[BoulderCouncilHotline] Homelessness Sheltering Question Follow Up

[Schwartz, Wendy]

Dear Council Members,



At the Oct. 16 council meeting, information was requested about homelessness sheltering capacity and procedures when a facility reaches capacity.



Within the new Homeless Solutions for Boulder County<https://www.bouldercounty.org/government/boards-and-commissions/boulder-county-regional-homeless-systems-management/> system, all individuals enter homeless services through Coordinated Entry<https://www.bouldercounty.org/homeless/> screening, where they are matched with the program most aligned to their level of need, including sheltering services. People that are screened as lower need are referred to the Bridge House Path to Home Navigation program (PTHN), which includes 50 year-round beds. PTHN focuses on short-term assistance, with a goal of helping lower need people get to solutions within seven days. Longer-term residents screening with higher needs are referred to the Boulder Shelter for the Homeless Housing-focused Shelter program (HFS), which includes 160 year-round beds. Individuals in the HFS program have the option of signing up for a reserved bed until they are housed. The combined programs result in 210 shelter beds available for homeless adults 365 nights per year. If an individual arrives too late for Coordinated Entry screening, he/she can access one night of sheltering at PTHN or HFS and go to Coordinated Entry the following day.



The Severe Weather Shelter program (SWS), operated by Bridge House, provides an additional 72 beds (supplementing the nightly 210) when SWS criteria is met. SWS is currently provided at rotating faith-based locations, but is anticipated to move to unleased space at the Coordinated Entry/PTHN site at 2691 30th St. on approximately Dec. 1, 2018. Current SWS criteria was approved by council on Jan. 23, 2018:

  *   National Weather Service warning or watch for winter weather, winter storm, blizzard, cold/wind chill, extreme cold/wind chill, heavy snow, ice storm; OR
  *   National Weather Service predicts a temperature of 32 degrees Fahrenheit or below; OR
  *   National Weather Service predicts a temperature of 38 degrees Fahrenheit or below with precipitation.



In cases where PTHN or HFS reach capacity on a night meeting severe weather sheltering criteria, people are referred to the SWS site, and provided a bus ticket to get there. The 210 nightly PTHN and HFS beds are rarely filled to capacity. Shelter attendance throughout the year can be viewed on the City of Boulder homelessness dashboard<https://bouldercolorado.gov/homelessness/homelessness-dashboard>. Staff will be working with BSH and Bridge House to monitor census throughout the season, and believe that current capacity is appropriate given last year's demand trends.



Please feel free to contact me with any further questions.



Best,

Wendy

Wendy Schwartz
Homeless Initiatives Manager
MPP
[https://bouldercolorado.gov/links/fetch/41501]
O: 303-441-1818
schwartzw at bouldercolorado.gov<mailto:schwartzw at bouldercolorado.gov>
909 Arapahoe Ave. | Boulder, CO 80306
Bouldercolorado.gov<https://www.bouldercolorado.gov/>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://list.ci.boulder.co.us/pipermail/bouldercouncilhotline/attachments/20181019/2c82161b/attachment.html 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.png
Type: image/png
Size: 15389 bytes
Desc: image001.png
Url : http://list.ci.boulder.co.us/pipermail/bouldercouncilhotline/attachments/20181019/2c82161b/attachment.png