Latest news with #MetroDenverHomelessInitiative
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Colorado Springs housing for homeless youth opens soon
(COLORADO SPRINGS)— The controversial supportive housing project, The Launchpad, which has been in the works for over two years, will officially open with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Tuesday, May 27. The Launchpad, located at 846 North 19th St., is a four-story, 50-unit permanent supportive apartment home community for young adults aged 18 to 24. Local nonprofit The PLACE is behind the idea. Staff said it's not a shelter; instead, residents commit to a one-year lease. Organizers said there will be strict oversight, including on-site management with 24-hour program staff and security measures, as well as tenant support with education, jobs, and self-sufficiency life skills. Through this new community, The PLACE will also provide support and foster connections at one accessible and single location for residents, including job placement assistance, life skills coaching, access to healthcare, and more. Multi-million dollar Colorado Springs supportive housing project approved El Paso County tracked 568 homeless youth and young adults through age 24 last year, according to the inaugural State of Homelessness Report in Colorado that was released last month by the Metro Denver Homeless Initiative. Staff tell FOX21 News that The Launchpad is conceived through the lens of trauma-informed design (TID), integrating trauma-informed care principles into design to fashion physical spaces promoting safety, well-being, and healing. This design will provide small reading nooks adjoining a spacious common area, a laundry space featuring windows overlooking the TV lounge, and a community kitchen transitioning to an outdoor space. The multi-million dollar project is funded through a public-private partnership and various grants. FOX21 will update this article after speaking with nearby neighbors and businesses in the area. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
04-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Many more Denver teens have experienced homelessness than official counts show
Denver saw an increase in youth homelessness from 10% to 25% between 2017 and 2021, according to our study recently published in the peer-reviewed journal 'Pediatrics.' We are two physicians whose clinical work and research focuses on the social causes of health and disease. In particular, we've seen firsthand how housing instability influences health outcomes. Homelessness takes many forms, including living on the street or in a car, motel or shelter, or staying temporarily with friends or family. This last scenario is known as 'doubling up.' Our findings suggest that 1 in 4 Denver youth age 14 to 17 experienced some form of homelessness in 2021, and that the number of youth experiencing homelessness in Denver is many times greater than what traditional methods find. In our study, we used three data sources in what's known as a multiple systems estimation approach. This approach has been used to count other difficult-to-measure groups of people, including those with substance use disorders or COVID-19. Rarely has it been applied to homelessness. Our study relied on data from the public school system, Colorado child protective services and the Metro Denver Homeless Initiative. We combined these datasets to avoid overlap between individuals and counted unique youth present in the data. We then used statistical modeling techniques to estimate those who are 'unknown' – meaning not identified in the data. Together, these combined known counts and 'unknown' estimates can give a more complete size of the total population. Among our findings, we noted that 75% to 83% of youth experiencing homelessness in Denver identified as Black/African American or Hispanic. Homelessness is associated with myriad negative health outcomes. Among youth, the rate of death is 10 times higher for those experiencing homelessness compared with housed youth. To count people experiencing homelessness, states and homelessness service providers most often rely on point-in-time counts. In a point-in-time count, local service providers interview and record people experiencing homelessness on one night in January of each year. Typically, only people who are living on the streets or in shelters are counted. Point-in-time counts are crucial for policy decisions around homelessness because they help local, state and national organizations and governments allocate resources. However, point-in-time counts may miss people living in motels, doubling up, those who experience homelessness at other times of the year beyond January, and others. Consequently, many experts and researchers recognize that these counts give incomplete data. Young people are especially undercounted because they frequently experience homelessness as doubling up. For example, the national point-in-time count from 2019-2020 identified 106,364 school-age children experiencing homelessness in the United States. However, estimates from the public schools suggest the actual number was closer to 1.3 million. Service providers and governments need new methods to count those experiencing homelessness. From Denver to Washington D.C., they cannot appropriately make decisions or adequately fund evidence-based interventions using incomplete numbers. We believe our methods can be an important piece of the toolbox to improve estimates and better inform policy. Even according to traditional point-in-time counts, homelessness continues to rise significantly across Colorado and nationally. Our results suggest many more youth, and likely persons from all walks of life, are experiencing homelessness than previously known. Our team is working to use this methodology at the state level in Colorado. We plan to expand our counts to include adults in order to improve estimates among racial and ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+ people and other at-risk communities. At the same time, our results demonstrate that multiple systems estimation can be an important tool in Colorado and nationally. Our team is optimistic that other researchers, service providers and governments will begin to use this method in their localities. We hope that with a better understanding of the scope of homelessness, legislators and service providers can implement more effective policies to address this hidden crisis. The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Matthew Westfall, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and Joshua Barocas, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus Read more: How the homeless population is changing: it's older and sicker Supreme Court to consider whether local governments can make it a crime to sleep outside if no inside space is available Why there are so many unsheltered homeless people on the West Coast Joshua Barocas receives funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. He is affiliated with the Infectious Diseases Society of America. Matthew Westfall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
