City of Boulder homelessness programs that were created with federal stimulus money during the Covid-19 pandemic will run out of money as soon as the end of this year without additional funding, according to a city staff memo.
The shortfall means the Boulder City Council must find as much as $2.5 million from other sources to keep the programs operating. The funding challenge comes as homelessness is rising across Boulder County.
Some of the initiatives aim to prevent people from becoming homeless, while others have “helped to fill gaps in the city’s response to homelessness,” city officials said in the memo. The programs include rental assistance for older adults, financial assistance for families temporarily staying in hotels and peer support for formerly homeless people transitioning into housing.
A proposal to create a respite care center for people coming out of the hospital also needs long-term funding. The program is not yet up and running. City officials have proposed locating the respite care program at a proposed day services center at the Boulder Shelter for the Homeless.
The Boulder City Council briefly discussed the looming financial dilemma as part of a broader conversation about the city’s homelessness strategy during a study session on Thursday, Feb. 8. Councilmembers largely put off making a decision about the funding shortfall. Some said they didn’t have enough information about the effectiveness of the city’s various homeless programs to decide on funding priorities.
Mayor Pro Tem Nicole Speer suggested taking advantage of collaborations with Boulder County and the state to fill gaps. “I’m just thinking about that county tax that passed last fall,” she said. “Some of that was targeted toward permanent supportive housing.”
In addition to unhoused adults, homelessness among public school students is rising as well. Meanwhile, demand for rental assistance has put the city’s eviction prevention rental assistance program under unrelenting strain, a safety net meant to prevent homelessness. And the city’s main shelter remains under-resourced. In 2023, the city documented at least 412 instances in which a person was turned away from the Boulder Shelter for the Homeless due to capacity, according to city data provided to Boulder Reporting Lab.
As pandemic-era programs potentially sunset, the Boulder City Council is eyeing the creation of new programs that will also need funding. Councilmembers have not yet decided whether to pursue the creation of an outdoor space where people can legally sleep and access basic amenities. One of the sticking points is how to pay for it.
Separately, a group of law enforcement officials across Boulder County is calling for a new “high-utilizers” program aimed at housing people who are regularly ticketed or treated at Boulder Community Health Hospital. The high-utilizer program would cost $4.9 million in the first year, primarily to acquire housing, according to city officials.
A majority of councilmembers indicated they support moving ahead with a strategy to get this subset of homeless people into homes, particularly in light of concerns about people sleeping in parks and beneath underpasses.
“You only have to walk around town for a few days to see the scope of the high-utilizer problem in our community,” Mayor Aaron Brockett said during the study session. “There’s a lot of people suffering out there on our streets.”
Councilmembers did not commit to paying for the proposed program, however. Several called on the Boulder County commissioners to chip in.
“There’s kind of an elephant in the room,” Councilmember Matt Benjamin said. “Where’s the county on this?”
Balance jobs/housing. You can’t prevent everyone else from the county and state moving here when it has the best quality of life and can’t break itself from building more housing when the AMI is so high and constantly rising. The market is saturated and inelastic and the prices for housing rise and bump out the people who already live here.
There is a simple solution. Limit helping homeless only to people who have lived in Boulder County for at least a year. No outsiders that come to Boulder. Let’s take care of our own. That will allow Boulder to provide the needed services for the homeless population of Boulder. The tax funds payed by Boulder residents should only be going towards helping the Boulder population. Then there will be enough funds to help the true homeless residents of Boulder vs. making Boulder an easy place for outsiders to come to and take advantage of the system. Set rules and guidelines.
well said.
Couldn’t of said it better myself, can you forward your comment to the city council 🙂
How do you suggest homeless people prove they have been here over a year? It’s extremely difficult to do if you don’t have a verifiable address, a local id, or a police record.
We need a more evolved structure for determining homelessness policy in Boulder. HSBC is running like a shadow government. This “dilemma” was self-created by HSBC/HHS. Staff knew very well that standing up these six new prgrams with ARPA money was a short-term fix, but did so anyway knowing they would come with hands out to the city after those limited funds ran out. Since HSBC is run by the county and representatives from HHS, it’s incumbant upon them to come up with the funding fix to continue much of this. We need a coherent structure for determining homeless policy in Boulder – one that includes city council since they are supposed to be the ones determing policies in the city. You can’t just implement a slew of programs independent of input from the city, then expect them to automatically fall in line with funding it all. HHS works for city council, not the other way around.
Our governing bodies knew full well that ARPA money was short-term and should be used to address short-term pandemic-related issues. Yet they directed the funds toward their pet projects and now are testing the waters on new, longer term taxpayer funding to continue to fund those projects. As property tax bills go out the voting public is seeing their personal tax reality skyrocket and is not likely to be in the mood to approve new taxes, regardless of how well intentioned. The city & county need to come to grips with budget reality!
All the programs implemented by HHS for the unhoused are good and needed, but they had a long time to figure out funding streams for these and apparently haven’t bothered to look yet. They should be much more assertive about asking the county to pitch in a lot more than they do for some of these health care and substance abuse programs. Maybe combine some of these programs or package them in a way that would be likely to receive more sustainable state funding. They don’t seem to be trying hard to figure it out since the city is always their preferred option. City council has homeless priorities of their own that they’d like to implement without HHS using every cent of the budget for their own projects.
Sonia, how do you limit the unhoused to those who have “resided” here a year? They don’t have a residence. Or is there something else that would account for how long they “resided” here?
Exactly. In order to get id, people need a physical address. Shelters provide this address for unfocused people. If you limit access to shelters to “longtime residents”, you create a chicken and egg problem that effectively blocks anyone without a local id or another form of verification like a police record from qualifying for services.