AURORA, Colo. — After getting close-up tours of what other cities are doing to fight homelessness, Aurora city leaders are ready to consider a plan of their own.
City council members will vote Monday on Mayor Mike Coffman’s "Work First" initiative.
The plan centers on a campus that would provide homeless services and job training to help people get back on their feet.
Some council members have expressed concerns about the mayor’s plan, while others are eager to approve it.
At a recent council meeting, members debated which city to model Aurora’s plan after. On one side, cities like San Antonio and Colorado Springs have programs that bring together services to a "one-stop" campus where people can get addiction treatment, mental health care and job training. They also require people to meet certain conditions, including being drug and alcohol free before receiving help.
On the other hand, cities like Houston make no such requirements. Houston's model is based on the decades-old housing-first approach, which is the belief that people need help with critical services first, like food and shelter, before they can address deeper problems, like addiction.
Councilmember Dustin Zvonek supports the Colorado Springs model, which he said was inspired by San Antonio’s model.
"I believe that there ought to be requirements. There ought to be incentives and conditions for housing, all with a greater purpose or goal of getting people who are on the streets to becoming self-sufficient,” said Zvonek.
Counilmember Juan Marcano told Denver7 last week he supports Houston’s housing-first approach.
"San Antonio has only reduced [homelessness] about 9% over the last decade, while Houston has reduced about 63%,” he said. “I mean, Houston beats everybody.”
Marcano said Houston’s model was also less expensive than San Antonio’s.
“I think they spent over $100 million building the campus, and then it costs around $25 million a year just to keep things moving,” said Marcano. “So, it's really, really pricey compared to Houston's approach.”
Zvonek said the housing-first model has not worked in cities like San Francisco, and he doesn’t believe it would work in Aurora.
“On the front end, essentially, what you're doing is you're taking people who are currently unhoused and putting them into housing. You’re not requiring them to get treatments, you're not requiring them to get sober, you're not requiring them to address maybe underlying mental health issues. You're simply putting him into housing,” said Zvonek. “And I guess if that's your measure of success, then right now, what's happening in Houston is successful.”
Coffman’s plan was inspired by all the cities members visited but draws largely from Colorado Springs. However, the mayor said there are differences between his plan and the one in Colorado Springs.
“They actually have a housing-first component that is an apartment building to the side of their campus,” Coffman said. “We're not going to go in that direction.”
Coffman’s plan calls for a 22-acre campus that would be built at 32nd and Chambers Road near the Aurora Animal Shelter. He said his plan will feature three tiers of service on the campus.
The first tier will provide emergency services and shelter to people coming off the street for up to seven days. According to council documents, the campus could include 390 emergency beds.
Coffman said case managers will speak with people receiving emergency services to see if they’re willing to participate in job training, addiction recovery, and mental health programs on campus, which makes up the second tier. If they are willing, they must agree to certain conditions, including staying away from drugs and alcohol.
Those who are successful in the second tier would eventually move to the third tier — transitional housing. Council documents show the campus could include 96 beds for transitional housing.
“We’re going to take care of everybody there in terms of their basic needs that are experiencing homelessness by providing them basic emergency services. But we are going to concentrate our resources on the people that want to change their behavior,” said Coffman.
Coffman’s plan could cost $50 million, but it may also be scaled back. Most of the funding to build the campus would come from the federal government through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), the mayor said.
Coffman said a nonprofit would operate the campus and raise money to maintain it in the future.
City leaders hope to a have a solid and more detailed plan in place by the end of the year in order to meet funding application deadlines.
According to the City of Aurora, about 600 people sought emergency shelter in the city last year. However, there were only around 150 emergency beds available.