It’s clear that Aurora’s long-awaited homeless Navigation Campus is not only off course in following its own lofty map, but it’s unable to consistently and safely provide shelter and aid to some of the region’s most vulnerable and troubled residents.
Since opening in November, the $38 million project has been plagued with problems affecting the former 255-room Crowne Plaza Hotel at I-70 and Chambers Road. The hotel was refashioned to provide shelter, medical, legal, employment and rehabilitation services to hundreds of homeless people.
There is no question that the need is great in Aurora and the surrounding area.
Local homelessness officials and advocates reported that during the 2025 “point in time” homeless census, 10,774 people across the metro area were homeless during the annual count last January. About 80% of those people are utilizing some kind of public shelter, and as many as about 35% face chronic homelessness across the seven-county metro area, according to reporting by Metro Denver Homeless Initiative.
And there’s no question that the challenges in the undertaking of the Aurora shelter project are immense.
But problems reported by residents and others go beyond an expected bumpy start and point toward a project overwhelmed by the volume of residents and their needs, and unprepared for either.
The capacity of the entire Aurora project is about 600 people, spread among three levels of service: cots in a common shelter room, semi-private “pods” in a separate shelter room, and private rooms, previously hotel rooms.
The philosophy of the center is based on a “work first” and “hybrid” approach to treating homelessness. There are few restrictions for an overnight cot in the main shelter room that comes with food. Participants in the shelter must, however, work, or seek work, and be sober to qualify for pods or private rooms.
Recent reporting by the Sentinel and other local media, as well as comments made to city lawmakers at city council meetings, have illustrated a bevy of problems at the center.
In December and January, residents complained that entire sewer systems for the main, cot-provided shelter had malfunctioned, forcing shelter officials to shut down toilets and provide portable toilets outside the shelter.
Among other complaints linked to the center, according to previous Sentinel reports, residents have reported:
• Widespread illness and respiratory issues.
• Allegations of black mold on upper floors and concerns about overall building conditions.
• No respite beds, quarantine area or on-site medical recovery space, despite frequent reports of sickness.
• Regularly changing shelter rules and offering unclear policies, leaving residents confused and fearful of being expelled.
• Drug use and dealing inside and around the building, with complaints that security screenings are ineffective.
• Delays that advance residents up the tier-system for benefits, even when beds are available in higher tiers.
• Insufficient staff, especially case managers, slowing progress and leaving Tier 1 overcrowded.
• Staff has been described as under-trained, particularly in handling mental health crises and physical disabilities.
• Promised amenities not available to shelter residents, including dog kennels, laundry access, computer room access and recreation space.
It’s unclear who or what is actually responsible for some or all of the issues plaguing the center, and that’s part of the problem.
The center is operated by a newly created private contractor, Advance Pathways, a 501(C)(3) organization, linked to Step Denver, a 12-step sobriety program.
But the city is clearly responsible for some aspects of the center, including public safety and maintaining the building and grounds.
Aurora Police Chief Todd Chamberlain recently told city officials his department has placed two police-officer units at the center full-time after the center received 141 calls for police service in a month. That’s in addition to numerous issues on-site security staff are required to handle each day.
Part of the problem stems from the foundation of the program mandated by the previous city council. The “hybrid” premise of the $38 million project focuses on a philosophy grounded in idealism, not science and reality. The causes of homelessness and the forces that perpetuate it for a growing number of Americans are complex and prolific. Economics, mental and physical illness and addiction are among just some of the causes and contributors to the nation’s crisis of homelessness.
Proponents of the Aurora Navigation Campus turned away from current science, making clear that “housing first” programs are most successful in resolving chronic homelessness, rather than “work first” programs. The science is clear that, especially for people with addiction problems, those issues are best treated and resolved by providing a safe and stable home first, rather than using safety and security as an enticement to quit drinking or using drugs and get a job.
Time, accountability and transparency will reveal how successful the city’s expensive and unproven experiment will be.
On the journey to that point, however, the city must immediately provide the accountability and transparency shelter residents, as well as taxpayers in Aurora, and across the region, deserve.
The city council should immediately create an independent Navigation Campus commission. This board, advisory or empowered, should be composed of city residents, business officials and area experts able to ensure critical details, costs and criteria are first made public as well as completed. The board should also include ex officio city officials, shelter residents and contractor officials.
Just as critical, the city council should require Advance Pathways and city employees to create a public transparency portal that would report a wide variety of details about those served at the shelter. The portal should report how many have been elevated to programs and the costs associated with the program.
What the city, the city council and the contractor cannot do, however, is wait. Hundreds of lives are at stake here, as well as millions of public dollars.
Aurora lawmakers and city officials should be lauded for undertaking such a large and potentially successful approach to addressing the region’s acute homelessness crisis. But the Navigation Campus has clearly gone off track already, and only transparency and accountability, mandated by the city council, can fix that.
This can’t come as a surprise! The “work first” model is seen by experts as putting the cart ahead of the horse. The homeless population is rife with a myriad of issues like mental health, addiction, and physical health that must be addressed before many can be eligible for employment. I hope we can come up with a good solution, because panhandling and living in tents in sub zero weather is not a suitable situation. I agree with the editorial board that only transparency and solution-oriented accountability will work!
The left-wing Aurora Sentinel Editorial Board made clear before this campus was even created that they were strongly against a “work first” approach to dealing with homelessness. They predicted its failure early on. It is for this reason that we should not look to the Aurora Sentinel for a fair unbiased review of this campus. And as usual, they misuse and misapply the concept of “science.” The correct phrase here would be “statistics show …, not science tells us…”
Yes, taxpayers in Douglas County certainly deserve transparancy and accountability for how their NIMBY money is being spent! Yes, sarcasm.
Every time the Douglas County sheriff releases a homeless prisoner from the county jail in Castle Rock, they shuttle them to Aurora as standard operating procedure. This arrangement makes Aurora safer how exactly?
If only Aurora had leadership that would take responsibility for the city’s failing retail/dining economy so that such unhealthy dependence on wealthier neighbors’ NIMBY money would be wholly unnecessary. Instead, we take their filthy money AND the systematic importation of additional criminals that comes with it.
NIMBY means Not In My Backyard. Folks in Castle Pines and Lone Tree are just laughing at how easy it is to get Aurora.