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APRIL 6, 2017
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SEE SPECIAL EASTER PAGES IN THIS ISSUE JEFFERSON COUNTY, COLORADO
A publication of
‘The homeless person ... on the street is a person just like you’
Lindsay Bledsoe,
Mean Street volunteer who was once homeless
Members of a family set up a tent for the evening in the basement of Mean Street Ministries, Jefferson County’s cold weather shelter. Typically, the Lakewood-based shelter is only open during cold weather. But the organization was piloting a grant-funded program that allowed it to offer shelter to 10 families every night in March. For more on the story, turn to pages 5 and 6. CLARKE READER
Homelessness in Jeffco steps out of hiding BY GLENN WALLACE GWALLACE@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
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mall encampments along a nearby jogging path. A sleeping bag tucked under a bridge. The car parked in the far corner of the grocery store parking lot. There, often just out of the public’s sight, are the homeless of Jefferson County. “It’s hidden in Jefferson County,” Kathryn Otten, the county’s director of housing, homeless and integration, said of the homeless population. “But “they’ve become very visible in the last year or two.” Because Jeffco doesn’t have a single urban core like Denver, she said, the
area’s homeless are more spread out, gathering in smaller numbers throughout the county. Those numbers appear to be growing. Every January, the Metro Denver Homeless Initiative conducts a Point in Time Survey that gives at least a partial snapshot of what one night on the streets in the metro area looks like. Joe Baker, the group’s data coordinator, says numbers from this year’s count are still being tabulated, but should be available in May. Last year’s count found 439 homeless people on Jeffco’s streets. Among them were 50 individuals who had been homeless for many years, but also 74 families with children. The
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majority of them had been homeless for less than a year. Those numbers match what officials and leaders with area law enforcement, church groups and the county say they see — an increase to the newly homeless population across Jeffco. In Olde Town Arvada, the library has struggled with balancing increased demand from homeless users and maintaining a family-friendly space. In Lakewood, a family cold weather shelter reports a definite increase in demand. In recent months, large homeless encampments have sprung up along several of Jeffco’s
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ABOUT THE SERIES
Colorado Community Media will explore in an occasional series throughout the year why homelessness is growing in Jeffco, how homelessness is affecting communities, the faces of the homeless in our communities, and what churches, social workers, law enforcement and community leaders are doing to help find solutions. The series starts this week with a look at Mean Street Ministry and its cold weather shelter for families on pages 5 and 6. Later this month, we will look at how the county’s wider network of cold weather shelters work and why it is sometimes difficult to expand the service.
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THE BOTTOM LINE
”If we want to fight for the arts in our communities, we need to step up to the plate.”
The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts
Columnist Andrea Doray | P12 INSIDE
VOICES: PAGE 12 | LIFE: PAGE 16 | CALENDAR: PAGE 30 | SPORTS: PAGE 32
ArvadaPress.com
VOLUME 12 | ISSUE 45