As Boulder faces a shortage of federal housing vouchers and a looming budget shortfall, the city has adopted a new homelessness plan that makes a clear distinction: People with long histories of homelessness in Boulder will be first in line for scarce subsidized apartments, while newcomers will be offered short-term help such as hotel rooms, bus tickets or other assistance.
The plan, released earlier this month, calls for greater investment in “diversion” programs meant to quickly get people out of homelessness without necessarily offering them a locally subsidized apartment. This could mean paying for a car repair, reconnecting someone with relatives, mediating with roommates, covering a rent deposit or providing a bus ticket out of Boulder.
“It’s a more cost-effective approach than trying to get everyone into housing in our community, which we know we can’t do,” Kurt Firnhaber, the city’s director of Housing and Human Services, told Boulder Reporting Lab in reference to diversion programs.
Boulder has set a goal of ending unsheltered homelessness by 2028. At least 140 people were counted sleeping outside this July, according to the city’s point-in-time survey. That number is slightly higher than last summer’s but below 2023 levels.
About 60% of people who complete a homelessness screening report living in Boulder County for less than a month, according to city data. The new plan, prepared by Houston-based Clutch Consulting Group, argues that many of these people will not stay in Boulder long term, making short-term support services the most practical approach.
“One of the things that we recognize is that if this individual is not from this community and is not intending to remain in this community, it doesn’t make sense to put them on a list for housing in this community,” Mandy Chapman Semple, a managing partner at Clutch Consulting Group, told councilmembers this month.
Along with short-term accommodations such as subsidized hotel rooms or micro-units, the plan directs outreach workers to be more explicit with “transient populations,” such as telling them: “You’ll have to go to a shelter, find other indoor accommodations in Boulder or head to your next destination.”
The plan also proposes centralizing food and supply distribution at the Day Services Center in North Boulder, rather than in downtown parks. The city has previously raised concerns about distributions in Central Park, though groups such as Feet Forward continue to serve dozens there each week, in part because such events are more accessible to homeless people.
Boulder’s past attempts to tailor services based on a person’s ties to the city or county have faced criticism. In 2021, the ACLU of Colorado argued the city’s practice of screening based on residency was unconstitutional. The new plan does not reinstate a residency requirement to access services, but some advocates warn some forms of diversion can be harmful if they push people back into unsafe environments.
“For clients who have left neighboring cities or states due to abuse, familial substance use, unhealthy social networks, etc., sending them back home doesn’t result in success. It leads to more harm,” Lisa Sweeney-Miran, director of Haven Ridge, which operates a local shelter, told Boulder Reporting Lab. “Similarly, for folks fleeing states where they are unsafe due to sexual identity, gender, race or pregnancy — we can’t simply deport them back to situations in which they are likely to come to significant harm and call it a job well done.”
City officials estimate Boulder would need an additional $11 million each year in the near term for services and housing to achieve its latest goal to end unsheltered homelessness. Such an investment is unlikely given the city’s projected budget shortfall for 2025, flattening sales tax revenue growth and uncertainty around federal and state funding.
At the same time, cities are struggling to secure enough federal housing vouchers for people already in the system. Looming federal cuts to Medicaid and food assistance could further strain the safety net.
“We really need to be able to hold on to the programs we have and hopefully prevent homelessness from growing in our community,” Firnhaber said. “And so that will continue to force us to really prioritize the local resources that we do have.”
First, It’ll be interesting to see how any of the components of CLUTCH five-year homeless strategic plan can even become a reality when we barely have funding to divert anyone as it is and certainly don’t have (and likely won’t have) the RAPID REHOUSING their plan rests on for most of their housing solutions. Their strategy also doesn’t account for the constant inflow of folks being diverted to Boulder from other parts of the state and country. CLUTCH offered more of an expensive set of ideas rather than an actual tangible plan (for a healthy fee paid for by the city). In my opinion, it was a wasted expenditure with lofty but impractical ideas.
If we want to reduce campers downtown, then we need to make downtown less enticing. Relocate the helping groups to less centralized locations, this includes the community court and Deacons Closet that operate out of the Municipal building every Thursday morning. Simply removing helping groups out of Central Park is all for not if we are going to allow the court and a clothing giveaway to occur across the street when we know that people tend to want to be where services are, especially new folks.
CLUTCH downplayed the drug problem among our homeless. Even our 2025 summer Point-in-Time count indicated somewhere close to 70 percent reported a disabling condition ranging from mental health to addiction to alcohol or drugs.
We have no housing vouchers and won’t, with the exception of some very limited new state vouchers that target Bluebird or Zenia PSH. In order for these to be used someone living in either of these PSH sites has to lose their housing or die for an apartment to open up, so someone on our 450 plus housing list (who qualifies: chronic homeleesss, mental health conditions, addiction, CJ involvement, ER reliance, and earn under $24,000 per year). This is why one out of two standard monthly housing case conferencing meetings has been canceled for, at least, the last five consecutive months- there’s no housing and no vouchers other than the ones from the state previously mentioned.
So, we don’t want campers camping and keep shuffling them along, have aspirations to ship 60 percent to anywhere but here but don’t have the funding to do it, have and won’t have any RAPID REHOUSING, and wonder why we’re spinning wheels.
Given that Housing First as we’ve known it is essentially dead, with federal cuts and more expected down the pike, why don’t we pivot now. Build a medical detox and a 30 to 90 day stabilization program for those that need it, which can be leveraged by the community court and DA as alternative sentencing, and invest in two-year sober transitional housing communities that are infused with mental health and recovery supports and JOB training. This would certainly benefit even the non-addicted, especially considering we don’t have adequate shelter beds and our shelter is “wet”, meaning people can come in drunk or high with supplies for their stay as long as they act right. It just strikes me that individuals experiencing homelessness who do not struggle with mental health, addiction, CJ involvement or ER reliance have gotten NO solution for years or at least until they remain homeless long enough to pick up any mix of these characteristics considered prioritizations for housing. They along with those with mental health and addiction would stand a better chance of springing back and at a new life if we actually provided a solution to more than 85 of 839 people counted in 2023.
If Kurt wants to continue to cling to housing as the only solution and diverting folks that will likely just come back and the city just wants to support moving people from Point A to B and back to A again, this city will never make a dent in homelessness, especially when more people will fall into homelessness under this federal administration.
Great response and i’d love to see this as an op-ed in the Daily Camera!
This response is spot on. I have experienced the “homeless “ car camper first hand for over 3 yrs on my easement. His nature is vindictive and entitled. He’s not changing. He actually at one point built a “campfire “ on the easement to heat his canned food. Next to hayfields. He is a grown man. Sermons to be physical capable. The walk amongst us. None with this. No porta potty. He likes the view I’m told by his touch person. No more. I don’t need to be targeted by your group.
It seems fairly evident that the whole gist of this new plan is to just divert many more people (60%). That is where the existing funding will be prioritized to provide folks a couple of months rent in a cheaper location if they agree not to come back. But without going through Coordinated Entry, there’s no way to tell if people remain stably housed or even return to Boulder. This makes no sense to me. Those who are diverted must go through Coordinated Entry.
Given that “the plan directs outreach workers to be more explicit with “transient populations, “such as telling them: “You’ll have to go to a shelter, find other indoor accommodations in Boulder or head to your next destination,” they will all just be forced into diversion because, as we know, there is no room at the shelter. There are only160 beds and people are routinely turned away due to lack of capacity. Another thing I don’t understand: where do people stay in the interim while they are being diverted? A lot of coordination and resources have to be put into this effort and that will take some time.
Also, what are these “micro units” of which they speak? Clutch gave it a brief mention in the city council meeting on the 14th – along with ideas like boarding houses or hostels to shelter the “rock climber” tourist who comes to see “all that Boulder has to offer.” That is hilarious – we are now more concerned with sheltering rock climbers coming to Boulder with nowhere to stay then we are with the actual unhoused. This micro housing idea sound a lot like the sanctioned encampment idea that some of us have been studying and promoting for a long time. However, Clutch is being very coy about this and seems to imply that this should be privately funded and built. I can’t wait to see what that could possibly involve.
One hope for Boulder under the trump administration is that LIHTC will be increased. That makes it much easier for Boulder Housing Partners to keep on building those “affordable” housing units. Unfortunately, these will not be affordable for the unhoused without vouchers so it will be interesting to see how the shelter plans to move people out of the shelter roughly twice as fast as they do now.
How does law enforcement handle identification with the unhoused, if they do not have a legal ID on them? If there is no legal ID provided, then do local police go off of remembering that unhoused person?
Yes – on diverting the ‘just visiting’ unhoused. Yes on preventing confusion about where to find services – at All Roads – where folks can eat, get clothing, & access to services. When the Friendship food truck wants to feed folks on Sundays – do so at All Roads, staff would probably appreciate someone else cooking for one night. And Yes on ensuring that services provided emphasize mental health support and addiction counseling.
Could someone please share how the unhoused are identified, & especially for how long they’ve been unhoused & in Boulder?
It makes sense to provide support to those who have been here the longest & also who have the strongest likelihood of progressing from being unhoused to paying for their own home, though per the well informed comments above, that does not seem to be actionable screening criteria.