I hate this news story. If I wasn’t living in this community (Douglas county) I would think it’s a good story. However, Douglas county has massive NIMBY policies, including outlawing everything that would allow someone experiencing homelessness anywhere near here. No homeless shelters are legal, no sleeping outside is legal, hell even weed stores are illegal in this massive county, despite it being legal in the majority of the state. Douglas county also created its own health department in protest of mask and vaccine mandates. It’s a very affluent deeply conservative pocket in Colorado that makes me sick.
That’s probably exactly what happens. Or they get a bus ticket to the nearest big city that does have some services, after which conservatives can rail about how the city has become a hellhole that’s full of homeless people.
Did you read the article? The actual details of the program are pretty far from what you say here. Don’t have time to bullet point at the moment but please trust me and just take a full look. As someone with deep personal experience around this issue, their method might be a genuine answer to the problem, when properly scaled. Not the first time a plan like theirs has been tried either; Olympia, WA has a similar program for direct outreach.
Since HEART has launched, the county has engaged with roughly 215 people on the street, according to the commissioner.
So in 2 years they spent $3 million dollars to “help” 215 people. And the article is very vague and full of euphemisms that make me suspect they’re just pushing them out to Denver.
engaged with roughly 215 people on the street
Key word being “engaged”, later they slipped in there that 80% end up not getting “helped”
Did you?
They spent almost $3 million in helping 37 people in 2 years (that’s $81,000 a pop) with very vague “getting them help”. Very much looks like most of what they do is ship them to out of county
I think you’re being intentionally obtuse. The article is anything but vague. Are they supposed to name the exact agencies and businesses involved, or can we reasonably assume that Laydon is referring to state funded assistance? Here’s some select bits of the article since you don’t want to read.
Douglas County had created a team of experts, known as the “Homeless Engagement, Assistance and Resource Team," to help tackle the issue. The HEART team, as county officials call it, is made up of experts in behavioral health and who are deployed in branded vehicles to help people living on the streets.
Here’s how the county handles it. When a report is made about a panhandler or a homeless person, a HEART vehicle is deployed to the area and make an assessment.
Laydon called Douglas County’s approach “housing plus,” which, he said, is a balanced approach to “trauma-informed practices.”
“For us,” Laydon added, “‘housing plus’ means wraparound. So, it is housing, but it is also food, shelter, job counseling, mental health counseling. It’s treating those substance abuse issues that we know often come hand in hand with a lot of the issues that the unhoused face.”
Edit: Additionally, I fail to see the relevance of money spent if it actually results in less people unhoused. Denver spent way more money and ended up with a higher unhoused population than before.
