Je co homelessness stakeholders agree on cause but not action steps

fco, a count of people who have used shelters and are experiencing unsheltered homelessness on the rst of January — considered an undercount by homeless activists as it’s done in winter, among other issues — shows there to be about 500.

BY ANDREW FRAIELI AFRAIELI@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

e League of Women Voters of Je erson County and the Je erson Unitarian Church Community Action Network co-sponsored a virtual panel discussion on Feb. 28 to “explore what can be done in Je erson County to ease the plight of the unhoused.” is included the Mayor of Wheat Ridge Bud Starker and Je co Commissioner Tracy Kraft- arp along with various nonpro t, city and county representatives.

If there is anything that they all agreed on, it’s that everyone needs to work together. But opinions on how that translates into action di ered greatly, as do the consequences.

e current amount of people experiencing various forms of homelessness — from vehicular and couchsurfing to unsheltered on the street — is always changing, but even this varied in the panel.

Mayor Bud Starker said the city believes there to be only 250 people homeless across the county, whereas the 2022 Point-in-Time count for Jef- at 2019 count also showed that 20% of Je co’s homeless population were sleeping in their cars. e Colorado Safe Parking Initiative, a nonpro t represented by Linda Barringer on the panel, is an e ort to make this particular form of homelessness safer and easier to escape by working with various businesses and churches across the metro area to use their parking lots at night.

A month-long count in August of 2019 showed there to be, in more detail, about 1,000 individuals experiencing some form of homelessness in Je erson County, with 93 in Wheat Ridge alone. Starker would not elaborate on where his stated 250 number came from besides not from the 2022 PIT count.

Barringer said they found, across 13 “SafeLots” and 120 families, that 85% were newly homeless, and this was only serving 10% of the 2200 requests they’ve received in the past year. ere are four “SafeLots” in Je co, one recently piloted in Lakewood.

Diverse across these groups in working toward helping resolve homelessness is what that resolving actually looks like.

According to Starker, the needed action has two sides for Wheat Ridge: helping the unhoused directly and