Strong. Stable. Private.

existing tax rates, according to e Bell Policy Center.

“We are one of 13 counties … in the state that have not ‘debruced,’” Campbell-Swanson said.

She noted the county also has not passed a new sales tax for 20 years.

“And yet, during that time, we have grown exponentially,” she said. “Demands and needs are high.” e county’s road and bridge projects get $6 million annually from the general fund in the budget, she said.

Arapahoe County is currently home to about 655,000 people. e population is projected to increase to roughly 800,000 people by 2030, she said, explaining that a goal for the county is to ensure it is growing sustainably.

“We are unable to keep up with our aging — our infrastructure needs,” she said, adding that a lot of roads in the county need work done on them.

“On top of that 6 million, we need about another 12 to 13 mil-

SEE TOWN HALL, P11 lion per year for the next 19 years to actually catch up,” she said. e county is exploring a variety of options to increase revenue, such as potentially renting out county property, CampbellSwanson explained.

“ e other thing is we’re exploring ballot measures,” she said. “We are exploring that for this fall.” e county commissioners held a telephone town hall on May 18 to further discuss the funding challenges the county faces. ose interested in hearing that town hall can visit bit.ly/townhall0518.

A decision on whether or not to ask ballot questions will be made around July or August, she said.

Housing needs e county is in the process of lining up a vendor who will do a housing needs assessment for the county, she said. It is also updating its land-use code and looking at what grants and programs may be available to help increase access to housing.

Increasing access to a ordable and attainable housing is a goal for the county commissioners, Campbell-Swanson said.

About 30% of Arapahoe County residents are cost burdened, meaning they are spending more than 30% of their gross income on housing and utilities, she said.

Roughly half of those people are severely cost burdened, meaning they are spending more than 50% of their income on housing, she said.

“We have some numbers that show people are spending up to 63% of their income on just having a place to live,” CampbellSwanson said.

In some zip codes, there is no housing for sale or to rent that is a ordable at the 80% area median income (AMI) level, or even up to 120% AMI in some cases, she said. According to Arapahoe County’s website, the median household income is $82,710.

“ at is an incredible problem,” she said.

“We are starting to entertain ideas and put things into motion to look at how we can be more aggressive and proactive as a county in standing up our own housing, and working, and partnering, and subsidizing housing,” she said.

Eviction prevention is an ongoing focus for the county, she said.

Arapahoe County used funding it got through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) toward programs such as eviction prevention, she said.

“As we look at ARPA dollars and … as some projects that we had maybe allocated dollars for are peeling o , we’re gonna continue to reallocate those dollars and can put some to eviction prevention,” Campbell-Swanson said.

“However, because there were ARPA dollars that funded a lot of our eviction prevention work, if we don’t gure out the increased revenue situation, then … that’s on the chopping block for things that we may not be able to do moving forward,” she added.

Campbell-Swanson said that in December 2022, Arapahoe County was No. 1 in evictions in the state.

“ at is not an award you want to win,” she said.

Addressing homelessness e amount of people experiencing homelessness in Arapahoe County has been growing, Campbell-Swanson said. e Metro Denver Homeless Initiative’s 2022-2023 State of Homelessness report said the Homeless Management Information System showed 27,860 people accessed services related to homelessness between July 1, 2021, and June 30, 2022.

“ e number of our unhoused neighbors has doubled in the last two years,” she said.

According to the report, the top causes of people experiencing homelessness are related to economic barriers, evictions, or familial challenges such as relationship issues.

“It is much cheaper to keep someone housed than to get them housed and to heal after they’ve already become unhoused, right? ‘Cause there’s a real tight negative feedback loop once you become unhoused,” Campbell-Swanson said.

Arapahoe County has an internal task force that will bring recommendations to the board, which will then decide what it wants its policies to be, she said.

“I will be very honest. For myself, I believe … housing- rst policies are what work best, with wraparound services and a continuum of care that address the root causes, as well as looking at the economic reasons in terms of wages, training and access to housing,” she said.

Based on her studies and experience, Campbell-Swanson said she thinks camping bans and sweeps do not work.

“I believe that they are a massive waste of government funds,” she said. “I don’t think just moving people around and throwing their stu out is an e cient use of the small dollars that we have, because there’s no end to that, at a certain point.”

“But we’ll see what really makes sense there,” she added. “ at is me, as Commissioner District 2 — not county policy yet. So, we’ll see where we land as a board.” ose interested in viewing Campbell-Swanson’s full town hall can visit bit.ly/17townhall.

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No real control FROM THE EDITOR his week, our newspaper featured a story reporter Tayler Shaw worked on over several months. is story tells the heartbreaking story of a teenager who died after allegedly buying drugs laced with fentanyl through Snapchat.When I interviewed the director of Bark earlier this year, I was told besides helping parents head o possible sexual predators, the services have also proven helpful in tipping o parents when their child is having suicidal thoughts.

But like most, Bark is not perfect. No service to police what your children are doing online is.