AURORA | Aurora’s City Council on Monday put off decisions on whether to use unspent COVID-19 relief money to sustain food and shelter programs serving the city’s homeless, as service providers brace for funding cuts.
Last month, the council rejected the suggestion by Councilmember Alison Coombs that it tap other city funds to offset the impacts of a multi-million dollar reduction in the grants that the city offers to support homelessness services. The reduction reflects falling marijuana tax revenues as well as the end of pandemic-specific grants received by the city.
While agencies have warned that the shortfall will jeopardize programs like Mile High Behavioral Healthcare’s cold-weather shelter and meal services, as well as the Pallet shelters operated by the Salvation Army, Councilmember Francoise Bergan on Monday insisted service providers likely have the money to continue to keep up their current programs through mid-2024.
“I think it’s quite the exaggeration to say that we are going to have people dying in the streets, and that we are basically not funding them when we did fund them. We did not fund them to the level that we have in the past,” she said. “All we are saying is that we would like to re-examine the different requests … at the Feb. 3 workshop.”
Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky suggested that the council postpone the votes on using about $1.6 million in available American Rescue Plan Act funds to soften the shortfall, which totals more than $2.5 million.
Coombs warned that by not figuring out other funding sources before the cuts start to be felt in January, the council would be endangering the lives of Aurora’s homeless residents.
“If we move this to February, these providers are going to cut the programs as we’re entering the coldest part of the year, and people are going to go without shelter,” Coombs said. “We are making a choice to ignore our obligation to take care of people, to make sure they’re housed, to make sure that people have food and that they don’t, frankly, die in the cold.”
Mayor Mike Coffman said that he also had a proposal for funding homelessness services, but that proposal was not discussed in detail. He later said he will propose in February that the city give agencies an amount equal to two-thirds of their 2023 funding next year followed by one-third the following year.
The council voted 7-3 to postpone the decision until its Feb. 3 winter workshop, with Coffman, Coombs and Ruben Medina opposed. Councilmember Crystal Murillo was absent Monday.
Also on Monday, the council:
- Voted 8-1 to appoint Dennis Lyon, Joshua Rodriguez, Glenton Muller, Alex Ortiz and Margaret Booker to the governing board of the Murphy Creek No. 3 Metropolitan District, with Alison Coombs voting “no” and Crystal Murillo absent.
- Agreed to change the scheduling of future council meetings so that study sessions will take place on the same day as regular meetings at 5:15 p.m. rather than 6:30 p.m., while regular meetings are pushed from 6:30 p.m. to 7 p.m.
- Oversaw the swearing in of Jason Batchelor as Aurora’s new city manager.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include more information about an alternative plan for funding homelessness services promoted by Mayor Mike Coffman.
For Coombs to say that the approved budget will cause people to die in the cold is pure disingenuous hysteria. She knows the approved spending is merely a return to pre-pandemic levels — a time when the point in time homeless count was very near the count as it stands now. Denver, meanwhile, continues to spend like a drunken sailor and their homeless problem grows. Coombs has never seen a dollar she didn’t want to throw down the bottomless homeless well.
Communists always marry a truth to a lie in the service of advancing their revolution. Homeless people die in the winter in the Denver metro every year. The assertion that the budget would cause that is the lie that’s married to the truth.
Sort of like Juan Marcano saying that his Antifa allies rioting and trying to burn down a police station during the Summer of Floyd was “like a big block party.”
So let em die is your answer?
7-3 yep the craziness is running the asylum now and for four years. Aurora deserves what it voted for.
If it’s one thing Doug loves, it’s his false dilemmas.
If your side hadn’t turned the city council into a workshop for marxist fantasias, that 7-3 result wouldn’t have happened.
For the next four years, there is some great news for our Council. Juan Marcano’s outspoken, time consuming, expensive socialist view points, ( that very few citizens believe in), will be gone and forgotten now that he is a non political entity.
Alas, the bad news is that Alison Coombs will try twice as hard to spread the same socialist views as Marcano would propose. With most of the Federal COVID monies, along with Marijuana funds already spent that only leaves Aurora tax dollars left for the socialist to spend. It seems the Council understands this by reviewing their first few meetings. I, for one, continue to believe that this is our new Councils biggest challenge. Slow down Alison Coombs ideas to spend our tax reserves.
As a side note on Aurora’s homeless situation. Now is the perfect opportunity to put some pressure on the homeless in Aurora, to move them into Denver who seems to want to take care of them. They are the Sanctuary City with a new mayor who accepts this challenge with open arms.
Dick, you don’t think we learned so much critical knowledge from the notorious Paris trip last year, Marcano felt so compelled the city would gain by his attendance? You don’t think Marcano got so much wiser so we would benefit and make your tax money spent all worthwhile a result from that trip? I wonder where the next political action for advanced suburbs, the Who’s – Who, must-show, think- tank – sham vacation hot-spot will be? No problem here to accessing certain city funding when your purpose is really important. Homeless $$$ vs Paris$$$$ decisions and choices what’s most important.
What did you just say??
As usual, no solutions just move em out. With 7-3 now? You have your wish. Fascism is here.
Yes, to marxists, anyone who doesn’t go along with their dialectic is a fascist.
The homeless programs backbone is driven by money collected in taxes mainly from pot sales. Pot sales have dropped and are not preforming to the level once seen and anticipated. Less money going to Aurora so it can be redistributed. Pot customers complain prices are to high and strain their budgets.
One purchasing option we have seen increase is that buyers are able to avoid the legitimate cost of all this overhead required by regulation is the illegal black market for pot. And since CM Coombs, the omniscient business analyst knows, the black market pays no tax. And since CM Coombs with her keen and strong economic experience knows the power of bureaucratic intervention is always a potent option. If CM Coombs, wants more money to feed these homeless programs through legitimate taxes, perhaps she might find it beneficial by bringing forward city ordinances with the teeth to cracking down on the low cost black market producers. In essences APD would now become CM Coomb’s best friend.
“Pot customers complain prices are to high and strain their budgets.”
Yeah, turns out the claim by the “legalize it” crowd that doing so would get rid of the black market was completely wrong. Just like their claim that it would obliterate the power of the cartels that are somehow importing hundreds of thousands of migrants and drugs across the border despite being completely obliterated. Turns out the people running complex criminal organizations are a lot smarter than the lolweeddude bongheads thought.
Actually. I’m done. Done with all of you . Done trying to educate you. It’s hopeless. Would that I was a younger man , I’d leave this country to the crazies.
The crazies all vote just like you, Doug. That’s why the Denver metro is a filthy pigpen of drug addiction and homelessness now.