Welcome back to this weekly meeting of the Community Planning and Housing Committee with Denver City Council.

Your community planning and housing committee starts now.

Hi.

Good afternoon.

Hi, good afternoon.

Hi, I'm Diana Romero Campbell, and I am going to uh chair the community planning and housing committee today.

Thank you all for being here.

Today is October 28th, Tuesday.

And let's go ahead and start with introductions, and I will start to my right.

Good afternoon.

Flora Alvidres.

Afternoon, Chantal Louis District 8.

Hi, I'm a Sawyer district five.

Sorry, guys.

We'll do very slow.

Wonderful.

All right.

Well, we have a few action items today.

And I think we're gonna go ahead and start with the host legal services contracts.

Are you guys ready to go?

Okay.

There you go.

Awesome.

All right.

Well, I'm gonna turn it over to Melissa, right?

Okay, I'll turn it over to you, Melissa and take it away.

Thank you so much.

Uh good afternoon, everyone.

Melissa Tati, I'm the director of stability and prevention with the Department of Housing Stability, also known as host, and I'm here today to talk to you about our eviction legal assistance program and some contracts that we're putting forward for your approval today.

So our action requested is approval of uh three contracts currently, and then a future action item uh upcoming.

So we have uh the four providers who were recently awarded through a recent procurement, Colorado Legal Services, the community firm doing business as community economic defense project, Colorado Poverty Law Project, and Colorado Affordable Legal Services.

Just in terms of we are trying to use the slide everywhere so we can be clear about how our work is broken up within host.

And so within the stability and prevention landscape, we do rent mortgage utility assistance, legal aid.

Uh, we recently started administering the property tax relief program, and we have some tenant landlord counseling uh programs as well as several others in our portfolio.

So just um at a high level, wanted to talk about the eligibility criteria for these programs.

It is for households uh who have an income at or below 80% of the area median income and those who are Denver residents.

The services we provide are really broken into two main criteria.

Uh limited representation, which is kind of the light touch, we give you information, help you fill out forms, whereas full representation is we're representing you in court.

You're really negotiating with the landlord more in-depth hands-on services through that.

I did just want to include a slide about how folks can access these programs so they can reach out directly to any of the four providers, either via phone or their websites.

Um, and then I think as most of you know, we also offer a free on-site uh legal clinic Monday through Friday, uh, just down the hall on the first floor.

Um, and so we are usually seeing most of our residents come through the eviction clinic at this point, which is great.

Um, and then I also know familiar with the uh eviction filing numbers, also known as FED filings.

Um, and so just for some context, prior to COVID, we were seeing about 8,800 eviction filings annually.

Uh, when COVID hit, there was eviction moratoria, obviously a lot of federal resources.

We saw a significant decrease in the number of filings, and then after COVID, we have continued to see the eviction filings increase, especially over the last couple of years.

I think it's important to put some state and national context uh within this conversation as well.

Um, if you all are familiar, the eviction lab tracks uh a lot of cities across the nation and uh what is going on in the eviction landscape in those communities.

Um of the 35 cities that they are currently tracking, 19 or 54 percent of those uh had a higher eviction filing rate last year, uh similar to Denver, um, that was typical then prior to the pandemic.

In Colorado, the eviction process is governed at the state level, and so often we are limited with our policy tools that can be enacted here without first getting state legislation passed for us to do so.

I just wanted to highlight one example that I've kind of been tracking over the last several years, which is in Philadelphia.

They have an eviction diversion model, which requires landlords and tenants tenants to participate in mediation before the landlord can go through the court process.

Philadelphia is now the second lowest filing rate of those tracked in the eviction lab.

And before this policy went into place, they were that they had some of the highest eviction filing.

So just demonstrates where policy can be really effective in this work.

Every year we send you all a report about the eviction legal assistance.

So I just wanted to highlight some of the things from 2024.

Over 3,300 households were served with eviction legal assistance last year.

Majority of the households we served were at or below 30% of the area median income.

We do see high representation of BIPOC households, and we also see a high percentage of households who are female head of household.

In addition, we did serve slightly more with limited representation, though I think over the years we have seen a shift to be providing more full representation as we've increased staffing.

Almost half, in which we were able to prevent an eviction judgment.

The judgment is the time when the judge rules in favor or against the tenant.

Unfortunately, a lot of times we don't know the outcomes of these cases if we are just helping with them filling out forms or giving referrals and advice.

And so either the case was suppressed or unknown in about 33% of the time.

Were we able to identify that they were not the eviction judgment was not prevented, and then lower case case dismissed about 6% of those.

One thing I wanted to highlight is some of the research we did last year that I think is really enlightening.

So what we found is between January 2022 and January of 2024, there was a little over 22,000 eviction filings.

Over 5200 of those were from households facing three or more evictions during that period of time.

So those were from about 1,500 households, so demonstrating 7% of those facing eviction were representing 23% of the filings.

So I think it's just important for context.

When we see the number of eviction filings, what we're really trying to do is also target those households who are repeatedly showing up in the eviction filing numbers to try to stable them longer term.

Allowing true applicants this year to apply prior to an eviction filing, so if they receive a rent demand, they're able to apply for rental assistance.

We're also working with an organization called Home Start and their renewed collaborative.

They're working directly with Denver Housing Authority to help prevent evictions and homelessness at their properties.

Better integrating eviction legal services into programs across our portfolio, so making sure residents in all of our spaces are aware of the services that we offer.

And then just to highlight, in 2025 so far through September, we've spent about 77% of the 2.5 million and served over 2,600 households to date.

So the specific contracts in front of you today are one Colorado Legal Services.

These are three-year contracts.

As I mentioned, we just uh concluded an RFP.

And so the three year contract amount is $1,160,737.

We anticipate serving approximately 300 households per year.

And the average cost per household is about 1267.

I just wanted to highlight a reason for this higher cost per average or cost per household compared to the others, is um they really do focus on those living in subsidized housing, and that does often take more expertise and time to ensure stability for those households.

Secondly, we have uh the community firm, RCEDP, total contract amount for three years is two million seven hundred and sixty-eight thousand sixty-two dollars and fifty cents.

We are precise.

Uh we anticipate serving um a thousand thirty-three households per year with this contract, and an average cost per household of 871.

And the last contract uh for approval today is with Colorado Poverty Law Project.

Uh, total contract amount for three years is two million nine hundred and eighty-three and three hundred and fifty-six, um, about 1,300 households served per year, an average cost per household of 746.

And then uh the contract for Colorado Affordable Legal Services will be coming to you, I believe, next week.

Polly's giving me the nod.

Um, this contract will be for 768,906, serving approximately 320 households per year at 782 per household.

I tried to get through it because I know we have a packed agenda, so um, happy to take any questions you all have.

Wonderful.

Thank you very much.

Um, I'd like to welcome council member uh Torres to the table, and we'll go ahead and get started with um Councilmember Sawyer.

Thanks, madam chair.

Um, Melissa, thank you so much.

Really really appreciate all of your work on this.

Um first question do we know um what the cost per eviction is at this?

Say more.

So uh when councilwoman Sadabaca and I were writing this initially, we didn't we we could like best estimate what uh like the cost per eviction was in terms of cost to the city to provide legal aid in the amendment eviction, right?

So our estimate was based on the number of people who are being evicted, it was like a four million dollar a year need, uh it's never been funded at $4 million.

Um and uh and also there's some staffing challenges uh on the legal side, so we're I do not mean to suggest in any way, shape, or form we could be doing better.

You guys are doing an awesome job with the resources that exist.

Um, but I'm just curious whether I I think like the most recent number I heard was about $800 per eviction.

Is that still accurate?

About, yeah, that's that's a good estimate.

Um as you saw the, and I think I actually have an average in here.

Um did I do it?

I did not.

Um we can average it out, but so it is gonna be close to about 800 900 based on what these contracts are.

I think in the um report last year, we were under 700 per household.

So um obviously we are we want to be realistic because we are serving more households and it can be, especially as we do more full representation, it can cost more and with added staffing, but um I think 800 to 900 per household is a good estimate.

Okay, really appreciate that.

Um, so that based on 12,000 evictions, 9.6 million dollars of meat is.

Well, so um for the households that again, we're seeing um some households who are represented multiple times, um, and so trying to reduce obviously the filings on the front end.

Um, also not everyone who's facing an eviction will be eligible, um, obviously, under that 80% AMI threshold.

80% AMI threshold.

So um it won't be obviously the full number, but um certainly higher than what we're funding it at to meet the need.

Okay, good to know.

Um, thank you.

And then um it is my understanding, and I don't know that this is true.

So I'm caveating this with I'm spreading a rumor at this moment and asking about it.

Um, that there were some changes to state law that raised the level of eviction filings this year, but not necessarily the level of evictions.

Is that, are you seeing that to be the case based on the clients you're serving?

Um I mean, I think there's always a narrative um out there that we have to file an eviction to get access to resources or to um you know have the tenant respond.

I I don't necessarily believe that narrative.

Obviously, the resources um are available to households before an eviction filing is initiated.

Um so I don't know what the state legislation would, how that would have an impact.

I know there's also a narrative that because we're allowing folks to access more housing opportunities with um a lower requirement for the um uh number of months that you need to reflect income for to be eligible to rent the housing, um, that that has caused um some complexities, but that that's our housing market.

Um we can need more options for for folks to be renting, so okay.

Really appreciate that, and then um last question just in turn just around Philadelphia and the mandatory mediation.

So when Candy and I, when Councilwoman Citabaca and I were writing this legislation, um, we were told by the city attorney's office point blank no, that it is not a mediation is not allowed to be required in the state of Colorado.

Has anything so the way it's written is that there's optional mediation that we would really like for everyone to take advantage of, but we cannot require it.

Is that state law still in effect and impacting this?

Yes.

Boo.

Yeah, boo.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

I'm good, thanks.

Thank you.

Um council president Sandoval.

Thank you.

Um I was gonna ask about the process in Colorado, the eviction process.

Um, one thing that happened in Denver with um Councilman Gonzalez Gutierrez, who is at the state at the time, worked with Robin, councilwoman Kenich, and simultaneously worked on something and did like the I can't remember for lack of better word, the tally right decision, which opened up us being able to have EHA and inclusionary housing right.

Um have we thought about that?

Like, have we is there a piece of paper out there or is there a decision or a memo from the city attorney that delineates what would need to change for us to be able to mandate this?

That makes sense.

Yeah, I don't I don't think there's been anything in in writing.

Um usually we're responding to you know what the city is putting forward or responding to from the legislation that's coming out exactly.

But that can work a different way if we think about it.

That's just because that's what's happened, right?

How do you turn being reactive to proactive?

Yeah, right.

Because I'm sure this is something that I mean if they did it, it's not I don't see what the harm would be if we partnered and said hey, that's do this, because in the end you the if the goal is to get eviction filings down, why not?

Okay, so if um I'll follow up with you offline and I'll have that discussion because I just need to know what our determination on is on it to be able to find someone at the state who could partner we could partner with.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you.

Um, next up is Councilmember Torres.

Thank you.

Um, so the multiple evictions are they always three like multiple uh different addresses.

Like I'm just trying to understand what's happening that they're getting multiple filings.

Yeah, it's usually at the same address.

So it's uh, you know, for example, they have an eviction filing, they resolve, and then a few months later, it's it's an eviction filing at the same address.

They get rental assistance, and then a few months later, it's so it's we're often that's how that was kind of the only way.

I'm sure there's more at different addresses, but just based on the limited data, we were matching names with addresses with eviction filing.

And so it was um, or what was the um percentage or frequency of it being non-payment as the reason versus other reasons?

So unfortunately, the court data isn't super clear in how that's tracked.

Um, but we if we were to assume because most eviction filings are related to non-payment, we would assume most of these are due to non-payment.

Um, that one's just super interesting to me.

I think any time somebody's kind of a frequent user of um the same service over and over again, um, it seems like those 1500 households need a different solution other than um rental assistance.

Well, I think more wraparound services, yeah, which we've only kind of recently integrated more.

So our process now is that when those folks are identified through the true application process, we're adding a label to their application so our providers know, hey, these are a household, we should probably offer more wraparound supportive services to to like truly stabilize those folks.

Another eviction, yeah.

It was interesting to me to see the um statistics around um what income level are seeking assistance, the 76% are under 30% area median income, but that's not they're not all in subsidized housing.

So where are they living?

That's a good question, yeah.

Um it's also it could be, I mean, it's self-reported, right?

So we're not income verifying through lots of documentation, so um, it could be also folks um who are in the situation because they could afford and then they lost their job or reduced hours, um, and so now they're now their income is below 30%, which is why they're seeing these services, okay.

Um, so not that the you know where they're living is necessarily matching their income, but that's why the they're needing the services.

Do you have um or are able to share the geographic distribution of where the evictions are happening?

I do have a map of that, yeah.

You could share that later.

Absolutely.

All of us, yeah.

Yep.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Uh Councilmember Alvigaris.

Thank you.

Um, I was looking at the data, and it looks like the wait list has grown over 100%.

Over the past year, there's a 240 plus families with only 10 openings at a time.

Is there any plan to reduce the wait list?

I which program?

Sorry.

For the for the rental for the eviction difference, say that again for the whole program.

Where's the wait wait list though?

The wait list, I thought I saw it on one of the slides.

I think it might be a different presentation.

Okay.

Sorry.

Maybe I was like, oh no, maybe I was looking at the next presentation.

I think it might be, yeah.

Um, is are all of these services available in multiple languages?

Yes.

Okay.

And is there like a language access program that has a variety of languages?

Yeah, so we do both.

Um, I think most if not all have uh bilingual English Spanish staff, um, and then all of them are required to offer both translation interpretation services through uh other services if if requested as we did.

Great, and then with this programming and preventing the eviction, is there also true assistance by the same people, or how does that work?

Yeah, great question.

So only one of the four eviction legal providers is also a true provider.

Um, but what we do offer as part of the eviction clinic is in addition to the um eviction legal services, we've started to bring in um our true providers and other case managers, so both are on site.

Um, and whether it's uh them helping folks apply for true or getting them information, other resources, or um mediation, other wraparound services.

Um, and so a lot of time there is a lot of collaboration between the different organizations and sometimes referrals directly to Trua from the eviction legal providers.

So in the in the office right across from me upstairs, I see they have the free eviction support.

Is that the same program as this?

Or is that through the courts?

That might be through the courts.

Um, our eviction clinic is down on the first floor in room 163.

Okay.

Yeah.

So how are we duplicating services then?

Um, those there are not that I'm aware of.

There are not other free eviction legal services.

So I think this might be volunteer by the Bar Association now that I think about this.

Okay.

Um, but I'd be curious to learn more about that.

And is there, I know we're missing some of the data.

Is there any goal or working towards getting those cases that we don't have the data on always?

Yeah, we're always trying to improve uh data collection.

It is you know difficult.

I think also, you know, being in the eviction process is traumatizing.

And a lot of folks don't want to continue to engage or follow up.

Um, but we are working to administer surveys really across our our portfolio of programs, and so hoping that helps us kind of gleam and get more access to the data for how we're gonna resolve.

Thank you.

Thank you, committee chair.

Yeah, thank you.

Um council member Lewis, you I might just have a quick question here, and this just may be a data point, but it um kind of stuck out to me as I was looking at at the slide on eight or as I was looking at slide eight in the deck, um, and it shows the um eviction legal assistance 2024 outcomes broken out by income levels, race, ethnicity, and then additional things.

And the way that I read um this, and this is that, and we I think we know this historically is that black folks, indigenous folks are often overrepresented when it comes to like homelessness, but even in this, and that's kind of what I'm seeing in the data here.

And so I'm just curious if you all use this, this data point in any way to be able to address the overrepresentation of these communities or these demographics in how you might decide, like what the value of a contract may be, or if you might need to uh apply additional uh dollars, or if you may need to think about additional um or expand it programming for specific demographics to be able to address um the disparities.

Yeah, that's a really good question.

Um, we do use the data, so we also have uh a tool it's called the equity dashboard.

So across all of our programs, we're looking at the household CERB and the demographics of those based on not just the overall city population, but those who would be eligible for each and every program.

Um and then discussing those with our providers at our quarterly site visits, annual monitorings.

Um, so unfortunately, because of the disparities that we're trying to address, we do tend to see the populations where there is um, for example, higher demographic uh in for people experiencing homelessness compared to the citywide overall, we would want to see those folks accessing our services.

Um so if we see any um discrepancies in what we would want to see in that data, there is conversations about what better outreach can we do?

What providers or community partners are we missing in this space?

Um, I will say for the most part, we continue to see it aligned with what we would want to see in terms of addressing equity, but it's always something we're monitoring.

That's insightful because that makes it so then as I'm looking at this data point for where it says um for black and African American, it's 30%, and understanding that the population for black and African-American folks is like 8% on the high end in Denver, um, seeing it them overrepresented in this data, I don't want to say is positive because that doesn't feel correct, but that that's the intention is to um have that over representation in order to be able to address the disparity.

We'd rather see it in our programs and the in the prevention and stability space than we would in the people experiencing homelessness.

So if we're not if we saw the other, then we're clearly not reaching a demographic who is likely needing our services and should do a better job in that space.

That makes sense.

Do you know what the percentages are for black and um indigenous folks in terms of representation and homelessness?

I do not off the top of my head, but I bet my colleagues do have that somewhere.

I just wanted to know how it scales with seeing 30% here, and like what does it look like on the other side of that, yeah.

And I was trying to see if there was any conclusion, I guess, or correlation, yeah, between you all catching it early versus and if that is if you're seeing positive impacts on the other side in terms of the data.

Yeah, we're happy to follow up because I know it's something we're um tracking in in that space too, because we do see the disparities showing up and have historically, so um, something for us all to be addressing through the full housing continuum.

Great, thank you.

I appreciate it.

Thanks, thank you.

Um, Councilmember Alvideris, go ahead.

Um, I did have one more question.

Um, the households are represented.

Do you have data on if they remain housed six or twelve months down the road?

We do not for this specific program again because it's difficult to get in touch um with folks, but certainly something we've been discussing um with the Trua program.

It is something that we have uh we're following up with them on to find out where they are.

Yeah, yeah, and I would just want to reiterate the same concern that councilwoman Torres mentioned about people re-needing this assistance and how we can hit that in the bud.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you, Commander Chair.

Thank you.

Um I just have a real quick um question.

I think it aligns with um some of my colleagues' uh questions around we have the aggregated number um of households served.

I think some of that disaggregation for um which agencies are maybe better connecting with specific communities would be helpful in thinking about what additional wraparound services.

So I guess I'm I'm kind of linking um those together a little bit.

Um I would be interested in seeing the map, and I think we've asked, you know, if everybody could see a map of where um those households um where this is eviction is happening across the city.

Um do you have uh how are these organizations um standing independently or are they embedded within other um nonprofit organizations or in other places for those wraparound services?

Um they are independent organizations, but there's a lot of partnerships throughout.

So for example, East Colfax Community Collective often works with um our providers to do a know your rights clinic as well as a um kind of tenant landlord counseling clinic, um so information sharing there.

Um there's also just various uh partnerships in the eviction clinic itself.

Um so we'll bring in an eviction legal provider um and a true provider to have those conversations.

Um, same with uh Booku West on the West Side is working closely with um our nonprofits and eviction legal and true um in terms of referrals and information, and we're meeting with those folks monthly.

So um lots of just I guess organic partnerships um in the community.

Thank you.

Um, this is an action item.

Do we have to move?

Okay, okay, Sawyer.

Sawyer, then Council President Sandoval.

Okay, and everybody's in favor of that.

I've got them.

Everybody wanted to move that forward.

Okay.

So I think we're good.

We don't have to have a vote on that.

All right, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Um appreciate it.

Thank you.

And then we will take a moment to transition for our next presentation.

Moving forward on the round table.

I think it's for host family services contracts.

No, I'll make sure that he reaches out to Jesse, right?

Yes, okay.

Thank you.

I can't link.

It's funny it's funny.

I just asked Jesse about it.

I want to try to go for the I'm looking at the promotion.

I didn't see last night.

Thank you.

I thought, I think we know it's exactly okay.

Well, if you guys are ready, Jeff, go ahead and take it away with your team.

Great, thank you.

Um, Jeff Kazutsky, Deputy Director for Shelter and Stability and Host.

And I'm Rosie McQuigan, the family program officer at host.

Uh Polly Kyle government affairs officer with host.

Okay.

Um we are here today to ask uh for uh you to review um six contracts, um, five of which um are uh ready for a vote.

One uh we'll be presenting next week, the Tamarack Hotel.

Um these are all uh related to family homelessness, and we'll talk a little bit about the current state of family homelessness in Denver.

Uh, you just saw this with Melissa's presentation.

The contracts that we are going to be talking about today both include non-congregate shelter as well as diversion and rapid resolution.

Wanted to talk a little bit about the role of these programs in the homelessness response system.

Shelters obviously are providing an important low barrier and life saving program for people experiencing homelessness to get them out of cars, tents, and the streets and into shelter.

All of these services are provided by our nonprofit contractors.

But accountability built into the system, including monthly, quarterly, and annual reviews of contracts.

And a reminder, all contracts can be canceled with 30 days' notice.

And then we do have a regular RFP process that emphasizes past performance.

Most of the contracts that we're looking at today are going to be multi-year contracts.

Rosie will get into that in a bit.

Access to family shelters managed by host and through the connection center and priority access to shelter depends on each family's situations.

And again, everything being run through connection center.

I should also say that we do have a limited number of hotel vouchers that we can use on an emergency basis for families who are sleeping out of doors.

Want to talk a little bit about the state of family homelessness in Denver.

I know this issue has come up quite a bit, and there was some discussion about maybe having a hearing, but I think we'll provide some basic information.

While unsheltered homelessness decreased by 83% in the 2025 pay count, family homelessness overall increased about 150% from 2022 to 2025.

And in the last 12 months, we've seen a nearly 100% increase in families in households that are on the waiting list for non-congregate shelter.

We believe this is due to a combination of factors including uh rising uh eviction filings, uh growing number of unhoused uh newcomers, and a deterioration of the social safety net, particularly in the area of uh child care availability.

Right now, uh based on the current inflow and outflow, we would expect to see uh a hundred to a hundred and sif more families experiencing homelessness uh each year, as we're just not able to keep up with uh the inflow into the system.

Uh this is despite the fact that we've uh made consistent investments in the family shelter system since 2002, almost double the number of beds.

We had 194 in 2022 and currently have 303 uh non-congregate uh shelter beds for families experiencing homelessness.

Um and despite these efforts, uh we still see an increase in family homelessness again, being driven largely by an increase in inflow into the system.

Um in June of 2023, there were 89 families uh on the wait list, and today there's um it's I believe 230 today, actually, as of October 4th, it was P40.

So it's gone down a bit.

Um again, um, another um something I think we're you know proud about, but also concerned um with at the same time, is that we're seeing uh we've seen an increase in the number of families that we're able to place into housing uh 159 in 2022, uh two hundred and forty-two in 2024, but again, um the problem still continues to grow despite you know nearly um doubling our efforts.

Um that is kind of the current uh situation that we're in.

Rosie will walk through the contracts.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Um, because this seems to be working a little better than going on.

Slides.

Um, this is a summary of the slides.

And we did some of the requests that you made last time we presented this.

So hopefully this has all the data that was requested.

That's great.

Thank you.

So, in the interest of time, I know you guys have a lot of questions about family homelessness and family shelter.

So instead of going through all of the slides individually, I'll just go through the spreadsheet a little bit with you all.

Um, I think the most important pieces, if we look at the first side where it has um the budget numbers, number of bed units, that's where I'll start.

Um the biggest thing to note is that Tamarack will be switching over to Bayon Works from Salvation Army starting on January 1st.

Um we will not be losing any bed or units in that process, and we expect that all the services and resources will remain the same.

It will just be a different provider.

Um, the budget for that will be slightly less.

That has historically been an underspent contract, and so we're giving a little bit less money.

They're also moving to a performance-based contract, which I know Jeff has walked through with you all pretty thoroughly, so I won't dig into that too much.

Um the other things to note, most of these are only increasing slightly, uh, mostly cost of living and some rapid resolution inclusion to try and help get some more positive exits out of the shelter system.

But see a Dora, their budget is increasing a bit, and that's because we're actually in that new building for the entire year, as opposed to in that temporary East Coalhax uh location, which is a little bit cheaper to run and fewer families.

I think they're increasing by about 20 units in their new location, which is wonderful.

So our the total budget that we're looking at for next year is about 10.5 million dollars for 303 family shelter units.

Then we can flip over to the backside, um, and really what I just want to highlight on this is the high rate of positive exits from our family shelter system.

Um folks do tend to stay there longer, but they're getting more resources, getting more services, and really making sustainable changes and exiting homelessness as opposed to cycling through the system.

So we do have some higher lengths of stay, but that is because we've asked our shelters to really focus on finding that that solution and not just exiting folks back to street homelessness or another shelter.

So I won't dig into all of these nitty gritty pieces.

I know you guys can all take a look at this, and if you have questions, I know you will ask me.

I just add uh one thing is just to note is that the Tamarac is a three-year contract and was just RFP'd out with the other non-congregate shelter um hotels.

Um the other all of these other contracts are gonna be RFP'd um in the spring of 2026, and then we will present three-year contracts for those next year.

So then we will jump into family intake and access.

So I know that this is another um very important piece of the family shelter system, and that's the connection center, which I know that you guys are also all very familiar with.

So that is the access point for all of the host funded family shelters in Denver.

We are making some pretty significant changes to the program next year.

This is something that we heard from you all, from the community, from families, um, from a whole lot of folks about what really needs to be changed.

And so we're adding a significant amount of money to this contract for next year for additional staffing, as well as in-person vouching at our cold weather sites.

So I don't think I need to run through all the services that they provide at Connection Center.

I think you all are pretty familiar, but we will be um narrowing the scope a bit.

It has historically acted as a bit of a call center where they field every call coming through if someone's looking for a food bank, uh, substance use treatment, anything like that.

And we realized that wasn't really the best use of money or their their time and focus.

They receive right now about 35 to 3,600 calls a month, which is just not sustainable as is.

So we're really hoping to narrow the focus down to families experiencing literal homelessness or at risk of homelessness, so they can provide rapid resolution or access to family shelter or really focus on that cold weather.

Um, and so those are kind of all of the services that they provide.

I won't walk you through the entire process.

I think you're fairly familiar with that.

Um, and so I mentioned these are the changes that are coming.

I think that the investment and rapid resolution will help us to divert some families from literal homelessness and from the family shelter wait list.

Um, and so I know that there's gonna be questions about what we're doing to address the family shelter wait list, and that is one way that we are um working to address that is through providing those rapid resolution services up front to try and do as much diversion as possible, get folks into other more appropriate situations instead of having them enter the uh the family shelter system, or if they have entered the family shelter system to quickly get them exited into permanent or stable housing.

And then lastly, I think the most one of the most important changes is the cold weather access.

And so last year we had incredibly high numbers of families.

I think on the next slide, you can see how many households we actually served in cold weather.

506 unique families received cold weather vouchers last year, which is an incredibly high number, incredibly expensive.

And so we are hoping that by doing in-person intake and screening for eligibility, we might be able to refer folks to more appropriate resources and to make sure that there are no folks accessing the system or these services who may not be appropriate for them, such as single adults.

Um those are really the greatest changes, and just to see the number, I think these are pretty vast numbers just to see what they were serving out of the connection center for a while.

I believe it was only eight staff people fielding all of these calls and doing all of this work, and so we are increasing that number up to 16 staff with the um the new funding that we are hoping to get approved for them.

And that is all I have.

Questions?

So many questions.

I know.

I appreciate that.

Thank you very much.

For the presentation, we're gonna go ahead and start with council member Olivia.

Thank you so much.

Um, this is really interesting information.

Um, something that I just can't help but wonder with the cost of the shelter system.

How are we looking at, especially for families vouchers versus cost of shelter and figuring out how we allocate those funds?

Are we talking hotel vouchers or housing vouchers?

That might be a deaf question.

Sure.

Um, housing vouchers uh come to us primarily from the state and federal government, and you know, we've seen a significant rollback in availability of those vouchers.

Uh we do have rapid rehousing um available for families, uh, you know, again, this is a one-year, in some cases, up to two-year rent subsidy uh that covers the cost of um you know rent and services while families are getting stabilized.

Um I'm doing a quick um calculation for you.

Yeah, so a shelter um we know with the average length of stay of maybe you know, 90 to 150 days, depending on the shelter, depending on the family, um is gonna cost about 12,000 dollars, 13,000 per family.

Um, rapid rehousing is gonna cost over twice that much.

Of course, it hopefully puts families on a path to permanent exits, but I think it's a good question.

I mean, we we would like to see uh more rapid rehousing for families.

We did get some added that's specifically focused for newcomers that's just kind of rolling out uh this year.

Um, but uh the cost on for shelter is lower, but shelter only solves um sleep.

Um housing solves uh is what solves homelessness.

Yeah, um when you talk about the vouchers and their rapid rehousing and getting more funding for that.

Did that come from general fund or for from homelessness resolution fund, or where did that money come from?

Yes, um general fund, homelessness resolution fund, but a big chunk of it came from ARPA funding, which we no longer have access to.

That makes sense.

And then I know, for example, in my district, Warren Village had unit tied um vouchers.

Is that something we're still continuing to do?

Uh yes.

I mean, there are still um projects that are in development on the opportunity side of hosts that have tentative um uh access or commitments of vouchers, but just to be you know honest, like nobody really knows what's gonna be happening at the federal level with the budget not being passed, and it's it's a little bit unclear and frankly concerning right now that we're not a hundred percent sure which you know what what's gonna be available through the Denver Housing Authority.

Okay, so the ones for Warren Village, those were through DHA.

I thought they were from Yeah, I'm not I'm not sure.

There are some local, um, there are some locally funded vouchers uh that exist, but they're you know, they're there's not a lot.

It's the the city generally isn't providing um, you know, as as much funding around permanent long-term vouchers, uh, usually that's being funded by the state or through through HUD.

But there are there are some local vouchers available.

Okay, I I can't help but compare it to the previous slide that really hurt my heart as a single mom that uh women head of households are a big part of this um this population of unhoused families, but uh our families struggling with housing.

Um, in addition to that, I I know that we you talked about an inflow of families into the homeless um system is a big cause of that.

But I wonder if it is also the fact that a lot of our affordable housing is not built for families or not built multi-bedroom, and so um I you know, anecdotally would say that, but I would love to see some data around the affordable housing that we are providing and the number of bedrooms and how that could be affecting homelessness amongst um families in the city of Denver.

Great.

Yeah, we will get you the information on what's available and what's in the pipeline.

Great, thank you.

That's all for right now.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um next up, I just want to clarify.

Um, Councilmember Lewis, were you in the queue?

Or is okay, great.

You're next, and then um, yes, I was trying to figure out if I had you in the right place.

So I had you, and then I have council member Sawyer.

Okay, there we go.

There you go.

Um so I had two questions on um uh the slide on slide nine.

I have like 15 slides.

I was totally unprepared to go next.

Um slide nine, it gave the numbers of um, I think year over year how many beds that or how many units you all have you all have been able to add.

Does it does that number include what you would have to subtract your year over year?

And so I think about like the Radisson, the comfort in, and losing those.

Is that the number is the number that you have year over year inclusive of the number of units that you might be losing year over year as well?

Fortunately, on the family side, we're not losing any units, so um, and the Radisson and Comfort Inn only serves single adults, so they're not included.

That's absolutely true.

Okay.

Um, uh the second question I had for you is you mentioned that there are that you all are seeing families sleeping on the streets, and I think this is the one of the things that we keep hearing from the administration that there are no families sleeping on the streets, and so now I'm curious as to what is the number that exists in terms of the number of families that are on our streets.

Yeah, that's a that's a good question, and it's a number that changes from from night to night.

So we don't really have a good, you know, in the point in time count if memory serves, and I can get you this information.

Uh I think we identified, you know, less than less than 20, I think it was eight if memory serves individuals and families on the streets.

Um, but those were the number of people that are um, you know, enumerators were able to find.

So there are likely people that we're not, you know, we're not always gonna find everybody, especially people, uh sleeping in cars, especially people sleeping in cars who are parked on private property.

Okay.

Um so it's it's really difficult to know that exact number um when we do encounter families who are unsheltered and our outreach team gets a call.

Oftentimes uh we will uh work to put place them in hotels, especially families who have a child under two, um, a mom in the third trimester or a family, anybody in the family who has a disability, um, they get uh oftentimes but not always placed into a hotel and then prioritized for shelter.

Okay, thank you.

That's helpful.

And then the last is just a comment that Theodora is showing us is in district eight, but it's in my kind friends district instead of happy to take your shelter.

Thank you.

That's it.

Thank you for that.

Great.

Anything else?

Okay, okay.

Great.

Um we have council member Sawyer and then council member Torres.

Thanks.

Um so I'm just curious about the calls call center.

We're not calling it a call center anymore, the connection center.

Um, so the items that the connection center used to provide information about, right?

Food and security and things like that.

What are if they're not doing that anymore?

Where are we sending people who are asking for that kind of information now?

I think they'll be diverted to things like two on one.

And so they're setting up some phone tree systems, and so folks can say it's like press one for this service, press two for this service.

So we'll get those uh routed to automated messages to let them know where they should be calling instead, more appropriate resources.

Okay.

Um, and then I have a lot more questions about that.

Um, but it in terms of the connection center, is that going to be 24 7 now then, or like what are the hours?

Because what we have always run into in our council office is that no one is um calling for assistance at noon on Wednesday.

Right.

They are calling for assistance at 7 p.m.

on Friday when there's a massive snowstorm that is supposed to hit in a half an hour, or um those kinds of things.

I see councilman Torres nodding.

I feel like this is uh something we all experience, right?

So it's not helpful to us or anyone else if the connection center is open from nine to five Monday through Friday.

Yeah.

Their current hours are 7 a.m.

to 9 p.m.

During the week.

Um, I believe the weekend hours are 7 to 12, but those may have been adjusted.

During cold weather activation, however, families can access a voucher, essentially 24-7, especially with the new on-site model that we have.

Anyone can show up at that Zoonai location that we're using for cold weather and access a voucher.

We'll have Bayod staff there who will be able to provide the voucher to them.

Okay, I really appreciate that.

Um, I guess my concern is, and I'm just gonna push back on that a little bit, and I know you guys are doing the absolute best you can.

So do not take this in any way, shape, or form like I am criticizing you.

But I don't want families sleeping on the streets ever in Denver, even if it's not below 30 degrees or 20 degrees or whatever we finally came down on as the decision on the degree amount that it was gonna be um for cold weather shelter, and even if it's not above 80 degrees at night, right?

Like children should not be sleeping on our streets.

So I'm I appreciate that there is that contact opportunity at the Zunai location during cold weather um events or super hot weather events on the flip side, but um it's not necessarily like a snowstorm rolling in that was just an example of one thing that happened to me in my district a couple of years ago, right?

Like, and that is an extreme example.

We have families sleeping on our streets every night, no matter what the weather is.

And if it's the weekend, if it's afternoon, and like to me, it doesn't, that doesn't matter.

So I'm just trying to figure out how we provide the services um at the time people actually need them.

Like, does 9 a.m.

to noon or 7 a.m.

to noon make sense on a Saturday and a Sunday morning?

Like it feels like maybe the right answer would be 4 p.m.

to 9 p.m.

when people figure out that they don't have a place to sleep that night.

That makes sense.

Ideally, the connection center would be 24-7 in my world as well.

And so I absolutely hear you on that.

I think we could work with the connection center to talk about more appropriate hours if that's something that you guys would be interested in us exploring.

I feel like for the weekends at least.

Yeah, I feel like it would be worth a conversation to consider.

Like things go into that decision making process, right?

So I feel like that's a you question.

If it were me, I would ask you to consider doing different times on the weekends in order to be more available for the times when the actual emergency is happening.

Yes.

I agree.

We we have records of like when call and you know, somebody calls and no one answers, like we know the call has come in.

I I assume, but we will double check that in setting the hours, Salvation Army, you know, team are, you know, we're looking at that data to see when we're getting the most call volume.

Yeah.

We'll double check.

I appreciate that.

Cause I will also say, like, um, when I had three children under eight in 18 months, um, it took me until like noon to get out of the house every day, right?

Because everyone had to be now.

Granted, we are talking about a population of people who are already sleeping on the street, so it might be a little bit different, and I don't have any experience with that that I can speak from.

Um, but I feel like families in particular takes them a little longer to get ready and get moving.

And so if everything's closed at noon, that feels like a just a missed opportunity.

That's a good point.

Yeah, I think we also need to tie it to like when evictions are happening because that's oftentimes, you know, when the sheriff shows up, you know, when the family is gonna need to make that phone call to find a place to be.

Yeah, because I don't know that they're showing up at 7 a.m.

So yeah, might be worth looking into.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

Councilmember Torres.

Thank you so much.

Um, the connection center, what percentage of the call volume will be the new call volume.

That's a great question, and I will have to get that data back to you.

Yeah.

Um, I do think as long as two on one is still like as useful as it has been in the past, I think it's a really suitable place to divert folks.

Um they're gonna have more up-to-date information about food and utility assistance, things like that, that might be frequent questions.

So uh just wanting to understand, like, what the load is that we're giving to uh this now and um like how we're setting up for success on that.

Yeah, I can get that information.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you.

Um I do have a few questions as well.

Uh for the connection center.

Um, I know in the past they had uh there had been discussion about the actual um infrastructure and their calls and their and the I want to say like their telephones, but I'm sure that it's a little bit more complex than that.

Um, their system is this going to help build that system, or is the Salvation Army working to upgrade their technology to be able to respond to calls?

I don't believe that they are going to upgrade their technology.

I think they were able to find ways to build out a phone tree with the existing technology that they have.

Um, and so they have already started to make a lot of those changes in terms of diverting calls to the appropriate folks and different languages and things of that manner.

Um, and I think they will just continue building that piece out in terms of the new technology.

I don't think that is on the table as of right now.

I think what they priced out was pretty expensive.

Yeah, but they they made they did use some of their funds to upgrade the system to be able to add the phone tree uh system in again, just trying to reduce um call volumes.

All of us have heard concerns from families that it, you know, it takes a long time to get through, and hopefully this will direct, you know.

You know, it it would be great if we had enough resources and we had 50 people there who could take all these calls and talk people through uh things about you know where they could get food or where they can get assistance with other services, but we really need the um, you know, the operators who are experts on helping people navigate um you know towards shelter and out of homelessness to really just focus on that.

So we we had to, you know, we're trying to shrink the footprint a little bit through the use of technology.

Great.

Um, thank you.

Do when people call the connection center, and you know, we've been hearing a lot about you know, names on a list, um, and how long the the list is at the connection center people who are waiting for shelter.

Um, is that individuals like is it head of household or is it is it mom?

I put my name on the list, or is it and that's one that counts as one, or is it me and two children, and that counts as three?

Like, how does that count?

Is it is it per family that are on the wait list?

Yeah, yeah, it's families.

So right now it's 230 families, and if memory serves, that's 893 individuals, okay.

Thank you.

Um thank you for the clarification.

Uh I wanted to ask a little bit more about the Tamarak shelter.

Um, and I just want to thank you for um the meetings that we've had and the planning and the connection um and knowing that Bayad will be you know taking over, and there is that um uh transfer of knowledge and and expertise right now.

Um are there any additional plans to do the capacity building for Bayod uh to serve families?

I know this hasn't been there, um it hasn't been something that they've done previously.

Can you just talk a little bit about what that plan is?

Sure.

Um uh my colleague Jesse Miller is sitting behind us is uh meeting with Bayod and Salvation Army um at least twice a week.

Uh I just attended one of those meetings today.

So some of that knowledge transfer is happening that way, and then we are having an all-day training um for our new providers on December 11th to help you know ensure that they know everything that they need to to be able to make the transition happen smoothly.

Um so far I think we're very happy with the way Bayod has sort of stepped up to this and are confident that they're gonna kind of bring things to the next level.

Um, you know, both for the guests um who are staying at the Tamarack, but as well as the the surrounding the surrounding neighborhood.

But we are spending a lot of time with them on the um, you know, on the on the transition.

And um, and they will likely be hiring some of the salvation army staff who've been working with uh with the families.

So we're also navigating that.

I believe tomorrow or the next night, uh, they're having a meeting with all the Salvation Army staff in Bayod to sort of talk through um, you know, what what that's gonna look like.

Terrific.

Um I appreciate that.

I know, and I and I appreciate the communication back with um with my office for a lot of that transition um component.

I think you know, I'll hear from community like what's happening and what is this transition gonna look like.

So I think as much as we can um be transparent and and share um what is going on, that's great.

Uh I also think in this you know, in a time where so many of our systems are stressed and the need is so incredibly high for um food for shelter for housing, um, it helps to know what those needs are so that then we can communicate back out with community who want to step up and give and um contribute to that success.

So if you can just continue to share, that would be incredibly helpful.

Um I'm gonna go to Council President uh Sandoval and then to Council Member Torres.

And then I'll be dressed.

In my presentation, I'm trying to get uh so you use this broad term households, and households doesn't always, I mean it can relate to people, but how many people?

In the on the waiting list, 893.

Okay.

So that's a thank you for saying that.

First time I've heard that number, um, and then for the connection center, is it working for the households that you're seeing, like the makeup for the kids, and how so you're oftentimes let me say this different way?

Um, my dog had a severe incident the other day, and I got a follow-up survey saying, hey, what were you what what what services did you need?

What could we have done differently?

Do we do any of that type of surveying with people at the connection center?

Um, to councilman Sawyer's point, that would be a good time to figure out what they're hearing, if that's the good time, if the timing is working.

Um, so because councilman Torres also mentioned, you know, there's um repeat people in within all of our systems, and so have we ever taken the time to create a survey to figure out are we actually providing your needs, and then what are those survey results from the users, the end user?

Does that make sense?

Yeah, so um, I think my first meeting ever with council uh woman Lewis was about this very topic, um, and getting feedback from the people who are uh receiving services, and although we we're hoping to have this rolled out in July, uh we will be rolling this out uh next month across all of our programs in which we will be receiving um surveys in the shelters will be physical kiosks.

Um for programs like Connection Center, there'll be a survey that people can complete, uh, and then we will have quarterly reports back that will help us um you know understand what's going on, and I'm also really excited the company we're working with has an AI product that will like read all of the comments and be able to give us trends about what's happening, and they also work, they do this nationally in shelter systems and in other types of programs.

We'll be able to see how we're doing compared to other communities in terms of customer satisfaction.

So probably we'll have data for you, but just being conservative, like first quarter of uh next year.

And okay, great, that's awesome.

Who helped you frame those questions?

What's this company's name?

Uh Pulse for Good.

I'm sorry, we say one more Pulse for Good.

Okay.

Um, so are they national leader in this field, or how do we find that?

Yeah, well, they were they responded to an RFP, but they are uh you know a leader in the field and do the survey development, but we also work with our um with our providers and other stakeholders on designing the questions, and we can of course change them as we as we need to.

Um, but yeah, they we we selected them in part due to their expertise and working in data collection for this the population that we're serving.

Okay, and for um last night we had you, I'm sure you all know we had a long public hearing, and there were several people who um gave public testimony, really in, you know, been here for a long time and I've never heard public testimony like that at a budget hearing of um single moms, and how are what process do we have?

Like, yes, they're in our shelters longer.

Um if we had a magic Harry Potter wand and we lived in a different reality where we weren't getting federal funding cutting and we weren't getting vouchers taken away.

How much more of a system would we need to create to be able to meet the need that to so that we can make sure that families aren't sheltered in Denver?

That's our biggest issue.

Um that families aren't that unsheltered, unsheltered, yeah.

Yeah, um, there's 800 and somewhat 800 plus, let's just say 800 plus on the current waiting list, it's families, individuals, and then some that equates to what 300 something families or something, two something.

230.

Yeah, so what wouldn't we what do we need to do different?

Uh thank you for that that question.

It's something we think about a lot.

Um one thing I will say is there's no like one thing, um, like let's just open a 900-bed shelter.

It's a complicated problem.

I should start out by saying that um many of the families on the waiting list are not, or most of the families, the vast majority are not sleeping outside.

They're doubled up.

They're going from motel to motel.

And by outside, that includes like cars, tents, whatever.

So there certainly are families who are staying in cars.

There are occasionally families sleeping outside.

It's um, you know, it's a percentage of that 230 households.

Um, but if we wanted to have a system, and it's also um, you know, we do have, and it shouldn't matter what zip code somebody came from, but we do have a lot of people coming from other counties um seeking uh shelter in Denver.

But I would say the the first thing that I I would do is to open up an emergency uh congregate shelter for families so that in an emergency situation, like nobody has to sleep outside.

And it may not be ideal, um, but once we can get them inside into a congregate setting, we can then get them into the non congregation.

I'd rather them be waiting in a congregate setting rather than you know, sleeping out of doors in an emergency situation, it's not sustainable for us to be able to place everybody into uh hotels.

Uh, it's just too expensive, and it also um, you know, again, not we don't screen for where somebody came from, so we're just getting overwhelmed with requests for hotel vouchers.

But I think if we can have a front door to the system, uh and many other communities have this.

I know it would be new for Denver, San Diego, San Francisco, LA.

I I used to work in family homelessness, that's um prior to going to work for the city of San Francisco.

I ran uh the biggest homeless service provider in San Francisco, and we ran multiple congregate sites.

It's not ideal, but it did help us achieve the goal, uh, which unfortunately kind of slipped backwards with uh current economic situation.

But there was a a good period of time in San Francisco where there were no families needing to sleep outside.

There, there was, and we measured that by is there space in the shelter system.

So if I hear you just suddenly ended up saying it a different way, there's models out there when it comes to um unsheltered families that show that if we have a congregate emergency, see emergency shelter system, it helps on the other end because that's what I'm hearing you say, because I've heard this issue of unsheltered families for a long time.

I mean, like long time.

Like I know for I knew friends who had it, right?

I knew friends who grew up in subsidized housing.

Um, but we've done such a good job in these other spaces that in the five-year plan that host has to create.

I feel like we're at we're always adding another layer to um what we're creating, right?

And I think right now what we're seeing throughout the nation is these unsheltered, a lot more higher rate of unsheltered families in certain parts that are really tackling doing their best to tackle um something that's been around for as long as you know, Jesus, we've had people experiencing homelessness, and so we need to get and it's that whole wraparound service.

But thank you for saying that because I think all of us at this table want to participate in helping bring resources, and it's really um as a mom to have someone in another language tell you in Spanish, the language my father learned that they're don't have anywhere to go is something I've never like at a public hearing at a budget hearing, I've never experienced and at one point we had the one of the biggest camps was in Council District One at the Zunai Hotel from people from Venezuela.

I would I live that for like seven months of my life and my community, and so to see it to see what's reverberated after with Trump, I can't even say president, he's just he's just Trump to me right now.

He's lucky yeah, even say that.

Um, and the damage and like the snap benefits and all of these things that are coming to a head, we all just have to really start thinking creative and look at other models and um invest in those.

So thank you.

Thank you, Montana.

Yeah, if I could also just add, um, I mean, I I think that's just a component we don't have in Denver.

I'm not saying that that we're just a causal P.

It's not the silver bullet.

There's no silver bullet, but I I think you know, investments prevention is obviously really important.

Um, you know, because it's uh you know, it's like a bathtub that's always filling up.

If we don't slow down the water, we're never gonna be able to, you know, um the bathtub's just gonna keep overflowing.

Um, and we also need more housing exits.

Like we, you know, we can invest in more non-congregate shelter um and you know, but I think there are there's parts of the system that uh prevention housing and and maybe some type of emergency response that would um would help at least mitigate the um some of the harm that's being done.

And I and I I feel like there I agree that, and I think we all agree there should not be children sleeping outside ever.

Um, and if that's the problem we're trying to solve, um, having some kind of emergency response in place, um, like we see during the winter.

Um, is you know, I think uh maybe a good direction.

Um thank you.

I'm gonna pause just for a minute and for time's sake.

We have one more briefing, and it's my, I'm sorry.

I I look down.

This is an action item.

This is an action.

So move.

So, okay, so you're first, do we have a second?

Do we need a vote?

And I know that there are some other people in the queue.

Can we just submit those questions to them so that they can be answered?

Um, if we don't do this briefing in the next 15 minutes, and I apologize it's about host um central command, um, we won't get back on the calendar until February.

So I apologize that I did not monitor it, but I think this was such an important conversation and very timely with what we heard um and have been hearing at um public comment and um you know, in our council inboxes.

So I just wanted to give space for that um conversation.

So thank you very much.

Again, it's a very tight timeline, and my apologies um everyone.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That sounds like a thing.

So whenever you guys are whenever you're ready.

Alrighty.

Hello, folks.

My name's Evangeline Benja.

I am the assistant director of homelessness resolution for host.

I'm the director of homelessness resolution programs at host.

And you guys are lucky.

I'm from New Zealand, so I have a propensity for speaking really quickly.

So we'll get through quick.

Um, so today we are talking about um housing central command that really lives in the uh the rehousing space.

So we're working predominantly with rapid rehousing and then stabilization case management as well.

Uh the action request of today is a review of the following contracts for services related to our housing central command.

Um the first one is the community firm who does business as the community economic defense project or CEDP, and they're doing navigation for us for 2026.

It'll be 1,243,974.

The Colorado Coalition for the Homeless will be supporting our stabilization efforts for 2026.

The cost of that will be 2,083,248.

And for Housing Connector, who we're running our uh rent payer and unit acquisition for 2026.

It'll be 2,638,000.

So, housing central command is a uh crisis response model.

We use emergency management staffing to maximize the resources that we have available to us.

So the goal is really to quickly connect folks to the housing resources, quickly get them into housing and then support their ongoing stabilization.

Everyone enters through our coordinated entry system.

So we're trying to really ensure that the equity pieces met.

We're not cherry picking folks that are ready for housing.

All of our folks have completed a community uh coordinated entry assessment, um, which is self-determined, and then they're connected through a referral to our housing navigation team.

At the same time as that's happening, we have our unit acquisition team finding us a unit inventory appropriate for all of our folks, and then once folks are leased up, navigation is then doing a warm handoff over to our stabilization teams who are taking over for up to 12 months of um critical time intervention focused case management.

The biggest piece there is that folks are planning for their exits from the very beginning from the minute they're connected to housing so that they're not blindsided when the subsidy ends.

So the phases of our programs are navigation.

This is going to be run by CDP.

The big thing that they're working on is getting them getting our clients completely ready for that lease up.

So document acquisition, uploading things to the relevant places, completing unit applications, making sure they're going through what folks' preferences are, helping folks pack, prepare for that move in, and then going through to lease up handing off to the stabilizers.

Our unit search team are working with landlords and property partners to create an inventory that operates at 125% of our need.

And they are also helping manage some of those other pieces for us, reducing barriers.

If we know we have someone who doesn't have a photo ID, for example, they're able to help us negotiate with landlords to get them in without that, knowing that in good faith it'll be coming because this person's going to have ongoing case management supports.

And then this team also is responsible for a portion of our rent payment.

Housing stabilization, that's really move in and beyond support.

So they're supporting with basic needs, referrals to other community programs, really focusing, and a big emphasis on building community connections for our clients, focusing on other things like increasing income so that folks can maintain their housing after the 12 months of support has ended.

It's mobile, they're meeting folks at their houses, and they're usually working at a 1 to 20 client to staff ratio or staff to client ratio.

So our impact cent 2025, we've housed 351 folks out of a goal of 399, so we're 88% of our goal.

This graph just shows you how many folks we've housed each month of this year.

We currently have six, seven folks engaged in housing search, so we're on track to meet our goal, and we're averaging around 39 days from referral to referral received to housed outcome.

We've seen 144 exits to permanent and stable housing.

We have set up regular case conferencing for those stabilization case managers to make sure they're getting the technical support they need, and we're also aware of what's going on with all of our clients, and we have we have had 182 households return to shelter after program completion to continue working on their housing.

Some successes that we noted throughout the RFP process for this.

So the community firm or CDP has operated a tenancy support services program that were attached to some state housing vouchers we received.

They really showed us their commitment to quickly connecting folks to housing and averaged 52 days to housing for participants.

That's without having a unit inventory as fancy as what we have.

So we're excited for them to work with us on navigation.

They also create, they also keep really clear records in their HMIS, so their data quality is really good.

CCH, well, Colorado Coalition for the Homeless has been with us since the beginning of our HCC efforts.

So we're excited to continue that and grow that partnership with them.

And then Housing Connector, um, has by the end of quarter two had already reached 124% of the goal that they had committed to serving for us.

Um, they're really on time with their rent payments, and they're really communicative with us.

We've had a weekly meeting with them going since this time last year.

So they're really connected and involved in the HCC processes.

For 2026, some shifts that we're making is moving to centralized navigation.

So we've been working with three specific programs.

Um we're now going to work with up to 10, and the goal for next year is to hit 400 households through all of our different rapid rehousing programs that are funded by host.

Um I think all of the presentations mentioned this, but we're really working to create consistency across our programs, um, wanting to create and maintain best practices and make sure that all of our clients know what they're getting into when they're signing up for our housing programs, and regardless of who their provider is getting the same level of um great support.

And then we're increasing data quality across all of our programs, so we're really um working with our folks and having continuous and consistent connection with them to make sure that they are recording data in a good accurate way.

Um I'm gonna just pause a minute.

We have about five minutes left.

The producer said that they could stay if we'd like to stay over time.

Would that work for committee?

Okay.

So we'll have just a few more minutes and we can sprint and make this work.

Thank you.

I'll sprint through this.

Um, so the dedicated HCC staffing is the thing I really want to talk about on this slide.

Uh where we've had reassigned staff from shelter contracts in 2025, we're moving towards having a specific stabilization team, specific navigation team, and having a single rent payer as well.

So again, these are our contracts we're going through.

Community firm is providing the navigation.

It's going to be a three-year contract.

We're still in contract negotiation, so we don't have those 27-28 final numbers for you, but we will get those to you.

Um, the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless also will be a three-year contract.

Same deal in contract negotiation, and same goes for the housing connector contract.

We have figuring out the 27-28.

And then there is a Salvation Army contract for 410,000.

It's just a six-month contract, just to round out their final folks receiving rental assistance in their program.

That one won't come to council, but just for you to be aware of.

So I think you just looked this part out.

Okay, right.

I'll talk through the changes.

So we're moving from having 10 navigators from multiple providers to four dedicated navigators from a single provider, and really focusing on expanding the number of housing programs we're working with through navigation.

Um the stabilization is moving from six stabilization case managers to 16 to continue to support folks that have been housed in 2025, and the 140 additional folks we will house through this specific program in 2026.

And just to clarify, CCH had six housing stabilization case managers and is moving to 16, but we've had about 20.

Uh, and then housing connector um are going to be increasing their unit inventory from this year.

So we're asking, we asked them to go at 125% of our need.

We need we know we need around 400 units.

They're going to they're committed to providing us 500 units on the community hub air table platform that they provide to us.

Um I think that I'll call it there because I'm sure you have questions.

Absolutely.

Thank you very much.

And again, we do have some folks in the queue.

We'll start with council member Lewis.

And okay again.

Um, just one quick question.

So I was thinking about the cuts that you all have taken over, are with the overall with the 33.5 million dollars, and then I see auditions here, and so I guess I'm trying to square those.

Like, like what have you all had to move around or maybe cut in order to be able to um scale some of this, some of these things that you've shown us here?

Yeah.

Uh when we proposed our budget for housing central command for this year, we were looking at closer to like uh 15 million dollars, and that's not what we're awarding at all.

Um, so it's much less than half of what we were hoping to have and be able to do for this year.

So some of the expansions maybe look like expansions.

So, for example, we're doing more navigation.

Um, the idea isn't that we have uh 400 uh specific slots for folks to go into, but that the team would have capacity because the idea is that each navigator would support about 10 households a month, and we talk about 10 months in the year because you know the winter months are tough.

Uh for anybody, also it's harder to release folks up in December, January.

Okay.

Um, so we're saying four navigators would support about 40 people a month times 10 months would be 400 people, and that's not just navigation through the resources that we have identified at host, but we're hoping to use those navigators for any other type of one-home referral that exists, other types of supportive housing programs.

If there's a lull in the housing resource availability, they would be supporting folks in shelters to be ready to lease up, doing more sort of workshops with folks about tenant responsibilities, um, what to expect when they move into somewhere else, um, providing some other types of trainings across the community.

So we intend to full fully utilize the team even if we don't have 400 housing spots next year.

Yeah.

You said it it's about half.

Like what you all are proposing.

Oh, the numbers of what we are proposing.

Uh-huh.

No, I did not say that.

Sorry.

Um, yeah, it's okay.

Um, I think that we're still putting all those pieces together as we're working through some of our final awards for both the um supportive housing contracts as well.

So we won't have that number to you in the very near future.

I would say that more in December, we would have a clear idea of what those goals would look like and what's possible with our resources.

Understood.

Do you anticipate that you'll have to that you'll be in a space to have to serve less people because you've had to put together the budget that you all have versus the budget that you would have done?

Um if you were able to scale it to the degree that you could have if 30 33.5 million dollars wasn't from you.

Um yes.

I'm just gonna say yes.

I'll take the yes.

Okay, okay.

That's good.

That's it.

Great.

Um council member Torres and oh, sorry, and are you also okay?

Council Member Torres, thank you.

Everyone's ready for the questions.

Um, thank you both.

Um, trying to understand just because we're in the midst of a budget, and you've got uh three-year contracts uh for these.

I'm assuming um what gets reflected in the budget book is just the 2026 allocation.

Do you know which activity area that comes out of?

Um I don't like the budget book, it doesn't look like how my brain leaves.

I don't understand so I can't tell you what activity, but I will tell you like all of these things are part of our homelessness resolution pillar, right?

Under Jeff.

And so I don't know if that equates.

Do you guys know?

We can get back to you.

Okay, yeah.

If it's if it's clearly in there, that would be um great to know.

Um just where you're at.

Okay, thanks.

Thank you.

Okay, um, thank you.

Um, I it so if I have this correctly, I just remember we went on a site visit and they had and you showed us big table, like, and all the providers sit around the table.

This is kind of the consolidation of all of those providers coming together and strategizing about what was the best kind of next step.

Yeah.

So Housing Central Command has greatly evolved in the last year plus in has many different iterations, and we'll continue to right as we refine and know what resources that we have available.

Um so we're really working for more of a virtual model with the intention to make sure our um support team, whether that's navigators or stabilizers, are meeting the community where they're at.

And this last year, most of our efforts had been placed within all-in-mile high sites, and some of our concentration will be there in the coming year, but we also want to expand those efforts to other shelter sites, including families and supporting navigation for families as well.

So it means that they need to be highly mobile, and locking folks down in a place isn't necessarily helpful for that.

Like if you need to have your stand-up meeting in the morning from your coffee table, like have your meeting there because it's easier for you to get to where you need to be rather than traversing all over town.

So the goal is to be as highly mobile as we can.

I appreciate that.

And I just think it seems as though it's gone from it's just evolved pretty significantly.

So I I appreciate that.

Um thank you.

Do we have any other council members that have questions?

No.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate it.

This is a briefing, not an action item.

So we don't need a vote.

For a minute there, I thought so too.

We don't have anything on consent.

Um, and if there's nothing else, uh, this meeting is now adjourned.

Thank you very much.