Is Lakewood More Like Denver than Colorado Springs When It Comes To Homeless
Denver is number 10 in the nation for the number of homeless and the situation is getting worse. Over the last five years, Colorado Springs homeless population has decreased. Lakewood is currently on track to follow Denver’s example of spending money without implementing the lessons from successful models like Colorado Springs.
Lakewood’s navigation center will work by providing money to RecoveryWorks, which currently provide multiple services from their site, including safe needles. This is opposite to the Springs Rescue Mission philosophy, which is that if you give a person a free granola bar, this incentivizes people coming back for more free granola bars.
Watch how the Springs Rescue Mission emphasizes Relief, Restoration and Reintegration in this interview.
Lakewood has chosen its partner and they will run it, so the decision may have already been made to reject the Springs model.
RecoveryWorks will be hosting an Open House on November 30 regarding the new navigation center (RSVP on their site). They may provide more information than the city since Lakewood has no details on running any program, besides providing money. This is the path towards the Homeless Industrial Complex that Denver is known for.
How much will Lakewood spend and for what?
Watch Council Member Springsteen ask how much shelter we could provide for $1 million, rather than paying to tear down private property.
City Manager Hodgson responds that as a result of a county-wide study, the cost of two navigation centers may be $80 million. Since that time, Arvada has stopped plans to host a navigation center, leaving Lakewood as the only one.
“The City has not completed any recent studies related to the current Housing Navigation Center proposal. Lakewood has partnered with RecoveryWorks to analyze the services, staffing and long-term funding needed to operate the Housing Navigation Center, as they are the experts in this space. A final operation and development budget is being finalized now with assistance from RecoveryWorks and Division of Housing and will be submitted to the Division of Housing prior to grant award in 2024.”
Request Lakewood answer, November 2023
A $40 million commitment may be worth a public conversation on whether residents would like to follow the Denver or the Colorado Springs model.
Unlike a construction contract, there was no competitive bid necessary for this spending.