HELTER SHELTER: Aurora’s new homeless Navigation Campus is off course, residents say

AURORA | The toilets are flushing now at the city’s new homeless shelter.

The sewer issues at the Regional Aurora Navigation Campus have been fixed, and the toilets inside the building are all functional, and residents say the nascent homeless shelter and services nexus no longer reeks of feces.

Residents and officials told grim tales of bad plumbing and outdoor portable toilets in the winter cold during a recent city council meeting. Those problems have now been fixed, shelter and city officials say.

Many other issues keep piling on, however, residents say. 

The $38 million regional center opened in November, creating what the city billed as a sort of one-stop-nexus for homeless residents seeking a place to live and services to become self-sufficient.

As the operator, the city and the building adjust to growing pains, issues keep popping up, people keep getting sick, the building continues to have issues, and many residents say the campus is nothing like it was advertised. 

“This building was not in good condition, and I don’t know to what extent we analyzed the building prior to purchasing it, but it has been a problem, and it has hurt the program,” Mayor Mike Coffman said during the Winter Workshop meeting Saturday. “What has further hurt the program is an agreement with the operator in terms of maintaining the building. We’ve layered maintenance responsibilities on them that they really are not capable of, and that is incredibly inefficient.” 

Many of the Sentinel’s sources, residents at the center, say they were drawn to the Navigation Campus for several reasons, including that it provides a stable place to stay and store belongings, unlike other area shelters that require people to pack up and out daily.

Others said they liked the idea of working up to attaining an independent room at the former hotel-turned-shelter, and hoped the program would help them find more permanent housing. 

One source, the only one who was willing to go on record, because he was already temporarily kicked out of the Navigation Campus, said he thought it would be a helpful way to transition into housing after moving back to Colorado, while being able to keep his emotional support dog with him. That person, Demetrius Johnson, was among the first to sound the alarm about some of the issues on the campus, and he said he was pretty sure that, since he used his name openly in an online review of the campus, he had faced retaliation from some staff. 

Some of the accounts he and many other campus residents confirmed described the operator and the city as negligent, incompetent and “staff not seeming to know what they are doing.”

The Sentinel spoke with the CEO of Advance Pathways, Jim Goebelbecker, the campus operator, and the Aurora Director of Housing and Community Services, Jessica Prosser. Goebelbecker was late for the Q&A session and not all questions were thoroughly answered. 

The campus has three tiers, ranging from a low-barrier congregate emergency shelter to a “work first” private hotel room that charges 30% of a resident’s income as rent. 

Tier 1 aims to meet basic needs with few requirements for those receiving basic shelter services. This tier is displayed as a shelter, restructuring large conference rooms into spacious rooms with cots, lockers, and bathroom and shower facilities. There are 285 cots.

Tier 2 requires engaging with case managers and peer coaches. In this tier, people move from cots to beds in large, dorm-like spaces with additional storage and cubby space; these spaces are called pods. The beds are built with walls on three or four sides for a little extra privacy. There are 114 pods.

Tier 3 offers long-term, independent living with additional commitments, including a requirement to hold a full-time job. This tier allows individuals to move into single and two-bed hotel rooms on the campus. People in this tier are given a separate entrance, private parking, and a shared kitchenette/living room with a fridge, microwave and televisions. There are 220 rooms in tier three, some of which are used for staff. 

The campus’s capacity for those using the entire shelter is 600 people.

Sickness and medical facility still needed

People are getting sick, often, residents say. 

As in any shelter where large groups of people live together, sickness spreads readily. Almost every source that spoke to the Sentinel said the food makes them sick, and that they try not to eat it. A few said they think the building might be a cause, too. Johnson said he knew there was black mold on certain floors in the building because his friend had done construction on the building before the city bought it. 

He sent a video of mass flooding on the main floor for proof. 

City Manager Jason Batchelor told the Sentinel that black mold is present on the fifth and sixth floors, which the operators are working to address, and that no one currently lives on those floors. 

Prosser said during a Winter Workshop city council meeting Feb. 7 that all construction on the building, including the rooms on the fifth and sixth floors, is slated to be completed by the end of February. 

STRIDE, a local non-profit network of clinics, provides healthcare during the day, five days a week, but there are currently no respite beds, a medical facility or a quarantine area for people to recover from illnesses. Prosser said during the workshop meeting that respite beds are part of long-term construction plans but did not specify a date to offer them. 

Johnson said his illnesses included dizziness and nose bleeds, and later respiratory issues. He said he thinks it was because of black mold, but it has not been confirmed as the source. He said he was sent to the hospital twice because of these symptoms after being healthy for years.

He said he was grateful for STRIDE, which has continued to provide care for him since he left campus and was treated for pneumonia. 

A couple of other sources reported getting pneumonia, with one receiving respite care at Comitis Crisis Center. That source reported that a couple more people had joined them at Comitis in the last week. Bob Dorshimer said Comitis offers respite care, but he was unable to confirm whether they were receiving many people from the Navigation Campus, as those seeking care are not required to report to Comitis where they came from. 

In the case of widespread illness, the city said it would seek guidance from county and state health officials and coordinate as appropriate. 

“The city does not have its own public health department,” city spokesperson Joe Rubino said

Moving goalposts

Multiple separate sources say the goals and rules are always changing and that staff doesn’t seem to know what is going on. 

Rules, policies, and requirements change regularly, and people feel frustrated when they are unable to follow them. 

Johnson said the constant changes made it feel as if they were doing it on purpose for amusement, comparing it to the Stanford Prison Experiment. 

Another source said they were kicked out after using the porta-potties on a freezing cold night because security told her to go back outside and get behind a line of more than 30 people who still needed to be cleared and searched. When they tried to argue with security, saying they were already cleared and had their belongings inside, security kicked them out and refused to let them retrieve them. 

Johnson confirmed that people needing to use the porta-potties had to go outside during the coldest nights of the year.

Johnson and other sources said there is rampant drug use inside and around the building, and people are openly dealing drugs. The source who was kicked out said the searches and “clearings” are also pointless because they don’t check bags, and the wands don’t detect weapons.

Johnson also said they would change the rules about how many bags were allowed in regularly.  

The most common complaint from everyone who spoke to the Sentinel was not being moved to the next tier after believe they had worked hard to get there. The operator CEO of Advance Pathways, Jim Goebelbecker, said the “work first” approach will be based on each individual’s abilities, but multiple sources with disabilities say they don’t believe it. 

Two older residents with disabilities said they were promised to be move to Tier 2 for weeks, but it never happened. They said they feared even more that they would never make it to Tier 3 because they are on disability and can’t work many hours. 

One source said she made it to Tier 2 after continually demanding it and asking about it in front of the “right managers” to make it happen. A few older residents with disabilities said they were still waiting, or had gotten fed up and left. 

Johnson said he was so uncomfortable with the living conditions inside the facility, which he felt was set up like a prison, that he would sleep in his car whenever it was warm enough for his dog not to freeze. 

Multiple sources said they are doing all the work and taking all the classes, but were not being told why they were not moving. 

“The primary delay was due to facility construction, namely the door lock system,” Goebelbecker said in a statement. “We needed to do a workaround, meaning guests will not be able to have their own key card to access Tier 2, but instead need to be let in by staff. This took a while to discover both the problem and the solution.”

Not enough staff

One complaint heard by almost every source was, “A lot of the people there seem like they’ve never done this before.”

One source said that security and other staff will sometimes laugh at people when they are having a mental breakdown, or they will treat people with unnecessary force. Johnson said that for a long time, there were only two social workers, and when the Sentinel went in with an anonymous source, half of the social workers were out of the office and only able to work a couple of days a week. 

The sources with disabilities said they thought there was little to no training for dealing with people with disabilities or mental health needs, and in some cases, police were being used to remove people in a mental health crisis with force. 

Goebelbecker said that Advance is hiring peer specialists, addiction recovery specialists, and people with some training in mental health. He said there will also be more in-house training for mental health needs, “so that we could recognize when there are mental health issues, in order to be able to outsource to our other community partners, like Aurora Mental Health.”

“Mental health is an issue throughout all the shelters,” Goebelbecker said, “There aren’t enough mental health professionals in general.”

During the workshop, the Prosser confirmed that STRIDE offers some behavioral health support and that Aurora Mental Health is engaged to provide on-site services. She also confirmed that Advance is doing trauma-informed care with all of their staff.

The Navigation Campus’s goal for staffing is to reach a case manager-to-guest ratio of 1:30, and Advance has five open positions to support guests at the campus, city spokesperson Joe Rubino said. 

On Saturday, Prosser told the city council that Advance is in the process of hiring at least two additional case managers, a supervisor and an operations manager. 

“They need more case managers, and they needed them some time ago,” Coffman said during the Saturday meeting. “There are too many people in Tier 1. Actually, I think beyond the capacity of Tier 1, because of not having sufficient case managers, and people have not progressed to Tier 2, where we have excess capacity in Tier 3 and Tier 2.

Chief of Police Todd Chamberlain told city council Saturday that he put up a manned day unit and a manned night unit at the campus because they were getting so many calls for service. 

Chamberlain said he has also been embedding officers within Navigation Campus operations to mentor security and staff rather than just responding to incidents. The officer has been advising Advance’s staff on how to handle challenging clients and when to call the police, and on helping staff follow through on trespass actions involving very problematic clients, rather than backing off once officers arrive.

“The biggest issue we’re having now is again, bringing some stability in there,” Chamberlain said. “There are going to be things that we have to navigate and get better at. So we are actively and proactively taking those steps, because the 300 that are housed there, I’d rather have housed there than under a bridge.”

Amenities are not being offered 

Advertised dog kennels, a workout room, and laundry services are not currently being offered due to construction, staffing, and repair needs, according to city and navigation center officials. 

A lack of amenities, such as laundry services were regularly mentioned by many sources. Many said they have not been allowed to use the laundry facilities and that no services have been offered. 

The nearest laundry is a 10-minute bus ride away. 

Goebelbecker said the industrial machines for bed sheets and towels have broken, and they have been using the ones for clothing, which has made it impossible to offer laundry as a service currently. He said the machines will be fixed soon, and they will offer services where the operators will wash and dry clothes and give them back to people to fold. 

Pet kennels for animals currently have a sign on the door that says, “coming soon.” Prosser reported to staff that they expected to complete construction on the kennel room by the end of February.

There are also long-term construction plans that include an outdoor recreation area for guests. 

One source said she was unable to take a shower for a week because there were never enough towels available, and residents were not allowed to use their own towels. Goebelbecker said this was the first time he had heard this complaint and that he would look into ensuring enough towels were provided.

Sources said the computer room and many other resources were not available as promised. A few said they were never allowed in the computer room, even though it was promised for job applications. Goebelbecker did not respond to questions about the use of the computer room. 

Goebelbecker said that other partners who were contracted to provide services were waiting to confirm there were enough people on campus to determine what their schedules would need to look like. 

Neighboring complaints

A member of a homeowners’ association for neighboring residents called the Sentinel last week to report that people from the campus were trespassing on their property. The navigation center abuts a Denver neighborhood. One of the sources also confirmed that many residents get stir-crazy at the center and wander onto adjacent properties. 

Revisiting the operator agreement

Coffman said he thought the best way to move the center forward would be to change the operator agreement, so Advance can focus on case work instead of building maintenance. 

He said the two case managers being hired were delayed because Advance also needed to focus on building maintenance in a building with many age-related issues.

“Now we’ve layered maintenance responsibilities on them that they really are not capable of,” Coffman said. “That is incredibly inefficient.” 

Coffman said the city should shift building maintenance responsibilities, beyond cleaning, back to the city. 

“To get it on track, I think we’re going to need to take a look at the agreement with them and align it to the agreements that we’ve historically had with operators dealing with homelessness issues,” Coffman said. “And we’re gonna have to take over responsibility for this, for the condition of this building, outside of cleanliness.”

Recent Numbers 

The center is often full and busy, according to the city’s Manager of Homelessness Behavioral Health, Stephanie Keiper. 

She reported:

• Since they opened the space, the average number of beds used per night in Tier 1 was 159 in November.
• In December, an average of 264 beds were used in Tier 1, 10 in Tier 2, and five in Tier 3. 
• In January, the preliminary numbers were 280 in Tier 1, 46 in Tier 2 and four in Tier 3.  

• Goebelbecker said there were about 63 people in Tier 2 in an email Feb. 6.  

• The center has had 94 guests engaged in case management services at the Navigation Campus and 258 programming groups, according to Keiper. Those are things from different certificate training to Alcoholics Anonymous and NarcAnon meetings. So it’s a wide variety of groups that are being offered service. 

• The center “has had more than 1,000 different individuals who have checked into the day center since they opened on Dec. 31, and Advance has served over 55,000 meals, including breakfast, lunch and dinner to guests as well,” Keiper said Saturday.

Calls for police and firefighters

Chamberlain also gave a “snapshot” of calls for service in the last month.

• 141 calls for service
• Average response time: 2 minutes
• Average time on scene: 45 minutes (some up to 7 hours)

• Call types included:
  • 30 mental health
  • 15 suicidal watches
  • 8 threatening suicide
  • 11 alcohol or drugs
  • 15 “fire against police”
  • 12 welfare checks
• They are continually auditing and validating call data to:
  • Track how many calls, what types, and when they occur.
  • Identify “super users” (frequent callers) and target them with preventive and intervention strategies.