City of Greeley to invest in Housing First initiative, extending cold weather shelter hours to address homelessness

By Kelly Ragan

The Greeley City Council voted  5-1 to approve putting more than $1 million toward a pilot program aimed at addressing homelessness in Greeley. 

City councilmember Ed Clark was the lone no-vote. 

Council approved dedicating $1,048,610 from the General Fund to a Homelessness to Housing Intensive Case Management Team. The team plans to work with folks with a history of chronic homelessness and address the causes of it, according to a news release. The goal is to prioritize permanent housing and provide support services in their homes on a weekly basis. 

The initiative will be led by a team made up of a team leader and three case managers under the direction of new Assistant City Manager Juliana Kitten. Housing first is an approach that prioritizes providing permanent housing to people experiencing homelessness, according to the news release. The approach is guided by the belief that people need basic necessities like food and a place to live while simultaneously receiving other supportive services. 

“The major misconception around Housing First is that it’s housing only,” Kitten said. 

The team will start by serving 35 individuals using a program modeled after the national Housing First program, according to the release. 

The city also plans to pursue additional local, state, and federal funding to support the program. 

Clark expressed hesitation at the meeting around the difficulty of measuring success. 

“I don’t want a program where we put the money in and we don’t get our bang for our buck,” Clark said. “I don’t think we can necessarily fix the homeless problem in the United States, so I’m concerned about throwing $1 million at this.” 

Kitten said if the program is successful, we can expect to see a decrease in ambulance calls, police interactions, shelter stays, and hospital visits. She said we can also expect to see an increase in outpatient psychiatric visits and substance use treatment. 

In the release, the city made it clear the model’s success depended heavily on cooperation from other partners, including Weld County, mental health providers, private businesses and non-profits. 

A Denver-based consulting group hired by Greeley earlier this year noted that lack of county-level participation was one of the biggest challenges to addressing homelessness in Greeley. City officials agreed with the assessment at the time. 

Since then, there have been signs the county is more willing to work with the city on the issue. In a previous interview with the Optimist, Weld County Commissioner Scott James said he’d been communicating with the city about homelessness. 

“I believe it is an all-of-us problem,” James said. “I believe strongly that not just one entity can address it.”

James noted that not all his fellow commissioners felt that way. 

Greeley’s vote on the Housing First task force comes months after nearly two-dozen downtown residents and business owners spoke at a city council meeting urging council to take action to address homelessness. 

Cold weather shelter expanding hours 

Housing First is a long-term solution. But the cold weather shelter run by United Way of Weld County will be open 24/7 through April 15, 2023. Typically, the shelter only operated overnight. 

At the meeting, councilmember Tommy Butler said he thought the additional funding was a good move. 

“I think this is an incredibly important thing that we’re making this a 24-hour shelter,” Butler said. “I think the next big step ahead of us is making this a 365-day a year shelter.”

Mayor John Gates and councilmember Deb DeBoutez agreed with Butler. 

Greeley received two rounds of Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act funding from the federal government since the pandemic began. According to the city, the total amount of funding came to just over $1 million. The grant was intended specifically for the preparation for, prevention of, and response to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“Increasing hours of operation will create more opportunities to engage with COVID-19 vulnerable populations and help prepare for, respond to, and prevent the spread of COVID-19,” said United Way President and CEO Melanie Woolman in city documents. 

Greeley’s Economic Health and Housing Director Benjamin Snow said at the meeting that the city looked into several different ways to use the money, but the only one to move forward was supporting United Way’s Housing Navigation Center, cold weather shelter, and day use facility. 

One proposal that did not move forward, for example, was using the grants to fund the Bonell space to use as a shelter that temporarily housed people in separate rooms to reduce spread.

“That property was actually sold to new ownership last year,” Snow said.