Mayor Mike Coffman has brought back to life his proposal to ban urban camping in Aurora. The proposal would give those camping within the city limits seven days to relocate, on the condition their is an alternate location, provided by the city, available to relocate. Photo by PHILIP B. POSTON/Sentinel Colorado
Mayor Mike Coffman has brought back a new proposal address homelessness in Aurora. .
File Photo by PHILIP B. POSTON/Sentinel Colorado

AURORA | Aurora conservatives want to codify more of their philosophy around housing the homeless, following a trip to San Antonio to study that city’s outreach and aid programs.

Mayor Mike Coffman presented an outline for coordinating the city’s approach to homelessness on Monday, which includes:

  • Creating conditions for accessing transitional housing and incentives for using support services.
  • Quantifying the city’s success at addressing homelessness based on the number of clients who have achieved self-sufficiency.
  • Consolidating homelessness services onto a single campus, which the city may wait to build until it secures the help of a private nonprofit.
  • Offering employment services, emergency support and case management for the homeless.
  • Developing a public communication strategy to educate the public about how the city’s program works and how they can support it.

“What we ought to do on the campus is focus our resources on those that want to change their behavior, those who want to do something affirmative to change their behavior, to participate in addiction recovery and mental health (programs),” he said.

“But like the model of Haven for Hope in San Antonio, that all of the specific services, we really want them co-located on the campus.”

It was unclear whether Coffman has the votes to codify the plan, as one conservative, Curtis Gardner, was absent Monday, and another, Danielle Jurinsky, had microphone issues that prevented her from sharing her opinion of the plan at the end of the remote meeting.

Coffman’s plan was opposed by council progressives who said more conditions for receiving aid would only lead to the city helping fewer people exit homelessness.

“We were told, even by folks at Haven, that the conditions were barriers, that we were going to serve less people,” Councilmember Juan Marcano said.

“Our residents have asked us to solve this problem. Not to moralize about it, not to make judgments about it, but to solve this problem. And I feel like we’re getting way into the weeds here about a campus, and all of these requirements we want to tack on, and that’s going to make anything we do less effective at the end of the day.”

He also questioned whether it was cost-effective for the city to invest in a single campus rather than existing properties around the city, which Houston reportedly found to be more cost-effective. Before traveling to San Antonio, a delegation from Aurora also visited Houston to evaluate that city’s approach to homelessness.

Coffman said, and Councilmember Dustin Zvonek agreed, that he believed concentrating homelessness services in a single place made it easier for people in need to find help. Zvonek also said “housing-first” policies are fiscally unsustainable and “hide” the homeless by placing them in housing without helping them live self-sufficient lives.

“I don’t think it’s our economic system that produces homelessness. I think it’s lenient drug laws that produce more homelessness, and the lack of access to mental health support that leads to homelessness,” Zvonek said.

Coffman also expressed admiration for the model of the Colorado Springs Rescue Mission, where he said has few conditions for homeless people seeking emergency shelter or essentials like food and medical care, but requires participation in job training and drug treatment and mental health programs for transitional housing and other programs.

Councilmember Francoise Bergan asked whether a condition could be added to Coffman’s plan to require investment by a nonprofit before building a campus, and the mayor said he would work with Bergan on language to reflect that, adding that he was willing to talk with any council member about what they would like to add to the plan.

A survey undertaken on behalf of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development indicated that, in 2022, there were at least 612 unsheltered homeless people living in the City of Aurora.

23 replies on “Aurora mayor brings forward ‘work-first’ plan for housing the homeless”

  2. Danielle Jurinsky, had microphone issues that prevented her from sharing her opinion of the plan at the end of the remote meeting.
    Best thing that happened at the meeting…

  3. Remember Mike Coffman’s last plan for homelessness? The “ban”, police, and blame them plan? That didn’t work either.

    This guy just wants to run campaigns and make money off finger wagging and stigmatizing. He wants to grandstand on the wrong “theory” that homeless people are all degenerates who needs jobs and Jesus, which makes people with jobs feel superior and safe from homelessness. Even though Coffman KNOWS that “work first” doesn’t work, it makes the suburbanites that he is trying to dupe FEEL like they all are better, safer, smarter than the homeless people. But it’s snake oil – it’s fake. Mike Coffman will appeal to that base instinct in voters to feel superior every November, and in the intervening months where it’s clear every one of his sneaky schemes just waste money and resources and never even get the results he promises for those self-satisfied voters, he’ll deflect and distract and disappear. He’s a conman, the Wizard of Oz, and he’s selling an illusion and hiding behind the curtain.

  4. I’m not a Coffman (or any republican) fan but thiis makes sense to me. Mostly. As long as the city helps with finding employment and provides facilities to bathe,eg, and clean clothes for interviws. I question the one spot area for services siince aurora is so sprawling, but maybe homelessness is concentrated in the poorer parts of town. it’s a good start, though. The liberals should work with him.

    2. A significant portion of the homeless population already have jobs – many of them have more than one job. The jobs they have just don’t pay enough to afford a home with low wages and sky-high rents. They already are working first, and it isn’t getting them into homes. How’s work first going to help them?

      On the flip side of that coin, did you know that most addicts have homes? For every unhoused addict you see outside, there are more addicts on your block that “functioning” and housed because they have safety nets and resources that the unhoused addicts don’t have. The only difference between your neighbor the addict in the apartment next door and your neighbor the addict in the tent on the highway is that apartment. Forcing unhoused addicts into “treatment” has an extremely low rate of success at helping them get clean and even less success at getting them in stable situations – it mostly makes addicts avoid the programs that might benefit to avoid the “treatment”, and the they’re still homeless. If you want homeless people off your streets, let them have housing, just like the other addicts on your block who you don’t seem to think need to be forced into “treatment”.

      There are as many causes for homelessness as there are people who are homeless. There is one thing they all have in common, though – it’s pretty simple, all homeless people don’t have homes. If we provide help for them to get stable, accessible homes that offer them the same or more freedoms and dignity that they are searching for in tents – they will accept that and start finding stability. But if you try to force them into conditions and programs that treat them like children and take away the littlest scraps of autonomy and self-direcrion that they have scrounged, and/or if you stigmatize them and judge them as a “price” to pay for help, they won’t take it. That’s why housing first programs work – they address the one universal factor for every homeless case (no home!) and they don’t create a bunch of barriers to access like work first programs.

      Coffman what’s work first because he’s a politician. He’s not an expert on homelessness and he’s not listening to the experts. Why even go on all those trips and tours if you aren’t going to actually follow the experts and the programs that were the most successful? What a waste!

      1. “he’s not listening to the experts.”

        You mean the “experts whose progressive policies have created #%@&holes out of formerly beautiful cities like San Francisco, LA. Portland and Seattle?

      2. “A significant portion of the homeless population already have jobs – many of them have more than one job. The jobs they have just don’t pay enough to afford a home with low wages and sky-high rents.” Really? “A significant portion…” Really? I find your statement totally unbelievable. Coffman is right. And, in addition, the VA needs to take responsibility for all the homeless veterans. All of them!!

        2. Regardless of your feelings of disbelief, the facts are the facts. In fact, it’s your incorrect gut feelings that Coffman is capitalizing on, as Zero said above. You feel that way because you are having a defensive reaction to the truth – you should look hard at yourself and why you feel that way. But regardless of what you believe, the facts will keep being facts whether you believe them or not. 53% of people living in homeless shelters and 40% of unsheltered people were employed, either full or part-time, between 2011 – 2018. You may not like that, but your dislike is irrelevant. It’s the truth. Just screaming at homeless people to get jobs isn’t going to change a damn thing. If you want change, you’re gonna have to something that wasn’t being done before – and turns out, people like you and Coffman have been blaming homeless people for about a hundred years now for being lazy, and it hasn’t changed a damn thing, has it?

  5. This has to be the laugh of the day!
    “Danielle Jurinsky, had microphone issues that prevented her from sharing her opinion of the plan at the end of the remote meeting.”

  6. So who said?
    Housing First is a relatively recent innovation in human service programs and social policy regarding treatment of people who are homeless and is an alternative to a system of emergency shelter/transitional housing progressions. Rather than moving homeless individuals through different “levels” of housing, whereby each level moves them closer to “independent housing”, Housing First moves the homeless individual or household immediately from the streets or homeless shelters into their own accommodation.

  7. Hopefully the mayor is still working to prevent Douglas County from dumping homeless prisoners on Aurora when they’re released from jail.

    Aurora’s compassion directly enables Douglas County’s NIMBY policy that all homeless should be escorted by the sheriff out of the county.

    Think I’m exaggerating? See Douglas County’s June 22 town hall on homelessness available on YouTube. They’re very proud of their NIMBY policies.

    Its time for Aurora to show the bickering warlords running Douglas County (the three county commissioners) some serious tough love.

  8. It’s pretty strait forward these Government programs to house homeless are all lost as the only ones that can’t see it, is the politicians themselves. Let’s face it- These “homeless shelters” are being transformed into drug communities nothing more. So the taxpayer has no choice except to vote out the known politicians that say just give us a little more subsidization and we will turn the corner. No- no more!

    https://www.ktvu.com/news/meth-lab-found-at-san-francisco-hotel-room-used-as-city-covid-19-shelter

    https://www.newsweek.com/meth-lab-hotel-coronavirus-san-francisco-1523335

    https://www.greatfallstribune.com/story/news/2019/12/16/fort-peck-homeless-shelters-close-meth-contamination-addiction-poplar-wolf-point-floyd-azure/4413972002/

    https://californiahealthline.org/news/article/homeless-crisis-city-solutions-portland-oregon/

    “The RV encampments have emerged as havens of heroin and fentanyl use, a community of addiction from which it is difficult to break free, according to interviews with dozens of camp inhabitants” 

    1. thanks for providing context to you comments. I agree. It’s a tough problem to solve doing it under the US Constitution for sure. I’ve advocated for a coffman like plan for the past 6 years or so. CM Lawson and CM Marcano can attest to my offerings.
      But you are correct, there has to be ‘policing’ as well as “mental health” professionals on standby to keep drugs out of the settlements (or a place for them to administer their drugs to themselves safely)

  10. Coffman is clueless and wants to stay that way (won’t ask the experts to speak at council meeting or listen to any of them in Denver/Aurora or in cities Council has visited). Won’t look at data and studies which show what works and why, and why his put ’em to work first’ is shown to be a failure in every way. No capacity to learn about an issue and manage it as a team with qualified, knowledgeable professionals leading the way – only wants to do what he “feels” like doing, that will continue to divide the community and deflect from his own management and intellectual incompetence. He either doesn’t care to know the real facts and science, or knows and is using this for political purposes, and no matter which, he is always using issues for his own political purposes with no regard for the humans involved and suffering (like the many years he tried to take away ACA from thousands of Aurorans who depended on it as their only healthcare option)…thus his short dress-up as a homeless person stunt – to keep the attention on him and spread hatred and blame of people experiencing homelessness.

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