Later this month, the City of Boulder will relocate its Community Court program, which helps homeless people address low-level charges, from the Penfield Tate Municipal Building to St. John’s Episcopal Church, about half a mile away.
The change comes amid a broader push to prevent camping near Boulder Creek Park, formerly known as the Civic Area and Central Park. The relocation will occur on July 23.
Separately, Deacon’s Closet, a nonprofit that provides clothing, footwear and personal items to unhoused people, will also relocate from the municipal building to the nearby church.
The moves follow a 2025 Clutch Consulting Group report that informed an update to the city’s homelessness strategy. The report recommended creating “clear boundaries to prevent rough sleeping,” including relocating food and supply distribution events in public parks to the All Roads homeless shelter in North Boulder. It also called for expanding “diversion” efforts to reconnect people with housing or support networks outside Boulder and enforcing the city’s camping ban, particularly along Boulder Creek.
“Over the past year, the city has also re-emphasized the prohibition on camping within the Civic Area,” city spokesperson Jenn Ciplet said. “Larger events that focus on food and supply distribution in parks can have the unintended consequence of making public space management efforts more difficult and of confusing newcomers to our community who may not be aware of where holistic services are located.”
The changes come as Boulder prepares to host the Sundance Film Festival for the first time in January 2027, when thousands of visitors are expected to visit the city and generate significant economic activity. The festival is also expected to draw greater attention to the city’s approach to homelessness.
Boulder’s Community Court is a weekly, outdoor program run by the municipal court and City Attorney’s Office that allows people to address camping tickets and other nonviolent charges. The city says it uses ticketing and Community Court to connect people with services that could help them obtain housing. Charges are often dismissed when participants cooperate with the court, according to the city.
The chair of Deacon’s Closet’s Board of Directors, Kevin Cudney, said the nonprofit has operated out of several different churches over the years.
Homeless policy changes
The moves come amid broader shifts in how Boulder serves its homeless population.
Last fall, Boulder County told Colorado FriendShip, which has served hot meals and distributed clothing and toiletries to homeless people from the parking lot of the Boulder County Justice Center for nearly 30 years, to relocate because it did not have a permit. The organization had never needed a permit before.
The county said its decision had nothing to do with the city’s new homelessness policies. Three weeks later, Colorado FriendShip received a permit and resumed serving food.
Separately, the city last year began ramping up its enforcement of its camping ban. City police officers say they’re issuing more tickets for camping this year than they did last year. Both police officers and homeless people described more aggressive enforcement tactics, including waking people at 2 a.m. to tell them to move.
In addition to enforcing the camping ban, the Clutch Consulting Group report recommended prioritizing housing resources for people with ties to Boulder and offering short-term assistance — like motel rooms, rent deposits or bus tickets — to those arriving from elsewhere.
All Roads, the city’s largest shelter, has since changed its policy to prioritize people who became homeless in Boulder. In May, it began limiting stays at the shelter to 10 days for people without demonstrated ties to Boulder County. Residential ties include living in the county for six months or more or having family or a job in Boulder.
The latest point-in-time count, conducted in January 2026, recorded 381 homeless people in the City of Boulder, 58 of which were unsheltered. That figure has declined since 2023.
Clarification, July 10, 2026 11:19 am: This story was edited to include the point-in-time count for the City of Boulder, rather than the Boulder County, as the former is more relevant.
Zaria Hardee, say her name. Why is she forgotten in Boulder already? She was 19. The Boulder City Council created the relaxed drug enforcement environment in which she was murdered. From the Boulder Reporting Lab: “According to a Boulder police affidavit, Hardee’s boyfriend, Nickolas Shepherd, told police he ‘sold’ Hardee to West, likely for drugs. On July 10, the last day Hardee was seen alive, she was escorted by her friend, Karrine ‘Kiki’ Willis, to West’s camp just north of 17th Street. West told police he had ‘a little bit of sex’ with Hardee after she was taken to his camp. Hardee’s body was found on July 14, with her mouth taped and a motorcycle cover wrapped around her head. She likely died of blunt force head injuries and asphyxiation.” https://boulderreportinglab.org/2025/12/18/boulder-jury-finds-jimmy-west-guilty-of-second-degree-murder-in-the-death-of-19-year-old-zaria-hardee
St John’s is also downtown. It is also in a residential neighborhood and right across from a shelter for formerly homeless young adults. What a terrible idea to direct adult homeless individuals to this location.
Actually, 1440 Pine is part administrative offices for TGTHR, formerly Attention Homes, and part subsidized apartments for 18 to 24 year olds, not a shelter. The shelter they once operated was on Broadway, a bit north.
Ah, no. The weekly meals for the unhoused are hosted at four or five downtown churches every Sunday and have been for many years. The neighborhoods still manage just fine. And as Kevin Cudney stated, Deacons Closet (and Community Court) have also operated out of various churches over the years.
Zaria Hardee; say her name. I haven’t forgotten.
Boulder City Council has a terrible track record managing transients, and oft associated activities, in Boulder. I’ll believe change when I see it.
I didn’t want thsi to be a reply to anyones comment. Just a stand alone comment Thanks!
Sundance over taxpayers. That appears to be our city’s priority.
Meanwhile, community members’ public safety concerns continue to be ignored. More than a year after Clutch Consulting delivered its recommendations, key strategies remain unimplemented and the public has received no meaningful update. More than two years have passed since City Council received a public safety update. Moving problems from downtown into residential neighborhoods isn’t a solution, it’s simply shifting the burden.
And Community Court? A system of “accountability” disconnected from outcomes, with little meaningful impact and too often failing to address unsafe and illegal behavior, leaving our community less safe.
Thank you, G., for reminding us about Zariah Hardee. Her story is a painful reminder of the consequences when unsafe encampments are allowed to persist. City leadership still hasn’t adequately acknowledged what happened or responded.
Boulder deserves better: transparency, accountability, and leadership that prioritizes the equitable and safe use of public spaces for everyone.
I’m a new resident in Boulder. I appreciate the hardships unhoused people experience but I also resent the trash that people camping along Goose Creek and under the bridges leave on the multiple use trail and the side of the creek. I often pick some of it up but it is a daily occurrence with so many people homeless encamping in Boulder Junction. A few months ago, I saw a homeless person throwing empty bottles on to a landscaped area on 30th and Pearl. I asked him politely not to litter. He then verbally assaulted me and came close to hitting me. I suspect he is dealing with mental health issues and in the future I will be careful not to provoke a confrontation. Public health and safety remains a serious concern with respect to the homeless situation in Boulder. I wonder if the city could allocate an area where people can tent. An area with bathrooms and even a security guard. The city could provide social workers to assist those who need help navigating health and housing services. This seems a better option than the homeless scattered around downtown and Boulder Junction.
Yes, common sense would dictate “an area where people can tent.” But City of Boulder can only wrap their minds around the most punitive and unworkable solutions possible. They will follow THOSE type of recommendations from Clutch readily, as long as they don’t cost any more than what they are doing now, but the other recommendations, such as “offering short-term assistance — like motel rooms, rent deposits or bus tickets — to those arriving from elsewhere” won’t be considered. Bus tickets, sure, because that’s what they’ve been doing forever, but that hasn’t helped a whole lot.
In lieu of all that, why not provide a transitional sanctioned camping area with adequate services and providers that can help people figure out next steps? It would address the actual issues and problems more effectively. But sanctioned encampments have been debated by the city off and on for years and the reality of it has always faced a wall of resistance from Housing and Human Services, in particular
All those problems with “transients” AND the long-term unsheltered residents of Boulder who can’t deal with All Roads will continue. At least the city didn’t forbid Community Court and Deacons Closet from operating downtown where they are most needed. I bet they tried, though!
Welcome to Boulder!
You make a suggestion that would be excellent if we actually had inpatient treatment and subsidized housing for
no-to-low income poeple in Boulder, but we don’t, not in the city and not in the county.
How is that possible when our own and regional studies have revealed that synthetic drugs have disproportionately affected individuals experiencing homelessness for the last near-several years? Addiction has increasingly climbed up the reported pathways to homelessness chart the past few years. One study found that it’s actually the #1 reason individuals become homeless in the Denver Metro (The Common Sense Institute). How is it that we still have zero inpatient mental health and addiction treatment with the new Behavioral Health Tax and all the Sachler settlement money rolling in? Great question, maybe someone can make it make sense.
What about housing? When we talk about housing the homeless, we are really talking about subsidized housing, sometimes forever: housing first and permanent supportive housing (PSH). Well, guess who pays for most of that? The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). With a changing federal administration, also came changes in what HUD was willing to pay for. Beginning last year, 2025, HUD announced a significant shift from the longstanding national housing first policy and reduced funding for its major component, PSH, by about 70 percent and directed it towards two-year capped sheltering and transitional housing programs with requirements, such as treatment and employment. This didn’t go over well with national homeless advocacy groups, even some state general attorneys, including ours, so a multi-party lawsuit formed suing HUD in a federal Rhode Island court demanding HUD rescind its changes, citing among other things, a violation of the Administrative Procedures Act. The lawsuit drug on, with small wins for the plaintiffs but delaying payments. They recently won and some grant awardees still haven’t been paid. By all accounts, HUD could care less, as they have marched forward in the cutting of funding for PSH and directing priority towards two-year capped transitional housing with required treatment, job training, and employment…to name a few. Similar to last year, a new muti-party lawsuit has formed, leaving the fate of federally funded homeless policy and housing in major limbo.
What’s this all mean locally? Well, since 2025, most of the homeless housing vouchers have been frozen. I mean, you can’t subsidize housing without money. Given our city, county, and state financial fragility, it’s not like they can kick in and save the day. So, all the people waiting on housing first housing waitlists wait and wait, it’s basically a waiting list that leads no where, except a few placements here and there, usually from current tenants passing away or losing their housing due to negative community behavior and lease violations.
Moving a few homeless services is the least noteworthy news of all. The homeless here face no real solutions, not in addressing mental health and addiction nor housing, at least not until a HUD releases a funding round that will withstand a lawsuit. Even then, it could change the entire landscape of homeless policy and housing, to which established nonprofits, the city, county, and state are ill-prepared for. Imagine this nation-wide, because it is.
What’s the plan for all the other helpers in the area of the municipal building: Central Park and around the library? CLUTCH did call for all services to be moved and relocated to a central place, such as All Roads. Will these helping groups get a heads up or be ambushed by the Downtown Revitalization Plan?
I just want to understand why the city isn’t taking the lead in coordinating all these efforts.
If you want to reduce homelessness, restore functional disability services. There are none here. I am on my way there myself because not even basic care management is available. Boulder’s disabled have been abandoned. It’s so much darker than this even sounds. I live in a BHP elderly & disability housing building and extreme neglect and abuse, including by building staff, is extremely common. There have been deaths that could have been prevented if any basic dusability services existed that actually fulfilled any of the support that they claimed to. And there will be more. And nobody even seems to realize except those already in this system, with no alternatives, as all we can effectively do is wait for the other shoe to drop…one of us at a time.
Aren’t there any disability advocates you can turn to? What a bleak, hopeless situation.
That’s also a problem with Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH). Providing the proper level of service for those with serious mental health issues is very expensive so they don’t do it. A caseworker coming by once/week is not very helpful. Peer support can’t fill that huge gap either. I don’t know what kind of oversight the state provides for PSH but it’s clearly inadequate. Local governments and nonprofits are very interested in obtaining the funding to build the PSH, but then give low priority to the ongoing level of services needed by residents. The whole system lacks integrity.
The new policy against downtown sleeping really seems geared by the boarder use of drug and overdoses caused by fentanyl(China White” or “Fetty”) as its street name, has created a different crisis for towns and cities throughout Colorado. The real challenges is drug addiction of those whom are homeless. Trying2HouseAddiction will always be a problem. Those homeless people are not just homeless. Is this a true concern of fair treatment of the homeless to move resources or a shun for them homeless people whom are addicted to “Fetty”? A permanent location for such services has always been a issue. This just may be a band-aid to a large town wound.
I just want to understand why the city isn’t taking the lead in coordinating all these efforts.