doubt it’s the only business having those problems. Downtown Denver has still not recovered the foot traffic it had in 2019. It would be quite a coincidence if all that lost traffic were simply an effect of remote work.
We all want the same plan for our cities. We want health, vibrancy, opportunity, safety, cleanliness and order. Homelessness is not the only thing preventing that would-be portrait, but clearly, it’s playing an outsized role and needs to be addressed quickly and decisively.
Make no mistake, I don’t think nonprofits or cities are dragging their feet or failing to rise to the occasion. City Hall and homelessness nonprofits are filled with diligent, kind-hearted people seeking ideas and activity.
It isn’t enough to simply address the problem, though. We have to end it.
I have had the opportunity to visit cities and shelters that are making a difference. Consider Haven for Hope in San Antonio, Texas. Since opening its doors, Haven for Hope has secured permanent housing for 4,000 people, most of whom — 90% — have remained housed with the help of support services provided by the program and its partners. With a $20 million annual budget, the effort provides shelter and wrap-around services to around 1,700 people daily on a 22-acre campus. The homeless population in downtown San Antonio has fallen by 80%. This is success.
The goal of our services and programs shouldn’t be to offer them to individuals experiencing homelessness. The goal should be to help them exit homelessness entirely — to become self-sufficient, with stable jobs and stable housing.
It starts with the facts. We need a very thorough accounting of what we spend, how it’s used, and if it’s moving the dial toward success. I believe if we start with the facts, we can solve this challenge and help more people.
Dave Davia is the CEO of Rocky Mountain Mechanical Contractors Association and a fifth-generation Coloradan. He is vice president of the Board of Directors for the Common Sense Institute.