Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman is calling on the state legislature to change Colorado law so that local governments cannot ship homeless individuals to another jurisdiction without that community's permission. The request comes amid frustration with Douglas County after it was learned the county has provided transportation for the homeless to other locations.
The mayor also prepared a resolution for debate at the city council’s Monday study session condemning Douglas County’s practice. However, Coffman decided to withdraw the resolution after having what he said were promising discussions with the county commissioners earlier that day. The discussion included Douglas County’s potential participation in a navigation center that Aurora plans to build, a major priority for the mayor.
Aurora is currently seeking funding to build a new campus that is slated to provide emergency shelter, transitional housing and supportive services for the homeless with a price tag of $50 million. Coffman hopes the campus becomes a regional hub that counts Douglas County as one of its partners.
The campus is his main priority now, the mayor said, and so he opted against pursuing his resolution opposing the transportation of homeless people from Douglas County to Aurora.
Urban challenges for Douglas County
Coffman's resolution stemmed from a plan that emerged out of Douglas County earlier this year to transport homeless individuals to places outside of the county so that they might receive services and shelter.
“I was very disturbed,” Coffman said.
Coffman took particular note of the Douglas County’s sheriff making public comments stating that up to 15% of the county jail’s population was homeless before incarceration. The sheriff worried those people might reoffend if released to Douglas County streets with no shelter options, he said.
“They also contend in Douglas County that these really aren’t their people,” Coffman said.
Former mayor Bob LeGare echoed Coffman's comments. LeGare lives in the portion of Aurora that lies within Douglas County and has attended several meetings of a working group set up to tackle homelessness. He spoke on Monday about his observations from those meetings.
Douglas County has three navigators who provide street outreach to the homeless but there is no place for homeless men to go, he said. The county has some seasonal shelter options for women and children.
Elected leadership from Lone Tree, Castle Rock and the county have expressed firm opposition to bringing a shelter to the county, he said, describing their concerns as an “if you build it, they will come” mentality. Members of the public came out in force to the working group meetings to oppose shelters too, he said.
LeGare said he had the impression that Douglas County personnel “try to coax a city out of them” if they do not have documentation saying where a homeless person is from.
A breakdown presented at a meeting last month said the county contacted 52 homeless people in total. More than a dozen were from Denver, three came from Aurora, six from Texas, two from Florida and 18 were described as transient. Some people were contacted more than once, which is why the numbers do not add up to 52, LeGare said.
"(The homeless) move around all the time," Coffman said, and that Aurora frequently provides services to people who are not from the city. The mayor said it is Douglas County’s responsibility to serve homeless people within the borders of the fast-growing county.
“Douglas County is becoming more urban and it’s going to have more urban challenges, and unfortunately more homelessness is one of them,” Coffman said.
Douglas County Commissioner Abe Laydon said in a statement the local homeless population was down to 50 at the beginning of 2022, according to Point-in-Time counts. The county’s overall population exceeded more than 373,000 people as of early 2022. Aurora’s population is just shy of 400,000 people, with several hundred homeless according to recent estimates.
“In fact, 82% (monthly average) of the homeless inmate population in our detention center are not from Douglas County. When they are released, they are offered transportation to the location of their choice,” Laydon said.
LeGare told councilmembers additional counts at other points in the year showed Douglas County’s homeless population fluctuated, reaching the 70s and 90s at different times.
The county partners with the faith-based Winter Shelter Network to provide emergency shelter for women and children during colder months, Laydon said. The county has designated more than $14 million in federal funding since 2020 to prevent and address homelessness, he said.
“We are, and intend to sustain our position as, a strong, responsive regional partner on this issue and we appreciate the City of Aurora taking the lead in pursuit of the State’s funding for a Regional Navigation Campus,” Laydon said.
A lack of resources
Douglas County Sheriff Tony Spurlock has staunchly defended the sheriff’s office practice and was angered by the resolution Coffman drafted. He called the resolution prejudiced and offensive to homeless members of the community, as well as political, and said Coffman is blowing the issue out of proportion.
Douglas County has transported roughly 15 people to other communities where they have ties, and not only to Aurora, he said. The sheriff’s office has occasionally given people bus passes to reach El Paso County or Colorado Springs.
Despite a number of local churches are looking into more ways they can support the homeless population, Spurlock said, bringing in a shelter remains “a hot topic here in Douglas County."
“Unfortunately, people ... want to say, ‘We want to help the homeless, but not in my backyard,’” he said.
Castle Rock, where the county jail is located, does not have public transportation and people released from the jail can become stranded, Spurlock said. The county also does not have a shelter, and recent proposals to bring in temporary pallet homes received significant community pushback, Spurlock said.
“We are doing what we can with the resources that we have available to us, because we don’t have any place to take them,” Spurlock said.
Spurlock explained Douglas County is only transporting people to areas where they have connection to friends and family, or where they are attending an addiction treatment program.
Deputies verify that the address someone asks for a ride to is legitimate, Spurlock said, adding that “if we take you there, we are going to knock on the door” to make sure the person is not just dropped off with nowhere to go.
The county cannot force anyone to go to another community, Spurlock said.
“We have not, nor are we ever intending, to pick up homeless people, put them in our car and drive them to the Aurora city limits and boot them out,” Spurlock said.
