The realities of homelessness through data & lived expertise
This training contains high level information about Colorado’s Continuum’s of Care (CoC's), the statewide implementation of the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS), Coordinated Entry across CoC’s, and the Built for Zero initiative.
Metro Denver Homeless Initiative (MDHI) is excited to announce the Request for Proposals (RFP) for the Youth Homelessness Demonstration Project (YHDP) Funding, as part of a national initiative by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). This funding opportunity aims to encourage creative and effective solutions to prevent and end youth homelessness in the Metro Denver region.
OneHome program is now active in HMIS! The revisions and updates have been made in OneHome and all HMIS end users who have completed the new Coordinated Entry (CE) training will now have access to the OneHome program again. Thank you for your patience, as the sunsetting of the VISPDAT was a big lift to revise the system.
The purpose of this plan is to provide an overview of the priorities of Metro Denver Homeless Initiative as we collaborate regionally to prevent and end homelessness. Specifically, in identifying the Core Pillars and Foundations as we strive to make homelessness rare, brief and nonrecurring. View the model here and give your feedback by February 29, 2024.
MDHI is proud to host our next Stakeholder Meeting on February 23, 2024. The majority of this meeting will be dedicated to membership business. Registration is required. The meeting will be recorded and posted on MDHI’s YouTube to ensure access.
On January 29, HUD announced $3.2 billion in FY 2023 Continuum of Care (CoC) Competition Awards to CoC grant recipients in approximately 7,000 local homeless housing and service programs across the U.S. and its territories. The Metro Denver Continuum of Care received $32,836,361.
The Metro Denver Homeless Initiative (MDHI) is coordinating its seven-county annual Point-in-Time (PIT) count today. The count, conducted in January each year, is required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to capture the number of unduplicated individuals experiencing sheltered and unsheltered homelessness on a single night.
The Metro Denver Homeless Initiative (MDHI) released its 2023 State of Homelessness report today, highlighting new data related to homelessness in the region. The report demonstrates the overall issue of homelessness across multiple sources including the region’s Homeless Management Information System (HMIS), the 2023 Point in Time (PIT) count, and the Department of Ed.
Douglas County and the Tri-Cities of Sheridan, Littleton, and Englewood have reached Quality Data for Veterans! In total, the Denver Metro has 5 out of 9 sub-regions at Quality Data for Veterans, reaching our goal for 2023! This includes Adams County, the City of Aurora, Boulder County, Douglas County, and the Tri-Cities.
As of December 31, we have achieved a 16% reduction in veteran homelessness across the seven-county region! This brings us from 468 to 391 veterans actively experiencing homelessness, with a total of 415 veterans housed in 2023.
As part of the hiring process for the new MDHI Executive Director, the hiring committee, on behalf of the MDHI Board of Directors, would like to solicit input from key stakeholders. Please complete the survey by 5pm on Friday, January 12, 2024.
For the third year in a row, the “Common Sense” Institute has released a “Snapshot of Denver’s Homeless Ecosystem” outlining their flawed interpretation of Denver’s homelessness response system and City budget as well as a continued failure to account for the complexities of homelessness for those forced to experience it.
On October 18, Denver joined President Joe Biden's All INside initiative, a historic opportunity to address the crisis of unsheltered homelessness in Denver with support from key federal partners. With this partnership, an embedded, dedicated federal official will help identify and execute systems-level changes as well as expedite and strengthen our current local strategies.
Learn more about youth homelessness with our region’s first Homeless Youth Needs Assessment. Our Youth Media Kit makes it easy to share the facts and support unhoused youth. Explore at mdhi.org/youth.
“Our community has made a SHIFT in veteran homelessness, which means we have consistently seen a decrease in our overall number of literally homeless veterans in our Continuum of Care for the past 6 months,” shared Lauren Lapinski from the VA. “Thank you to all our community homeless providers for their incredible efforts to end veteran homelessness in our area, homelessness is solvable.”
Adams County and the City of Aurora have achieved Quality Data for veterans, a necessary milestone for reaching a functional end to Veteran homelessness (and eventually all homelessness). Quality Data means we can account for every veteran experiencing homelessness by name, in real time.
As part of this important community process, MDHI is posting the final version of the Collaborative Application as well as the Project Priority Listing. Please send final input to NOFA@mdhi.org by 10 a.m. on Wednesday, September 27.
On September 20, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) awarded $2,580,526 to the Metro Denver Homeless Initiative (MDHI) to prevent and end youth homelessness. The funding was awarded through HUD’s Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program (YHDP).
The Consolidated Application is a part of the Annual CoC NOFO process and strengthens our region’s application to secure federal homelessness funding. As part of this important process, MDHI is posting the draft version of the CoC Collaborative Application for public review and feedback. Please add your comments by 12pm on September 21.
MDHI released the 2023 annual Point-in-Time (PIT) count data. Data for the annual Point-in-Time (PIT) count shows increases in homelessness, specifically those experiencing homelessness for the first time.
The Dept. of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has officially posted the Annual CoC Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for the Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 on Grants.gov. The submission deadline for the CoC Application and CoC Priority List is September 28th, 2023 at 8:00pm EST. MDHI will host a Grantee meeting on July 26th at 10:00am for current Grantees and anyone interested in applying. Please register to attend.
We’re applying for up to $15 million in federal funding to prevent and end youth homelessness in metro Denver. Learn how you can support our community’s application and needs assessment.
Would you like to join our mission of leading and advancing collaboration to end homelessness in metro Denver? Our Board of Directors is accepting applications until May 12 at noon. We strongly encourage individuals with lived experience of homelessness and other life challenges to apply.
The Metro Denver CoC received a total of $30,714,291 in funding, the vast majority of which goes to assuring households remain housed. The region did receive $876,641 in new funding, which will support the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless’s new ‘Housing is Healthcare’ project.
MDHI is pleased to announce the release of its 2022 Metro Denver State of Homelessness Report. The purpose of this report is to provide meaningful insight into the nature of homelessness in Metro Denver and the work being done to solve it.
Denver Indian Family Resource Center (DIFRC) was founded to address the critically unmet need for culturally responsive services. They have been dedicated to addressing the overrepresentation of Native children being removed from their families, home, community, and culture through direct services and systems change efforts.
MDHI is pleased to share the Executive Director of the US Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) will visit Metro-Denver November 21-22.
“While we did see overall increases in homelessness, the region’s emphasis on reducing Veteran homelessness is yielding results,” said Dr. Jamie Rife, MDHI’s Executive Director. "The number of Veterans experiencing homelessness decreased by 31% from 2020 to 2022,” she explained.
Safe Outdoor Spaces (SOS) meet our unhoused community’s needs in a way that many emergency shelters cannot. Learn more about why culturally inclusive SOS are effective at housing people experiencing homelessness and how you can support these efforts.
Causes of Homelessness
Time and again, studies show a large disconnect between the public's perception and the actual causes of homelessness. While it is easy to place blame on the individual for experiencing homelessness, the problem ultimately stems from systemic failures.
The following section details the systemic and self-reported causes of homelessness in Metro Denver.
Two of our data sources ask the optional question: Would you like to share the reasons or factors you feel contributed to your homelessness? While clients had the option to choose multiple responses, only one positive response was recorded per client, even in instances with multiple enrollments for the same client. They both use the HUD definition of literally homeless.
One of the characteristics of homelessness that often goes unrecognized is shame, the shame of the person experiencing homelessness about his/her situation. As Leanne indicates in her story, her “friends” kept asking her, “Why don’t you ask your family for help?” Part of the answer was her sense of shame about being in that situation. Another part was her clear understanding of her parents’ economic situation and not wanting to be a financial burden on them. Homelessness creates real psychological trauma, and all of those in helping situations must recognize that and proceed with trauma-informed practices.
“My biggest problem with me personally experiencing homelessness is mental health as well as family issues. I was constantly kicked out every time I was allowed back home with no care about my well-being at all. The mental health part of it was not getting the right treatment or any treatment at all and addiction also played a part in that story.”
“I feel angry when there is a lack of empathy for youth experiencing these barriers. You think people working in this field would want to really help. I know people had it worse, and that upsets me because I know that the outcomes are negative. When we lean on institutions for support and they don’t support us, it is upsetting. They were not focusing on me as an individual, but more as a behavior problem.”
“I felt the air go out of me and my mood sunk even lower; the anxiety became nearly paralyzing. One of the most difficult and abrupt adjustments I was being forced to make was going from a life that was fully engaged, challenging and fulfilling – supervising the in-home care of my mother throughout the course of her illness -- to one where I had to more or less sit back, wait for things to happen and change, and have faith that they would.”
“I became homeless through no fault of my own, and that should not even matter. I made my move to Colorado with investments, savings and a plan, all of the things Suzy Orman says you should have. I even had a paralegal degree under my belt, excellent letters of reference and years of good experience. All of the things that kept me from gaining employment were beyond my control. I have no drug use, no alcohol abuse. I had never missed a day of work due to my PTSD.”
“Many times when we were homeless I was pregnant and people treated us like trash. They didn’t view us a human beings, even our shelters wouldn’t help us and ignore our pleas for help. There were many nights we had to sleep in piles of snow because the only youth shelters we knew and was told or given any information about did not allow us to come back. And other shelters were not able to take us in because I was not 21 I was only 18. I believe more youth services should be offered as many times we found our selves helpless.”
HEAR FROM LIVED EXPERTISE
RACIAL DISPARITIES
MORE HOMELESSNESS & TRAUMA
An end to homelessness in Metro Denver requires the region to continuously analyze the inequities that can be both the cause of someone's homelessness and their barrier to resolving it.
One statistically significant disparity that has remained consistent across data sources over time is the overrepresentation of Black, American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN), Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander (NH/PI), and multiracial people experiencing homelessness.
Access our State of Homelessness Report for recent race data for families, adults, youth, and veterans experiencing homelessness.
Regional Coordination
Centered around local planning
Homelessness is complex, but it is solvable. When we approach homelessness as a solvable issue, we shift from attempting to manage the problem to creating a system that ensures it is rare, brief, and nonrecurring. A common-sense approach to homelessness adheres to a data-driven methodology rooted in equity and lived expertise.