Homelessness in Boulder County: Progress and Nationwide Lessons

Over the past few years, homelessness in Boulder County has reached crisis levels, with the worst of the crisis occurring in 2023. Since its implementation in 2017, the city’s homelessness strategy has helped somewhat to decline these levels in 2024. Still, nationwide figures of homelessness paint a rather dire scene and prompt questions about what’s being done to help solve the bigger picture. Are other cities following Boulder County’s lead?

Behind the picturesque scenes of rolling landscapes, vibrant culture, and tree-lined streets lies a much darker and invisible part of Boulder: homelessness. In July 2023, the city began a Point-in-Time (PIT) count to try to understand the forces driving homelessness, and the results were sobering.  

The city’s survey only included 79 participants and an additional 43 who were observed from a distance. Surveyors found that 68% of people reported experiencing chronic homelessness–one year or longer. The PIT count also revealed that 727 people in Boulder County were experiencing homelessness in January 2024, a decrease from the previous year’s count of 839. 

But in reality, this count is higher. Of the 727 people, at least 193 were unsheltered, meaning people sleeping in car parks, stations, and abandoned buildings. Last year, the number of unsheltered persons was 243, meaning Boulder County claims it is seeing a slight decline. But is this decline in numbers due to actual change, or is it the effects of the city’s recent camping ban? 

The ordinance essentially allows police to issue tickets to homeless people for sleeping in public spaces while using anything other than clothes for protection from the elements. Over the years, advocates, civil rights groups, and experts have criticized this ban. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Maria Sotomayor slammed a similar ban as “unconscionable and unconstitutional” in an October 2023 ruling.  

Timothy MacDonald, a lawyer with the ACLU of Colorado who is fighting the camping ban, emailed Boulder Reporting Lab, “We will convince the Colorado courts that sleep is a biological necessity, not a crime, and that criminally punishing people for their status as unhoused people is prohibited by the Colorado Constitution.” 

To begin solving the problem of the high number of citizens on the streets, the city needs to address the root of the problem, which experts believe is a lack of affordable housing and low income that does not meet the rising cost of living.  

The ongoing housing crisis and homelessness are not unique to Boulder County. USA Today reported that more Americans are homeless in 2024 than in 2023. The news outlet revealed that 771,800 people lived without housing in 2024, an increase of 18.1% from 2023.  

National Housing Law Project Executive Director, Shamus Roller, told USA Today, “The underlying conditions driving homelessness are not going in the right direction. Housing affordability is worse; it’s affecting more people across the country, and so you can’t be surprised that people are essentially falling off the back of the wagon.”   

Real Estate company Zillow revealed that the U.S. is now short 4.5 million homes as the housing deficit continues to grow, with this problem dating back all the way to the 2008 recession. With such a high level of demand, slow construction, and an unregulated market, housing prices are skyrocketing to the point where more than 21 million renter households spend more than 30% of their income on housing. 

An unregulated housing market means the people benefitting the most are investors and developers. In contrast, according to the Financial Times, “most American families are stuck paying high rents and gazing through brokers’ windows at unaffordable houses.” 

Redfin reported that in the first quarter of 2024, the share of homes purchased by investors was around 19%, with a focus on single-family homes. The real estate brokerage site also revealed that investors bought around 44,000 homes in the first quarter of 2024, which is an increase of 0.5%, and bought 18.7% of homes that sold in the first quarter. 

High labor and construction costs, zoning laws, and land use restrictions are some of the reasons construction has been slow. A change in policies might be the answer to kickstarting the housing supply and demand problem. President-elect Donald Trump even floated the idea of opening up federal land to build housing, but the likelihood of that happening anytime soon is low.

In addition to a severe lack of affordable housing—Redfin reports that home prices were up by 4.6% in Boulder County—a lack of shelter in the city has contributed to the increased number of people sleeping on the street. In November 2024, the largest homeless shelter, with only 130 beds total, in North Boulder saw a demand for beds that exceeded capacity as temperatures dropped. 

Currently, there are no overnight mental health services in the city of Boulder, and there is only one homeless shelter for single adults. Haven Ridge offers beds for women, transgender people, and youth fleeing domestic violence, while All Roads Shelter, the largest shelter, has 180 beds and day services. 

Boulder Homeless Shelter, which has a capacity of 130 beds

But a lack of beds isn’t the only problem forcing people out on the street. Online forums reveal some unhoused people in Boulder would rather sleep on the streets than step foot in the shelters as they’re not entirely free from drugs and alcohol that can cause altercations between those in the shelters. Jen Livovich, founder of the nonprofit Streetscape and a former homeless citizen of Boulder City, is concerned about the increasing speed of availability of fentanyl and methamphetamine amongst the homeless. Despite public perception, only 20% of people report drug and alcohol abuse as the reason for homelessness, according to Streets Team. The American Addiction Centers says that some of the biggest reasons why many homeless people suffer from substance abuse is because of self-medication to relieve the stress from their problems, a lack of social support, ease of access, and untreated mental illness.  

In addition to substance abuse, mental health problems and a lack of resources for affordable mental health care make it harder to end the cycle of homelessness. 

Mental health and homelessness often go hand-in-hand, and unfortunately, the city of Boulder is not equipped to tackle this problem. Even Mayor Aaron Brockett admits to this shortcoming, saying, “We have very limited options for people who don’t have the money to pay for them.” 

According to the Denver Gazette, Brockett feels that the city would have a 100-bed inpatient facility in a perfect world, but that would require more money when often these programs go underfunded. In fact, earlier in 2024, Boulder County commissioners announced cuts in grant funding for providers like shelters under the Community Partnership Grant program, with some receiving a decrease of 27%, according to the Boulder Reporting Lab. 

A sad reality is that for many homeless people, jail appears to be the only way to get mental health treatment. The CJS Jail Behavioral Health Teams in Boulder County offer a range of services and programs, including a Mental Health Diversion Program, which can include mental health treatment, housing, education, employment, and food.    

While Brockett may appear sympathetic to the plight of the homeless, the city continues to treat them as criminals rather than citizens who are victims of an unjust system designed to punish rather than help. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) revealed that over the past four years, the Boulder police have issued over 1,600 tickets for violations of the city’s anti-camping ordinance.  

ACLU Legal Director Mark Silverstein slammed the city and the police, “When the homeless shelters are closed or full, it is terribly unfair, and unconstitutional, to impose fines and jail sentences on persons who have no choice but to sleep outdoors.”  

In an effort to tackle this issue more humanely, local officials created the Homeless Solutions for Boulder County (HSBC). The city worked to expand housing opportunities as research has shown that other problems like employment, addiction, and mental health can be more easily addressed once people are stably housed.

In 2023, the city reported that since implementing a “housing first” approach, Boulder has seen over 1,800 exits from homelessness. However, it’s worth noting that the result doesn’t explicitly explain what these exits actually mean in reality and whether the recipients received permanent and stable housing or are temporarily housed somewhere. 

Other cities like Chicago, New York, Seattle, and Philadelphia have also seen some success in lowering levels of homelessness by making access to affordable housing easier and adjusting housing policies. For some cities like Eugene in Oregon, employing non-police crisis response systems has worked. These cases are proof that cities can work together to help solve the bigger picture of homelessness.