Thread by @shayshinecastle

The main meat of the evening: The Severe Weather Shelter update.

Staff presentation: documents.bouldercolorado.gov/WebLink/DocVie…

That name doesn't really cover what this is about, which *is* about sheltering the homeless, but also about annual deaths.

Council got this as an Info Packet previously, but many council members missed it. (As did I.)

It was tucked on Page 200-something on the night that CU South annexation happened. Friend requested that council discuss it tonight. boulderbeat.news/2021/11/13/fet…

It *does* include an update on sheltering, as rules have changed quite a bit. Boulder got rid of that 6-month residency requirement that every other provider and expert said was BS (without actually admitting that it was BS).

It's actually a whole new system, in which there really is no winter/severe weather shelter. There's just shelter: Beds for people using services, and beds for people who need beds. (They still have to go through coordinated entry screening, tho)

And the programs/services (and therefore those beds) still reserved for people with a disabling condition. Among the unhoused, that's most people.

Those without can get some light-touch services, like $$ to fix a car, or a bus/plane ticket out of town, one-time financial help.

Another change: HOPE in Longmont can take folks with “documented barrier” to staying at Boulder shelter.

I frequently heard that folks who didn't want to stay at Boulder shelter tried to go stay in Longmont and were sent back. This should help.

Boulder Shelter currently has 140 beds, due to COVID. Plus 20 hotel rooms for those at risk of COVID (for now). And when it's really cold (10 or below, 6 in of snow or more) 20 additional hotel rooms.

Also under those critical weather conditions, the shelter will stay open somewhat later in the day. Instead of folks having to leave early in the morning and return at night, they have to leave later in the morning, and can return in the afternoon.

Still have to leave, tho.

Another frequent criticism of other providers and experts. Big barrier to stability for folks, not having somewhere to keep stuff and having to truck to and from a shelter every day.

Boulder has not had a day shelter or services since 2017. Several council members — including at least one (Winer) who is in favor of the camping ban — say they support day services/shelter.

Forgot to say: Under the new system, there are Reserve beds (for folks in services) and Standby beds (for those not in services). Standby beds are issued via lottery. Folks limited to 90 days per year.

No one used more than 90 days in 2019-2021 (so far). 8-9 ppl used more than 60 days. The median # of nights used per person is 4-5. (Note: That is median, not average)

"We did see an increase in coordinated entry and use of the shelter" when the 6-month resident rule was rescinded and when the tent ban began, says Kurt Finhaber, director of HHS.

Firnhaber: 3 individuals turned away on 2 nights last year due to capacity
This year, 3 nights we were at capacity. 3 ppl turned away.

Also many days when 1-4 ppl being turned away because they don't want to do coordinated entry screening (they get one grace night)

No reporting on how many people are kicked out for behavior infractions, another frequent criticism of the shelter. Staff revealed last year that up to 30 ppl can be banned on any given day. Low-barrier shelters in cities like Miami and SF don't turn that many ppl away in years.

Vicki Ebner handling the death data. As reported, 5 unhoused ppl died of hypothermia last year.

That's countywide; we don't get a breakdown by city on cause of death.

Boulder had 13 unhoused deaths last year, of the county's total 29.

Providers and unhoused people say those numbers are low. Not every death gets reported.

For a variety of reasons that I will be writing about soon-ish.

Ebner going over "exits" from homelessness. Boulder doing v well getting people into housing, including 15 folks at 30Pearl in Sept/Oct — one of whom is a friend and fellow volunteer at Feet Forward! Woot!

569 persons housed since Oct. 2017

However... Boulder also counts as "exits" when it "reunifies" someone with friends or family, or helps them with transport out of town. Despite having no followup to see if they actually remain housed.

That's true to some extent of ppl they house, too. I've seen some data but nothing super solid. Followup is expensive and difficult, so the city doesn't put its $$ there.

Ebner addressing this somewhat: Diversion is often referred to as "a ticket out of town," she says. That's not true. We make sure they're going to a stable situation.

As I've reported, outreach workers say there are folks who were diverted who are back in town.

Again, this is anecdotal. No data on the outcomes of diversion that I'm aware of. boulderbeat.news/2021/05/01/bou…

Time for some media literacy: You should always take anecdotal data with a grain of salt. Stories are good. Data is (usually) better.

In this case, tho, low incentive for outreach workers to lie. They're just reporting what they've seen. I've also talked to diverted folks who returned.

Anecdotes can be revealing where data doesn't exist, which is why journalists use them.

Anyway, back to the presentation: 439 people "reunited" with "support systems" since 2017

And 143 placed into long-term programs or treatment

All these numbers county-wide, of course, not just the city of Boulder

No outcome data for any of them (housed, reunited or in treatment/programs). As in, it's unclear how many of these folks are housed or still homeless today.

I believe there's an 80% success rate for permanent supportive housing (housing + services) but that's all we know.

No deaths among the unhoused due to COVID, Ebner says (based on coroner data). They did have a *slightly* higher rate of COVID than the general population: 10.9% of unhoused population tested positive vs. 8.4% of gen pop

But the COVID recovery center was quite successful at preventing spread in the Shelter, the city says.

Also some 200 unhoused folks have been vaccinated

18 ppl were moved to hotels last night, Ebner says. (Again, that's a COVID-era thing)

That frees up space in the shelter. Under the new system, the shelter anticipates reaching capacity more often, staff wrote.

“The system changes anticipates an increase in the number of people who are turned away from the shelter due to capacity limits. Under the previous eligibility criteria, only three people were turned away for capacity reasons.”

That was in notes to council

The shelter/city/county is working on buying 8-10 units to house folks with a lengthy criminal history OR sex offenses. Hard to find housing for those folks.

Speer: How many ppl who were housed are still housed? How many ppl in diversion/reunification are homeless today in our community? Do we know?

Firnhaber: Some of that data we do have. Some of that data we don't have and probably will never have.

70-75% of those in PSH (housing + services) stay housed, Firnhaber says (a bit lower than I thought).

Firnhaber: "We've housed individuals beyond our capacity to support them, in some cases. We need to put more resources" to those supportive services like case management.

Staff will be using federal $$ for that.

Firnhaber restating what I tweeted earlier: The city doesn't and can't follow up with people who have been sent out of the community. There's rarely contact info besides a phone #, and ppl often don't respond.

Speer: If someone was diverted then returned to the community, couldn't we track that? If they go through screening again?
Firnhaber: "That does happen. ... Case managers prioritize those individuals and try to figure out what went wrong."

No data, tho, on how often that happens.

Wallach asks a q about bed count.
Firnhaber: We have 176 folks housed since a year ago. That frees up shelter beds.

Wallach: Were any of the 5 hypothermia deaths last year due to insufficient capacity at the shelter?
Firnhaber: We don't know. But we only had 2 nights with insufficient capacity, both in November.

Firnhaber: The previous year we worked with the coroner to get the dates of those deaths.

We did have a death last year in November... I'll check the date with the capacity data.

Wallach: We're turning away just a few people. Can't we handle that some other way than just turning them away?
Firnhaber: We've taken the approach of trying to maximize our resources, and adding hotel rooms.

Yates: If we're offering 20 hotel rooms, why not offer 25 when we're only turning away 2-3 people?

"You would not have as many ppl slipping through the cracks," Yates says.

Firnhaber: "That's what the Shelter was able to negotiate with the hotel."

"It's a v short list of hotels in our community that are willing to take that arrangement," Firnhaber says.

It's not a cost thing, Firnhaber says, but "how many beds we can get on a regular basis." We could try for more if council wants us to.

Yates: "I, for one," would support that. Why not 22 or 23 hotel rooms? 20 just seems like "an awfully round number."

Joseph: Why did so many fewer people use shelter in 2020-2021 vs. 2019-2020?
Firnhaber: We started diverting and reunifying people. "It's really an expansion of services. It shifts ppl from one to the other."

Joseph: How is the median # of nights used 4-5 per person?
Firnhaber: "It probably has nothing to do with diversion." Typically the ppl in severe weather shelter are typically not engaged in services.

Firnhaber: Many people who use severe weather sheltering are "comfortable staying outside."

Joseph: We had about half the county's unhoused deaths last year in Boulder. 5 deaths to hypothermia. That's troubling to me, for a community with so many services.

Firnhaber: "We certainly share the concerns every time we see a report like this. ... The deaths that are represented on the coroner's report are ppl that passed away not in services and living on the streets."

In 2019, when we had more information on deaths, it was ppl who typically weren't engaged in services, Firnhaber says. Roughly 75% of individuals experiencing homelessness in BoCo are in the city of Boulder.

Ebner: Of the 75% who are in the city of Boulder, the city has larger # of ppl who are living unsheltered and/or have physical disabilities or substance use disorders. That increases the risk level, too.

Joseph echoes Yates' call for more hotel rooms.

Benjamin questioning the critical weather triggers for extra hotel rooms and some day shelter hours. Only 14 days per year do we hit those, but ~45 days a year do we reach 20 degrees or below.

Firnhaber: That was set previously, based on shelter bed capacity.

Firnhaber: "I don't have an answer for the justification on the actual temperature."

Ebner: We looked at weather data and the 30 lowest avg nights by temp. That drove this "need for an additional trigger for when it is truly, truly cold."

Benjamin: Maybe what I'd like to see is weather data overlaid, bc it was colder last year than this year, and we're already seeing higher bed use.

Benjamin: "Do we have the capacity built in given those changes, so we're not reacting" but preparing ahead of time?

Ebner: The turnaways we had already this year was prior to starting hotel placements. We wouldn't have turned anyone away if we'd had those hotel rooms.

"There tends to be a skewing of turnaways at the earlier part of our season" vs later, when the weather is actually worse, Ebner says. But the correlation between capacity and cold weather is not strong.

Friend: I'm struggling to remember all the changes over the past few seasons.

Firnhaber: The temp thresholds haven't changed.
Friend: Didn't we have a 20-degree threshold for something last year?
Firnhaber: If it's during the day, the daytime shelter was open.
Friend: It feels like we're not doing apples to oranges here.

"10 degrees seems awfully low," Friend says.

Speer: We're already seeing folks turned away due to capacity. "It's not even cold yet." Is it realistic that we could add hotel rooms? Are we using federal $$ available for that?

Yes, Firnhaber says. COVID $$ is paying for hotel rooms. "We had a v tight budget last year. All the new things we did last year ... we didn't pay for any of that out of city funds."

How realistic is it to get additional hotel rooms? "Idk. the answer to that right now," Firnhaber says. We could look at that again. "We'd be glad to do that."

Speer: What options are available for folks during the day as it gets colder?
Firnhaber: We're going to bring back proposals for day *services* not day sheltering. That would be programs to assist individuals who have been housed; classes and such.

"The approach that was taken is that we have limited resources as a community. The strategy was that all resources should be used toward exiting ppl out of homelessness," Firnhaber says.

Brockett: What options other than shelter do folks have to stay warm during the day?
Firnhaber: "The library gets used quite a bit."

Firnhaber: "There's other programs that ppl go to, things like Deacon's Closet. Individuals go to other public areas."

Speer: "This idea of targeting a lot of resources toward housing is really coming from federal policy and that we cannot get as much funding unless we are focusing on this housing first approach."

Firnhaber correcting.

"I don't think the decision was made bc we wanted to chase money," he says. We thought it was the direction we wanted to go.

Speer: Apologies. To clarify, I was saying that there's a lot more $$ available for housing strategies.
Yes, Firnhaber says.

I missed Speer's q, but Firnhaber's answer is that getting ppl into housing is cheaper overall than enforcement. "We've been able to show that individuals who've gotten into housing have had significant reduction in interactions with the criminal justice system."

But not a lot of solid data on return on investment, which is what Speer wanted.

Ebner: It typically costs a community $55,000 per person per year to do nothing. Housing + services costs ~$20K per person per year.

"All the peer reviewed studies show we do have reductions in those community costs" by housing ppl, Ebner says.

Folkerts: "Why don't we follow the HUD standards for coordinated entry, and how do our standards differ?"

Ebner: "I don't think it's necessarily accurate to say. we don't follow HUD standards. If it was up to me, we'd call our local program something different than coordinated entry bc it causes confusion."

Explaining continuums of care, which has an idea of "no wrong door" so that everything can lead to housing, Ebner says.

Firnhaber: While we use both systems, there was a decision made at the beginning of HSBC partly bc we can't get the info and data we need from the larger system we participate in.

"It really helps us understand what's going on locally," Firnhaber says. "A lot of individuals in our community are asking for information and why policy decisions are made."

Folkerts: I get that. One of my concerns comes from when you're showing the turnaways pretty regularly, "every other day at least," bc they weren't going through CE. "Assuming it's not the same ppl who are coming back ... that adds up to a sizeable # of ppl we're not serving."

Combined with the fact that the average # of stays is 4-5 per person, does it make sense to give ppl only one grace night before CE? Folkerts asks.

Ebner: "CE is fairly quick. It's not particularly onerous." And readily available by phone or at 909 Arapahoe or through conversations at the Shelter.

Folkerts: "I understand it, but for me it's a question of balance."

Folkerts: When will that housing for ppl with criminal history and/or drugs be available?
Firnhaber: We just closed on our first unit. We should have 7 more over the next few months.

That's for criminal histories. Firnhaber says a city/county meth treatment proposal coming soon.

Folkerts: Do we have data on injuries like frostbite? Typically, contractors have to maintain low injury rates to qualify for gov't $$.

Firnhaber: We could ask Clinica and/or BCH for that data. Idk if they track that. (Note: BCH does. I've requested it in the past.)

Smart qs from Folkerts. Nothing I've ever thought about.

Friend: Have we thought about increasing beds earlier in the season, since that's when we have turnaways?
Firnhaber: I think the timing on the hotel beds was based on the resources we had and past weather data.

Firnhaber: Ppl "test" what capacity is, so we have turnaways in the fall and then they leave the community.

Friend: "I'll ponder that."

Missed Friend's q.
Firnhaber's response: We don't have a great count of unhoused ppl in our community last year. "We do know that, in Denver, there's been a pretty significant increase in homelessness."

"I don't have any data" to say how many more people are homeless here than last year, Firnhaber says. We do have a lot of ppl who move through our community quickly.

Ebner: CE data is good for that. We saw a "pretty rapid increase" in the beginning of COVID of ppl coming from other places like Denver, which makes sense if you're trying to stay safe. (Less populated area)

We saw a leveling off during COVID and now a slight uptick, Ebner says.

"Building up a safety net" through other programs (eviction prevention, etc.) at the county level will hopefully keep us from seeing what other communities are.

Friend: Deaths of the unhoused aren't counted as exits, are they?
No, Firnhaber says.

Friend: Last year's deaths were higher than 7 of the last. 8years. That seems like a bad trend. Any explanations why?

Ebner: There are a number of factors. Growing homelessness generally, meth use.

"It's v difficult to get actual causation," Ebner says.

Long q from Friend about the 90-night limit and 1-night b4 CE screening. "I understand you want to nudge ppl toward services, but it seems like a barrier." And harsher than what we were doing with the old system.

Benjamin: Do we ever consider wind? Speeds that are essentially Category 1 hurricanes, we get those ~15 X a year.
Ebner: It used to be a criteria.
Firnhaber: it's not now.

Friend requests that these SWS/death updates continue to be discussion, not info packets.

Brockett: We should look at options for ppl to get out of the cold this winter. Hotels sound good, but maybe some other options, too?

Firnhaber: Often with these convos, ppl think "we're the people behind the curtain" but these policies are all a result of a collaborative approach at HSBC. We meet publicly every month.

Firnhaber: "We're always wanting to refine and improve the services we provide. We know there are shortfalls. We also know our programs are much better than they were a year ago and two years ago."

Speer RE: capacity issues: "I'm feeling a lot of urgency" around additional hotel beds, which may not be realistic. "What is our approach given that things cannot turn overnight?"

Firnhaber: "Sometimes we do turn on a dime. ... Our approach is to create as much emergency shelter as we can, but then get folks out of the shelter."

Firnhaber: Our focus the last 3 years has been on the chronically homeless. They're not the ones using 4-5 night; they're using 60-150 nights. Housing them frees up a significant amount of space.

That wraps this update. Not much discussion of maybe why ppl *don't* go to the shelter even when available, which was a major finding of a recent study of metro Denver homeless services (including Boulder).

Maybe next time.

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