Last Tuesday, nearly 100 people gathered in Boulder’s Central Park to receive food, clothing and other necessities for daily life. Feet Forward, a local nonprofit organization, has been organizing these distributions for years to support homeless people.
“Folks are accustomed to securing services in a particular spot,” Leanne Wheeler, interim executive director of Feet Forward, told Boulder Reporting Lab, referring to Central Park. “That spot has been safe.”
Other organizations also operate out of Central Park. Second Baptist Church hands out clothes, shoes and books on Tuesdays. Safe Access for Everyone (SAFE), a mutual aid group, distributes food, water and sleeping supplies from a wagon. Food Not Bombs has set up a table to distribute food. Streetscape, run by longtime advocate Jennifer Livovich, plans to host an event next week to serve food and provide peer support and housing assessments for people seeking housing, among other services.
The City of Boulder, however, has raised concerns about providers using Central Park to serve homeless people. There are signs that the city may be interested in consolidating homelessness services elsewhere, particularly at the soon-to-be-opened homeless day services center in North Boulder, about three miles from downtown. This comes after a municipal election that was dominated by the issue of homeless encampments and after high-profile incidents in Central Park. These include a man who was charged with attempted murder after driving his truck over empty sleeping bags in the park and narrowly missing people.
City officials have suggested that the distribution events do not always align with the city’s goals. For one, camping supplies and food containers provided by some providers are later collected by city encampment removal crews, officials noted in a February 2024 memo, delaying encampment removal work. Moreover, officials said that the distribution events “enable unsheltered homelessness” by creating a disincentive for people to engage with housing services, a primary goal of Boulder’s homelessness programs.
The city plans to open its day services center at the Boulder Shelter for the Homeless in North Boulder as soon as this June. The center aims to provide homeless people access to a range of basic amenities and services to help them secure housing. Officials want homelessness providers operating in Central Park to coordinate with the day services center, according to Ali Rhodes, director of Parks and Recreation. The specifics of this coordination remain to be determined. But it may include handing out flyers to direct people to the day services center.
“There is a whole network of people across the community trying to help our unhoused neighbors,” Rhodes told Boulder Reporting Lab. “How do we help streamline and get resources to support the day services center success?”
Earlier this year, the Parks and Recreation Department changed Feet Forward’s permit to operate in Central Park from a one-year permit, which it held for several years, to month to month. Rhodes suggested that one goal was to introduce new terms and conditions to ensure coordination with the day services center.
Separately, the city recently declined a permit application from Streetscape, stating that it was incomplete and recommending that the organization “collaborate directly with Housing and Human Services,” the city department overseeing homelessness services, according to an email shared with Boulder Reporting Lab.
Livovich, the founder and executive director of Streetscape who previously founded Feet Forward, said she has obtained permits to host similar events in the park in the past. She described the new permitting challenges as creating “layers of unnecessary detours” that have “hindered my ability to carry out my mission.”
Perhaps more than anything, these changes to how the city issues permits have generated confusion and uncertainty, leading to conjecture about what might be happening. During last week’s Boulder City Council meeting, Councilmember Lauren Folkerts said she heard that nonprofits are having difficulty getting permits to operate in Central Park. She requested that city officials report back with more information about “what is going on there and why.”
Rhodes told Boulder Reporting Lab that the department has not decided to
stop issuing permits for providers operating out of the park.
“Our intention was not to create uncertainty. It was to create room for whatever the path forward looks like,” Rhodes said regarding the changes to permitting procedures. “There is no intention of not issuing permits.”
Rhodes said Feet Forward has been a good partner with the city. She acknowledged the value of providing services in Central Park and “meeting people where they are,” which is often downtown and not necessarily in North Boulder.
The day services center came at the request of the Boulder City Council in January 2022. It is intended to be a place where people can get food, take showers, pick up mail and store belongings in a secure locker. Additionally, people may be able to sign up for benefits and services that help them get into housing. The city’s community court program, which helps people resolve low-level municipal citations in exchange for engaging with service providers, is expected to operate out of the day services center. Previously, officials from the community court regularly attended Feet Forward’s Tuesday afternoon events in Central Park.
Which local service providers will operate out of the day services center remains to be seen. Some organizations may be reluctant due to its location three miles from downtown, even though the city has said it will subsidize free buses to get there.
Livovich said this means some organizations will seek to continue operating out of Central Park, with or without a permit.
“We’ll be out there next Friday,” she said. “It’s critical. You have to have a consistent presence. You have to be reliable.”
“Meeting people where they are,” the question to Ali is this: where are they, CP or NB?
Rhodes told Boulder Reporting Lab that the department has “not decided to stop issuing permits for providers operating out of the park.” That’s not true. What’s left unsaid by any city representative is their primary goal: get the problem out of downtown and Central Park – it’s so unsightly. The problem will now be on the backs those of us who live or run small businesses in North Boulder, including the many who live in affordable housing, which has also been clustered up north.
I understand trying to make concerted efforts to increase engagement for a day services center at a location that already presents a multitude of barriers. I also understand that over 2 million dollars was allocated towards the day service center for its first year of operation and that’s a hell of a lot of money to shell out, so the pressure is on for some to do everything they possibly can to make sure the program yields successful outcomes. Hence, the addition of more free RTD busses. Free bus passes distributed by the shelter outreach team. This article mentions that the day service essential will post the community Court. That’s a terrific program and opportunity for people to engage with but do you really think they’re going to draw oodles and oodles of people to the north side? As the article states, the community court is already going and joining programming at Central Park because that’s where people are. Some of the services in central park, including my upcoming event, are connected to housing services, so the statement about services in the park deterring individuals from accessing services that lead to housing, it’s completely false. We do on-site housing assessments and if we ever had any treatment, we’d be referring people there.
So glad Ali Rhodes cleared that up! “Our intention was not to create uncertainty. It was to create room for whatever the path forward looks like…”
Curious exactly what city officials said that “enable unsheltered homelessness” by creating a disincentive for people to engage with housing services, a primary goal of Boulder’s homelessness programs.”?
Any organization I’ve been involved in, including Streetscape, is connected to our CoC, Metro Denver Homeless Initiative, and a wide range of other homeless and housing efforts and have the capability of directly getting people into active housing plans.
I seem to recall some previous confusion around this from a few working in the sector we seemed to think that we were doing nothing more than passing out some burrito with a smile.
Thanks for the article.
“Folks are accustomed to securing services in a particular spot,” Leanne Wheeler, interim executive director of Feet Forward, told Boulder Reporting Lab, referring to Central Park. “That spot has been safe.” …high-profile incidents in Central Park. These include a man who was charged with attempted murder after driving his truck over empty sleeping bags in the park and narrowly missing people.
Perhaps more than anything, these changes to how the city issues permits have generated confusion and uncertainty.
…Councilmember Lauren Folkerts said she heard that nonprofits are having difficulty getting permits to operate in Central Park.”
Yet: “Rhodes told Boulder Reporting Lab that the department has NOT decided to stop issuing permits for providers operating out of the park.”
Rhodes: “There is no intention of not issuing permits.”
Separately, the city recently declined a permit application from Streetscape (Jen Livovich) …” diverting them to HHS. Hmmm… Sounds like confusion to me.
Reminds me of when the placement of the Homeless Shelter was debated between Broadway/Baseline and NB. Mark Russin changed his vote 2 wks. after he had voted for Broadway/Baseline in the swing vote at City Council. Suburban homeless center. I don’t know how those work.