Bob Yates is a regular opinion columnist for Boulder Reporting Lab. He is a former member of the Boulder City Council. A version of this piece was also published in the August issue of the Boulder Bulletin, his newsletter about local government and the community, which he has published since 2016.
Greg Harms, the longtime former director of the Boulder Shelter for the Homeless (now All Roads), often carried with him an illustration of a bathtub with water in it.
In Greg’s illustration, the bathtub represents Boulder, and the water represents the number of homeless people in town. At the bottom of the tub, the plug is out, and the water is draining away, showing that folks are gradually exiting homelessness. But in the illustration, the faucet is wide open, filling the tub with water as fast as it can drain. That simple drawing symbolizes that, so long as there is a constant stream of unhoused people coming into Boulder, the number of homeless people in town will never materially decrease. The tub will never empty.
Given our published rate of exits from homelessness, we should have housed our entire local homeless population long ago. But over the last several years, the number of unhoused people in our community has barely budged, declining far more slowly than the reported homeless exit numbers would imply.
Boulder County reports that 318 unhoused people exited homelessness in 2024. Yet the number of homeless people in the county tallied in the annual “point in time” survey declined by only 34, from 727 in January 2024 to 693 in January 2025. That’s almost exactly the same number counted in January 2020. The pattern is similar in the City of Boulder itself, with the number of reported exits from homelessness not resulting in a corresponding decline in unsheltered homeless people present in town.
Last year, 682 people sought homelessness services in Boulder County for the first time. That’s an average of nearly two new people every day, compared to an average of about one person a day who exits homelessness, either by acquiring permanent housing here or moving somewhere where they can be housed.
Although both housed and unhoused folks can be transient, homeless people on the move can present special challenges and needs. Fewer than one-third of people seeking homelessness services here became homeless in Boulder County. The rest were already homeless when they arrived. Because shelters currently may not make service distinctions based on length of time in town, the system is near the breaking point.
Boulder cannot shelter and house the world. We can’t offer unlimited services to every person who arrives in Boulder unhoused and expecting assistance. We don’t have extra housing, and our shelters simply are not big enough. In fact, emergency shelter capacity in Boulder is shrinking. A decrease in government funding forced the All Roads homeless shelter to eliminate 20 beds in April, reducing its nighttime capacity from 180 to 160. As a result, nightly turn-aways have spiked. (Disclosure: I serve on the All Roads board of directors and volunteer at the shelter, but the opinions stated here are my own.)
Homelessness expert Clutch Consulting will make recommendations to the Boulder City Council on Aug. 14. They will observe that, while Boulder is doing good work on exits from homelessness, the inflow of unhoused people — higher here than in most places in the country — will continue to offset those exits, unless we get better at homelessness management.
There are two ways we can reduce the inflow. First, we can place limits on the homelessness services we provide, discouraging people who become homeless outside of Boulder from coming here in the first place. While it would be admirable to help all unhoused people who arrive here from other cities or states, that simply is not sustainable. As a community, we must prioritize our homelessness services for those people whose homelessness arose in Boulder County.
Second, when people arrive here unhoused, we need to more rapidly divert them to where they can receive the assistance they need. That may be back to the community they came from, or on to their next destination, where family or friends can help. Besides relieving pressure on finite service capacity, diversion makes economic sense. The homelessness experts at Clutch Consulting say that the onetime cost of diverting an unhoused person averages $2,500, far less that the cost to the community of providing long-term housing ($20,000 per year), or allowing a person to live rough in our public spaces ($60,000 per year).
We must make both changes: focus services on people who became homeless here and rapidly divert those people who didn’t. If we do, our success will be measured by the reduction in the number of homeless people in our community and by how we improve the lives of those who are here.
The plug is out of the bathtub. We are draining it as quickly as we can, helping an average of one person exit homelessness each day. But we need to turn off the faucet. Otherwise, the person who exits homelessness in the morning will be replaced by two more arriving in the afternoon. We need to stem the flow if we ever hope to empty the bathtub.
So, long term housing is $55/day. Living rough in the public is $164/day. I’m assuming that is cleaning up after them and policing them to move constantly. That is costly to quality of life for housed residents. I have heard the same cost of $164/day to a formal camp outside downtown. I prefer this option. Ultimately long term housing, the cheaper one, is not possible for enough spaces to accommodate the quantity.
That would be the rational option – which is why it won’t happen. Much easier to cling to the old ways of “diverting” people out of town. This has always been a tactic used in Boulder. Basically a bus ticket out of town. The average age of an unhoused resident here is around 40. Way into adulthood. Do these policy geniuses really think there are people somewhere out there willing and able to house and help these unhoused folks for months on end with all the resources they may need to reinvent their lives? Boulder will just try to shuffle them out of town anyway they can. But god forbid any municipality do that to Boulder!
It sounds like you hold much anger at Boulder policies for dealing with the homeless. I think its important to point out that Boulder has the most sympathetic homeless policies outside of California and this is why the homeless are attracted to come here. (I don’t see homeless in WY.)
We took a cruise to Alaska last year and there is signage that says, “Please do not feed the bears”. The reason is that it habituates the bears into a practice of dependency and bears being dependent on humans does not bode well for either group.
Could we learn something from this about behaviors?
It’s not unusual for a couple dozen people seeking overnight shelter at All Roads to be turned away each night. It’s not because numbers of unhoused are increasing, it’s because our services are decreasing. All Roads is diverting funding from shelter beds to case management for their ever increasing population of unhoused people that they are putting into housing, either permanent supportive housing or other properties, and also the day shelter. So their focus is shifting to the chronically homeless they can manage to house quickly, but those services are not at the level needed to help those folks become successful in permanent housing. It’s a popular myth to imagine Boulder has sufficient services for the unhoused. They have a little bit of this, and a little bit of that.
Also, Tom, I don’t see the relevance of the Wyoming comparison. If Wyoming did have a homeless population they would need to provide services. People go to places they want to go to. That’s not usually Wyoming. Would you say Denver has extremely enticing services for the homeless? Or that the homeless are attracted to Denver because of the services? Their services are not adequate to meet the need, but at least they have a mayor who is working hard to get people off the streets.
Roxanne, many unhoused individuals naturally gravitate toward areas where they can find shelter, services, and more lenient enforcement of camping laws. Boulder offers all of these in relative abundance. Importantly, there isn’t a single homeless shelter between Boulder and Denver. So when Denver’s shelters are either full or unappealing, many people end up coming here instead.
That’s really the crux of the issue—other cities aren’t stepping up, and Boulder is bearing the brunt of a growing inflow. Bob is absolutely right: Boulder faces an unsustainable migration of the unhoused, and unless there’s broader regional cooperation, and /or Boulder starts restricting services to those with ties to the community, the situation will only get worse.
Shari – regional cooperation is important, but since these are all suburbs of either Boulder or Denver, people aren’t going to go there in any number. Like it or not, it’s a Denver/Boulder problem since we are the cities people come to for a variety of things. According to your logic, why not also restrict the 60k people who drive here each day for work and clog our roads and pollute our air and wear down our infrastructure? Why not just say those jobs are for local people (oh, right, people can work where they want to)? Then there’s the moral and practical aspects of “restricting services” to locals only. For one obvious thing, that would lead to more illegal camping which is what Bob’s friends find the most intolerable thing ever. So, not a practical solution.
Criminalizing camping and sleeping in public spaces isn’t an answer either, because it pushes people into the foothills and forest, increasing the risk of wildcard fires for mountain towns and residents.
“Cost to the Community…allowing a person to live rough in our public spaces ($60,000 per year). ”
Thats a surprisingly large estimate.
Is that inflated to procure additional federal funding?
Tom: No, that is the estimate by Boulder city staff, including damage, clean-up, policing, criminal justice costs, and emergency room visits. It is, of course, an average per person. Some cost more and some cost less. I don’t believe there is much, if any, federal funding for this. – Bob
Bob,
Thank you so much fir following up with details.
That is a very large sum that I think many, like myself, were not aware.
Great article Bob! I agree with your two points about Service Limits to reduce those who come here for services and Diversion to move folks to where they can get services. 1. What is preventing our community from implementing these strategies right now? 2. Have you seen these two approaches work effectively in other communities and, if so, where?
Jared: Great questions. This is exactly why the Boulder city manager hired Clutch Consulting to come to town to evaluate what is not working, and to make recommendations on what to change. All I did was to preview what I think the Clutch recommendations will be to the city when they are presented to city council on August 14. Clutch has seen these strategies work in other communities, which you can read about here: https://www.clutchconsultinggroup.com/about/#team. The Clutch report to Boulder will be released this Thursday. It will be interesting to see whether Boulder has the courage to implement their recommendations. – Bob
Thanks Bob for rational take that reveals tough facts: the city doesn’t have infinite resources and we should focus on housing those from our community first.
I recommend taking a look at all the primary source data that Bob shares, notably the point in time surveys.
Although the number of shelter beds is an oft cited as constraint, those in the survey self report in large numbers that they don’t want to stay in a shelter simply out of what most would consider variations of choice (e.g preferring to stay outside, “independence”, shelter location, perceived cleanliness of shelters, and perceived safety — aren’t our shelters safer and cleaner than being in the elements?)
Cameron,
I know about 6 long-term homeless well enough to aay with confidence that shelters also prevent the “guests” from practicing certain drug/alcohol practices.
The elephant in the room amongst when discussing the majority of homeless–drug/alcohol abuse.
Tom: You are correct that alcohol and illicit drug use is not permitted within the All Roads shelter. But there is no requirement of sobriety for entering the shelter. – Bob