Safety, Housing, Education & Homelessness Committee - Regular Meeting

Welcome to the safety, housing, education, and homelessness committee of Denver City Council. The safety, housing, education, and homelessness committee begins now.

Okay. Great. Welcome, everyone. Welcome to the Safety Housing Education and Homelessness Committee. Today is Wednesday, June 11. Thank you so much for joining us this morning here at City Council. My name is Serena Gonzalez Gutierrez. I am one of your council members at large and honored to be the chair of the committee. We're gonna go around the room and do some introductions of our council members that are joining us here today, and

and

then we'll go into today's agenda. So it looks like we have, some folks online. So we'll start with those that are online participating, doing introductions. I think we have council president. There she is.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you. Council President Sandoval, Northwest Denver District one. Great.

And I don't know that we have anybody else

on line. Let's to the room.

I'll start over here on my left.

Good morning, Madam Chair. Stacy Gilmore, District 11.

Good morning. Paul Cashman, South Denver, District 6.

Good morning, Amanda Sawyer, District 5.

Jamie Torres, West Denver, District 3.

Kevin Flynn, Southwest Denver's District 2.

Great. Well, thank you everyone for joining. We'll update if anybody else either hops online or joins us here in person. We'll make sure we introduce everybody. With that said, we have a couple of things on our agenda, really just two briefings, and then we do have some items on consent. We'll be starting off this morning with The Gathering Place, and then we have the presentation from a program that is operated under human services. So we'll go ahead and start with The Gathering Place if you two wanna introduce yourselves, and then go ahead and go right into your presentation. We'll take questions at the end.

Perfect. Thank you so much. Good morning. My name is Christian Nesbitt. She, her pronouns. I'm the director of stability and recovery programs at The Gathering Place.

And we actually have a

It'll I think it'll pop up in a Okay. Yeah. There we go. Oh, perfect. Sorry.

I'm Heather Beck, she, her pronouns, and I'm the CEO at The Gathering Place.

Alright. We have to thank everyone for this opportunity, and special thanks to councilwoman Gonzales Gutierrez for inviting us to this. And so to start, we'll go over we would like to use the next forty five minutes to introduce you to The Gathering Place, provide clarity on how we advance the city's goals of decreasing homelessness, contribute to a safer community, and to help people obtain and maintain housing through our wraparound services to support each person's diverse needs. After understanding who we are and our impact and our outcomes during this presentation, we will ensure we have enough time for q and a. So at the Gathering Place, our vision is grounded in a simple but powerful belief that everyone deserves a pathway to housing and stability based on their individual needs.

We support these pathways for women, gender diverse individuals, and their children through programs centered on four essential pillars of home, health, purpose, and community. These are the foundations of recovery and essentials needed to thrive in safe, stable housing as we know that simply having a roof is not enough. And through programming designed to drive our mission, we center our work in service delivery through values of community, safety, inclusion, empowerment, and hope. So as mentioned, these are the four pillars that help us fulfill our mission. Below are the evidence based approaches and models we use to guide our actions and choices to support these pillars.

We believe in a low barrier model, which removes obstacles to help in order to access our services and engage with our programs quickly in an a stable stable and safe environment. Individuals and communities from a variety of background, languages, identities, and upbringing seek our services. Therefore, through culturally responsiveness cultural responsiveness, we identify and address these diverse needs. As a result, we build trust with the person and community to enhance our program's effectiveness in their long term stability pathway. Cultural responsiveness also allows communities to safely come together in our space and provide peer support and increase their sense of belonging through shared identities, communication, and somewhere where they know that they are actually being encouraged to present themselves safely for as who they are.

Since our services are for women, gender diverse people, and their children, our agency is an affinity space for our population. We educate ourselves on the on the unique needs that impact this affinity space. So some of those needs includes there's gender based hate, there's trafficking, lack of access to food and transportation, gender affirming care, medical needs. And we know to better serve and address their needs, we and to support them, we have to address this so that they can have health, home, community, and purpose. There are not many safe spaces for homeless and low income trans trans people and women, but we know a sense of safety is important for them to let their guard down and be vulnerable and ultimately trust us to help them.

At the only daytime center in Denver, TGP is an affinity space for gender diverse people and women that supports the holistic and unique needs of a person and a family to achieve and sustain housing and our overall well-being with our wraparound services. Trauma informed care is a bit of a buzzword in social services, but that's because it is effective. We understand that trauma, trauma experiences impact a person and that usually results in behavioral health challenges. Our population is severely susceptible to a multitude of traumatic events that are unfairly and uniquely impacts gender diverse individuals and women. We acknowledge that trauma and we build a relationship with them, so if they gain resilience, they're able to cope, and then they have a sense of safety, which ultimately empowers them to make informed decisions that aren't just trauma responses towards their stability goals.

We use these approaches so that we can address individual needs in a deeper and more personalized way, meaning we are not looking only at the surface issue, such as being homeless or housing and stable, but rather that several areas of life that creates a sense of safety and belonging that allows them engage in recovery and stability, that's the need that we're trying to address. We have to center those that we we serve by best serving them, by looking at their whole being as uniquely. And to carry out that mission, we embrace practices that elevate the individual and community while sustaining safety. So to I thought it a lot of words to sort of to, like, give a an example of how we do this in our space to help you envision how we do our work. I have an example of, a person that we serve.

So folks that we serve, we call them members. And so you hear me say members a lot, and so clients similar terminology. And so an example is we had a member who first came to The Gathering Place in 2019, and she was actively fleeing domestic violence. And in in those early days, she relied on our essential services such as accessing food and clothing and staying in a at the time, it was a coliseum auxiliary shelter during COVID, which the gathering place had helped staff during that time. And this was the only shelter there is a record of her staying in.

Through our bonus program, she received cult critical support, such as navigating resources, being connected to officers so that she can feel safe as she was actively fleeing this domestic violence situation, accessing medical care through our partnership with Stout Street, their health outreach program there, and connecting with mental health services. And by doing these, like, small but impactful things such as even getting her pair of reading glasses, for example, because she has to be able to read the documents in order to get these services. We are able to essentially help her find community. We build trust. We address her basic needs so she can make informed choices to get into a long term stability pathway.

And that pathway ended up with her struggling up and down throughout the years, but she was able to access the rapid rehousing program and was able to no longer experiences direct homelessness either in shelters on the street for a brief period during that two years. Unfortunately, she did end up losing that voucher and returned to us because we had lost that connection in a sense because she had joined a new bridge housing. It was an opportunity, and for various reasons, her support and her sense of belonging had decreased. And so she had returned to us essentially by regularly camping on our property along with many other people who were on our property during the hours seeking refuge and from the elements from being, like, addressing challenges with other people who are not understanding other situation and their own behavioral health. And so she did this because as she had communicated to us several times that it felt safe sleeping on TGP property because she knew we care.

She knew that this was a safe place for her to sleep. She knew that she had to sleep outside because she had challenges, and the safest place to sleep outside was on our property. And so it was clear that her mental health was declining, but she still held on to that sense of safety. And so we have to navigate the reality is that we are trying to give compassion for people and help while also mitigating that it does damage our property. It is not exactly the safest to sleep outside, but we know that brought her a sense of safety, and so she made that association.

And so and our neighbors as well, they had concerns and things to address. And so it was important for us to develop long term solutions for her while recognizing why she was making this choice even if it wasn't the most important choice. And so after several, after a week of talking with her, offering her resources, and connecting her with the outreach committee outreach team through the city, She was actually able to move into Eladi Village, which is a micro community The Gathering Place does operate, and she's now stabilized and actively working towards long term housing again. And so this is what happens when we stick with our members through the hard moments. And when the right resources are available, we work collaboratively and with that person by helping them build up resiliency and making good choices so that they can go from crisis to a pathway to stability in a life changing way.

So this is a list of the services we offer at The Gathering Place on-site at our daytime center. We provide a continuum of services and wraparound services from basic needs like hot meals, showers, and a twenty four seven shelter to stability services like housing focused case management, peer navigation, and our art and wellness program. We work with the community partners to reduce duplication of services, act as a hub for resources to improve access and engagement, and on-site dental and health care services, employment, financial education, recovery art, behavioral health care, and other critical support for individuals and families. And so if I barely touch half of the list we do, frankly. Like, someone can come up to us and ask for simple things that is important to them, and that's the key for us.

So we've had folks, for example, who are gender diverse and they've exited prison, for example, where they were in a facility that doesn't identify with their gender. And when they come out, they feel disvalued when seen as a person. They've approached us and asked for gender affirming care through mascara, for example, or having boxers. Things like that make a significant difference in someone's self worth. And so we really try to not only focus on the broader things that are important for a person such as, like I said, housing or seeing a medical professional, but those small things make someone feel worth and value, and that's important for us.

And so through that, we work we work with members as well to develop avenues where they are being informed and they're able to lead programming and services that we offer at The Gathering Place. And as a result of that, we've seen a significant increase in interest from our members to not only design, but also to attend those programs. An example of that is seen very thoroughly in our RN wellness program. A member had an idea of wanting a book club. We said, great.

Let's organize, and now they lead it. They recruit people. They are also paid incentive for their effort and their education, so we give them money directly. And so through that, I think we have seen someone finding purpose, building a community. And then through that, their health, mental health, physical health improves, and then they support each other towards their stability goals of either obtaining housing or maintaining housing.

And so it's important that we provide a continuum because our members often do not feel safe going into other providers for fear of running into an abuser, feeling judged, or having to navigate navigate care given by someone not understanding of how best to serve them. So for many of our members, it's not a matter of choosing between service providers. It's the reality reality that if it's not offered at the gathering place, they simply won't get care at all. According to the twenty twenty four point in time count, approximately 20% of the homeless population in Metro Denver was staying in a place not meant for habitation. 37% of the women and gender diverse people and their children we serve at the gathering place are staying in a place not meant for human habitation.

So what we do know is that through our agency, it's directly impacting folks that are often undercounted, underserved, and not seen by a lot of service providers in here in Denver.

I'm going

to move over here because I just can't see you.

We do

a lot of that, Bobby.

All right. So there's a lot of numbers up here. But I just want to give some context to that. So at The Gathering Place, we're just 28 direct service staff. We're a network of partner organizations. And we have a dedicated pool of volunteers that help us operate. And we've had a significant impact to creating pathways to housing instability for the over 6,000 people we serve across nearly 50,000 visits each year. We contribute to the overall progress in our city towards a safer community, in reducing homelessness, and increasing pathways to housing. So a lot of the focus of this committee. But the need is growing.

You all are well aware of that, and funding is becoming way more uncertain than it has been in the past few years. We served a thousand more people since in the last twelve months than we did the previous twelve months. And in since 2022, family homelessness in Denver has increased by a 150%. The number of people experiencing homelessness across The US reached record highs in 2024. Rent prices are high, again, something that you all are aware of, and it just makes stable housing for people earning minimum wage or less just an unreachable goal.

So our rental dollars, our rental assistance dollars, haven't increased, but the need has. And so our dollars just don't stretch as far as they used to. The cost essentials continues to rise. Food prices alone have increased by over 20%, which means we are serving 17,000 more meals a year. This equates at $50,000 increase to our annual budget, and that's just $3 per meal.

And that includes everything from accounting the staff time, volunteer time to the cost of food. So we're keeping our prices down, but we're just not keeping up with that demand. So even with increased need, we're strengthening our outcomes for members and supporting long term stability by assisting over 200 in adults and children into housing over the last year and providing over 8,000 stability services. This results in, outcomes around benefits acquisition, access to mental health and medical care, obtaining identification documents which are necessary for housing and employment, and much more. So but we also have an impact that goes well beyond the women, gender diverse people, and children who walk through our doors.

It strengthens our entire community, contributing to the city's goals with a more vibrant. Vibrant. So safety. Again, while you are convening here, it's the foundation of everything and influences how people engage in their community. And so one no longer needs to worry about where they'll sleep or where they'll get their next meal.

They can begin to focus on things like employment, housing, health. So that's why we offer a continuum of services, because we can ensure that we're there with the support that they need at every step of the way and constantly opening those pathways to stability. We also reduce the cycle of people repeatedly entering the justice system, whether as victims or those charged with crimes. This minimizes the risk disruption to services and supports continuity of care. So we're addressing what are often called survival crimes, nonviolent crimes, and actions people take when their most basic needs aren't being met.

So we ensure access to essentials like food and shelter, and we reduce the need for people to make those desperate choices. But what we know is this also lowers the risk of violence for women and gender diverse people who are often most vulnerable when they're making those dangerous choices. We engage with cultural responsiveness to break down barriers to vital services, as Christian mentioned, opening up doors to jobs, education, health care, and housing, key components in ending homelessness and breaking its generational cycle for families and individuals. For example, when the DMV provides on-site services, we can help a person navigate a name change on their ID. Sometimes the alternative is people go without that ID, and they're not applying for housing, and they're not applying for employment.

We're helping people bring people indoors, people who might not otherwise choose to sleep inside. Again, as Christian mentioned with person we were talking about earlier, was not accessing any other shelter that wasn't run by the gathering place. And so I just, again, want to highlight the importance of that continuum and that affinity space under one organization. But our support isn't just transactional to meet an immediate need. We encourage engagement at the gathering place even after moving into housing, there isn't a loss of community or stabilizing supports when people need them.

We're a place where people can continue to get the food they need when their funds are low or simply they wanna meet a friend for a cup of coffee because they're struggling with sobriety. We're also a place where people can engage in their community over a watercolor class or a recovery group for survivors of domestic violence so they can get the support to navigate a financial health, financial or health crisis or challenge they're having with a landlord that can threaten their housing stability. So recently, an example of this is that we were able to help a member obtain parts, to keep their vehicle running. Their vehicle was necessary for them to maintain their employment. They did all the mechanical work themselves, and it was a $300 fix to help them maintain that employment.

So this is really the kind of low cost, high impact support that is essential for stability and the overall health of our entire community, not just the people that we serve. Because simply receiving keys to an apartment doesn't end the challenges for folks. So we don't work directly in education, but we definitely have a impact in this area. We know homelessness in early childhood is linked to delays in language, literacy, and emotional growth. Kids are being set back before they even start school.

So our family focused programming understands the unique needs of children and caregivers from the basic needs such as providing diapers and formula and just a respite for caregivers who are trying to care for their children while living in a car. To stabilizing supports, includes help with school enrollment, housing access, and even therapy play groups where caregivers learn how to play with their children in a way that increases brain development, attachment, and bonding, language skills, and caregiver self regulation. We set up families to break the cycle of homelessness, again, not just meeting the need in that moment. And when people have stability, again, this is something that you all know, they can care about and engage in their community in a very different way. We have a member who began coming to the gathering place nearly twenty years ago when her child and her were experiencing homelessness.

She's now stably housed and has been for quite some time. Her daughter is thriving as an adult, and she's one of our longest termed and most reliable volunteers at the gathering place. So skipped one. So these are lots of words, lots of numbers up here. And as you read through these, I just wanna remind you that these aren't just statistics.

These are the adults and children who walk through our doors every day. And they reveal the deep inequalities in how safety, housing, and education are experienced in our community. It's not the same for everybody. We know that homelessness and housing stability impact those we serve at a greater and more detrimental rates than the general population. The experience of homelessness is deadly for women and gender diverse people, but sometimes staying in their house situation is just as deadly.

These disparities are only growing and widening as they navigate the impacts of change at the federal level. It's the statistics and the unique experience of those we serve that helps us understand the nuances of women and gender diverse people and family and how they navigate getting their needs met in our community. So here's our ask of you all. You're our city leaders. And we read through your recent recommendations to the mayor about Denver's, budget.

And in that, it says, invest in the well-being of Denver's most vulnerable vulnerable residents. Women, gender diverse people, and their children are amongst the most vulnerable in our community. So prioritize equity and services and funding to preserve affinity spaces like the gathering place and support more equitable outcomes for those who face the biggest barriers to stability in housing. Ensure shelters who provide critical services to our community and contribute to a vibrant Denver have financial resources for accessibility upgrades so that we can continue to serve all in our community regardless of ability. Make sure that we can make facility improvements to maintain a space that's dignified for both those we serve as well as the dedicated staff who show up every day.

When our AC goes out in a 100 degree weather, it's not safe for anybody inside of

our

building. When the cost of a roof replacement jeopardizes our ability to make payroll, it's not a sustainable way to operate a business. But Denver's vibrancy is tied to the nonprofits in this community, the gathering places in Denver that are gonna help the most vulnerable people navigate, hopefully, not longer than the next four years. So we wanna ensure that you make important decisions about the lives of people experiencing homelessness and poverty, that you engage them in a way they need and how they need it. Rely on those with lived experience and service providers to guide decision making.

We're not lawmakers, but we can really help shape responsive policies that open up more accessible pathways to housing and stability for women, gender, and their children. Shelters and service organizations are really vital to Denver's vibrancy. Vibrancy. We increase access to physical, mental health, and addiction care. We invest in the social determinants of health and our continuum of services through collaboration between providers and partners. Shelters, These are

your words. But

we have been and will continue to absorb the growing need, as the city faces a budget deficit and federal funding cuts are happening. The gathering place aligns with the budget priorities that were recommended to the mayor, and the sustainability of our organization will contribute to the overall recovery of, our beautiful city. And so we just really appreciated this opportunity to be here, to share what we do and the uniqueness of our services, and to really advocate to keep some of the most vulnerable residents in mind as you make important decisions. And that's the women, gender diverse people, and the children that we serve. So thank you. Hopefully you have some questions. I think we have time for that.

We definitely do. Thank you so much for the presentation. That was great. I do want to welcome council pro tem Romeroa Campbell, who is online, and then also councilman Heinz for joining us this morning. I will just let my colleagues know I did, and many of you maybe have already done this as well, but not only seeing the Eladi site when we did some visits to some of the all in sites, but also went and visited the gathering place.

And that's where this kind of came from is I thought it would be great to bring them here so that council members can hear about their programs and many of you probably already have heard about it. It was really I really enjoyed getting to actually physically see the space. And a funny story that I told him, I grew up like, when I was first born, we lived right around the corner from there off of 16th And High. So but, yeah. So it was, you know, was a familiar space, a familiar area of the city. And so I just thank you all for the work that you do. With that said, I'll go to council members in the queue, starting with Councilwoman Torres, followed by Councilman Hines.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you both so much. I'll share just at a personal level how important it was for my mom, as a single mom, taking care of two daughters when we experienced homelessness, finding her circle with other single moms and just how valuable and supportive that became for her as a community to rely on until she also found stable housing for us. So just want to thank you for creating that space because it really is so pivotal. I'm looking at your impact report on your site.

And I'm just wondering if those numbers include Elati Village or if those are a separate report out.

Are you looking at our presentation or the website? The website. The website has a little bit older numbers. Elati Village opened just over a year ago, so do not. When we update with our annual report, hopefully, in the next couple of weeks, that'll include Elati Village.

Awesome. Okay. Thank you. Before I remember you guys had operated the roadway, right, the roadway motel. Before that, had you done shelter operations?

No. We made a big decision when COVID hit and they were opening up the Colosseum shelter. The city came to providers saying, who can help? And we really felt like it was important for the gathering, for people entering that space to have familiar faces. I'm I we were all terrified. I can't imagine walking into a coliseum that houses 300 people and what that might feel like. So we were small, but we divided our staff in half, kept our day center open, and helped run that. When that Colosseum was closing, they're like, we need somebody to help run the roadway. And we're like, well, I guess we did it. Wow. Before, we'll do it again. And Yeah. We partnered with Catholic charities in that.

I'm really grateful because I think to be able to utilize existing experienced providers, even though you were a day shelter, that's what you were known for, to be able to establish yourselves as a shelter operations and to do it for a really important niche population, I think, also expanded our own minds in terms of what kind of sheltering is needed and who are our partners who can step in and do that. Because I feel like it's a pretty limited pool out there of who's able to step in and do that. So I appreciate you becoming that. And that led to, I think, Eladi hopefully other things because I think you do what you do very well. And so my question is what, in terms of support or kind of stability services or options that you've been seeing is the most scalable?

Like what can be most expanded to make the best impact for the population you serve?

It's a big question.

I know. Like, how do we

answer this? Honestly, I just think our entire operation. I know that sounds. Our impact is big, but we have, for example, we want to have one housing focused case manager at our day center working with the single individuals. And we have, what is it, one and a half staff working on housing navigation and resource navigation for families. And and I think by having more talented, skilled staff, that would be the place for us to go. Because as you were saying, it is about those relationships. It's about those connections. And we could do so much more.

Okay. Thank you so much. Thanks for being here. Thank you.

Councilman Hines, followed by Councilwoman Gilmer.

Thank you, committee chair. Thank you for the presentation. I am honored to have the gathering placed twice in District 10, the Eladie Macri community, and your office. So apparently, I have your childhood home in my district too. I did not know that until just now.

I just want to lay it on the table. The table's right here, so might as well do it. It's important for us as a government and as a city to have public benefits. And this is an example of a public benefit. Public benefits tend to create additional conversation from adjacent neighbors wherever the public benefit is.

So as an example, we've got Colfax BRT coming in, and we had a lot of conversation over the last several years about where the bus stop should be. Everyone wanted the well, not most people wanted the benefit of the bus rapid transit. They didn't want the bus stop in front of their store or or residence. And but eventually,

we have to we have to pick a spot.

So I just wanna kinda put that out there that it is important for us to have public benefits. It's also important for us as a city to to listen to the community. But eventually, we have to make a decision. We have to have those public benefits. So just sharing that, it's also critical that we have safe space for communities, particularly communities who face discrimination.

And it is your mission to provide a safe space for communities that by definition feel unsafe. And so thank you for providing that essential service. And while I you are a constituent that your neighbors are my neighbors and also constituents. We have it on the record on television that it is important that we have you. So the next thing that I wanted to ask about and really, this is a question for you to respond to the Eladi micro committee.

And in particular, I've heard concerns from neighbors and advocates for the unhoused. And so I just wanted to share I guess I've heard neighbors have said that they have concerns about all the residents that are there in the Eladi Micro community. Interestingly, unhoused advocates have concerns that there aren't residents in the Eladie Micro community and that the community is underutilized, as in it's not at full senses. I've heard multiple times I think I've reached out to you directly twice about how there are only four people in the Elodi Micro community. Each time I reach out, you say, it's not the case.

So so I'm asking more to give you the opportunity to put on the record you know, the the things that you and I have talked about already kind of not necessarily on the record about the Eladhi Micro community and concerns from residents and concerns from unhoused advocates. Yeah.

We've been doing a lot at both our day center location and at Elate to build our relationship with our neighbors. We know it's essential. We're a part of the community just like everybody else. And everybody's neighborhood is easier when you are working together and you understand each other. And I think we've done a lot of improvements around that over the last couple of years.

Specifically, at Eladi, we do have a good neighbor committee. And we meet every other month. The concerns haven't been coming to us in that meeting. I know there are perhaps a couple of neighbors who don't join those committee meetings. But I think our data shows, especially with DPD, we don't have a lot of incidents over at Eladi.

People are coming and going. They're doing their thing. The site is clean. And unfortunately, I do think sometimes there is just a general comfortability by just knowing that there's a space serving people who are homeless in your neighbor in their neighborhood. And I think a lot of people's concerns have decreased since we've operated there.

We noticed at the very beginning, before we opened and right after we opened, there was a lot more participation in that Good Neighbor Committee. There was a lot more concern. There was a lot more back and forth. And as we tried to address things in a way that felt trauma informed and kind of honored the dignity and the confidentiality of our members, neighbors kind of just said, oh, well, this isn't a thing. We'll move on. And so we continue to try to approach it that way. And so I don't know if there's anything more recent that's come up hasn't come our way. In terms

of us not being full, I'm

not sure where the advocates are getting the numbers. We have a census that we keep track of. There was a point in time where we were only weighed we were only had about just under 30 people at the village. We had a sewage issue, and so we have to have enough bathrooms to operate. The city maintenance has been great. They've been out there, and so we actually are moving towards full capacity. There was also a moment in time when we were just about in the low thirties as far as our census went, and that was because they were holding spots for the closure of another AIM site, making sure they could all transfer.

But there was not a time after the site was open that there were only four residents. No. We just wanna make sure that because we're spending taxpayer dollars that it's a lot. That if we're spending taxpayer dollars that that it's being utilized as efficiently and effectively as possible.

And we agree. You know, when our census was low, we really pushed host to allow us to make direct referrals into Eladi Village because we're like, we literally have people slam sleeping on our property who would be overjoyed to move in there. And so they've allowed us that ability to make those direct referrals.

So I want to lean into that comment just for a second. So the original way to get into the Eladie Market Committee was only through referral from an all in caseworker as opposed to directly from you. Is that am I getting that right?

Yeah. They really wanted to focus on, I think, those larger encampments. That was my understanding the reason why All In Mile High was developed. And so we wanted to support that effort, hopefully gaining momentum and support from the larger community as they saw things.

Yeah. But continuing to lean in, you had people immediately outside of the micro committee camping immediately outside because they knew they felt like that was indeed a safe space. So it should be a compliment to you is what I'm getting at, that they were immediately outside the Eladi micro community because they felt that was the place for them. So, really, I do think that that's a compliment to you. It was concerning for the neighbors of Golden Triangle because the idea of micro communities is to keep people not camping, away from camping into a more organized shelter or ideally into permanent housing.

The other thing that I just want to kind of put on the table is that there were commitments. Mayor's office is is here. There were commitments made by the mayor's office and the mayor directly that was not under your control, but one of the commitments included twenty four seven security. It's on the website, and and that was not something that the mayor's office ultimately chose to provide. And so that is outside your control.

It's part of the the push pull of of the the good neighbor process and of the push pull of the immediate neighbors. So that's not you. Still concerned about you. So I just, you know, wanna keep all of that in the same spot.

That was one of the main sticking points as we were starting to meet with the GMC with security. Interestingly enough, we create we had focus groups before we even opened the village to talk to people who had stayed at roadway and people experiencing homelessness to ask what their priorities were in micro communities such as that. And security came up a lot that that was what they wanted to see there, which we were surprised about. And but security's incredibly expensive, and I'll just quite frank. It's really not effective.

We train our staff in de escalation skills and other, I think, intervention and approaches that are way more effective than security because they're not armed. They're not allowed to, luckily, put their hands on people. And so it really is just the visual of having security there.

I also think it speaks to our approach is you get to know the person and review and responsive culturally. Security's approach oftentimes is to say yes and no. It's a binary, essentially, to stop a behavior through direct commands, whereas our approach is actually to try to de escalate that person, try to respond to their specific needs by maybe giving them a small think in that moment, remove them from the thing that is triggering their behavior. And I want to acknowledge that, yes, it's time consuming, but it's something that is necessary for us to actually meet the goals that we have established and said that we want to do for our population.

Yeah. So it's important that we have safe spaces. It's been in the news very recently that someone who would qualify for this community was found deceased. We don't know exactly what the issues are. Jack's Bratton.

And

if we had a safe place, I could only hope that she would be alive today. So last thing, you mentioned that you think relationships have been improving over the last two years. How long have you been the executive director?

Two years now.

I'm just kidding.

Yeah. So

was actually the point of my question, is that I believe that you have really heard the concerns from the neighbors and heard the concerns from the previous executive director. And you're making a more conscious outreach to the immediate neighbors. And I want to thank you for that, again, on the record. You.

Great. Thank you, Councilman. Next up, we have Councilwoman Gilmore.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you so much for your work and your presentation. And I really appreciate your honesty in not glossing over how time consuming this work is. And I think this is the first time in a long time I feel like people have been honest about the time and that you're trying to support people in changing their lives. And that just doesn't happen with a bed and a roof over your head.

There's a lot of other pieces that go along with it. And so I guess it's it's really concerning where we're at as a city with our budget, knowing that these services are lifesaving to so many people. And I am always curious, like, you've started this. You've been very successful. Has there been any conversation with the city or with the hotel sheltering that we've built up through purchasing assets, has there been further conversations of maybe transitioning the city ownership over to a nonprofit community partner?

Has there been conversation about that or any gatherings, I guess, about that with other providers that you maybe know about?

Not that we're aware of and not direct those conversations haven't happened directly with The Gathering Place. That would be a challenge for The Gathering Place to take over the full ownership. Just to be quite frank, because of the structure of how I think city contracts are set up, things like that, that we're just not set up in a space to be able to take over full operations. Right.

Okay. Thank you for your honesty around that because I hear from a lot of community members. They're confused if the city is going to hold these assets long term and continue to invest in them as we have or if there is a partnership transition point at some juncture. And so just wanted to bring that question forward because people have been asking with the budget and everything else that way. And it seems like your program is really, really successful.

And so do you around as far as the work that you're doing in community, I guess the housing piece of it, are you always limited resources around the rapid rehousing? Is there kind of feedback that you might be able to give us in how we can deploy that better or if there's just not enough and there's a huge gap? And then knowing that the AIDS center is also closing June 16. And I was talking with somebody yesterday from another city agency, and they were surprised by that. They didn't know.

And so just want to bring that forward so that providers start to understand that that resource is closing down as well.

They've been amazing partners, so we're really sad to hear that.

Yeah. But the housing, the housing piece. Yeah.

I think that's a good question about the rapid rehousing because it is modeled in housing first, which we do believe in. Like, put someone in housing first. But it comes with continuum of services and care that we were discussing. And so with rapid rehousing, I think we have to prepare people from day one with transparency and honesty that it's gonna be hard, but in two years, you will be taking over the lease. The voucher isn't a lifetime one.

It isn't like an emergency housing choice voucher, for example, or section eight or just variation. It's a transitional program at the end of the day. It's not permanent housing. And so I think there were some gaps in us truly helping people understand that, that this is to build empowerment for the self. It isn't us to take away something from you.

It's actually us to help you along your own individual stability. And so that's also why I think rapid rehousing is designed for specific types types of persons that are prepared to take over. I don't think everyone has that capability, which is why we do look at individualized care when we make housing plans. For example, we develop a housing stability plan, which includes childcare, child support, like how are you getting your children somewhere safe so that you can do employment. What are your interpersonal relationships? Do you have issues with family or do you actually

have a supportive family? Do you have a community?

Like, all of these things are so interlinked for anyone to move into housing. We know it's more than just a deposit. It's not just like, I need $200 and I'm good to go because we find the person coming back six months later with the same request or going to another provider with the same request, and that is not sustainable for anyone. We know it's not simply just because funds are limited, but because that's not a way to survive long term because those are as I sort of mentioned earlier, it's making decisions based on trauma and triggers. We're already making informed decisions based on coping and resilience. And I think that that's something that we have found success in. We've had individuals who've been coming. They got housed with us ten years ago. Actually, I have a great story about that recently. I just thought about it.

So last week, I went to Cross Purposes Summer Recovery Jam, and those are several people all in recovery who are coming in space to learn services. Many people approached our table and they said, I'm familiar with The Gathering Place. I was like, oh, how did you hear about us? They're like, you housed me. And I was like, oh, was it my favorite case manager, Josephine? And it was. And I think that that's really heartwarming that they were housed through our service. They're familiar with us, and they're still using other providers to to maintain her recovery. That's why she was at this event. And I know you're always welcome back.

I know you know their name. We know their, like, history as well. And I think that that is why people are continuing, not only with us, but when we make those collaborations and partnerships in other ways, they can sustain their own selves through us and others as well. Because I don't if someone

only had us, I don't

think that's actually sustainable. I think it's important that we make, we help and encourage trust for us and others too.

Let me just say, though, that it's both and to your question. There is not enough housing. And rapid rehousing isn't a solution for a city as expensive as Denver. It is, like Christian was saying, for a very small portion of the people we serve. But beyond that, if you're make again, you're making minimum wage and you have two children, it's just not possible. And and so we have used it similar to bridge housing in a way of, like, we're gonna use this two years as a runway to hopefully get a more permanent voucher or low income housing elsewhere.

Thank you. I just have just very two quick questions, and then we'll transition to our next presentation. But caseload so talking about your case managers, what is a typical caseload size that you have? And is that the recommended amount? Is there best practice when it comes to number somebody should be managing?

Yeah. We bring I try to average 20, around 20 folks because they see them once a week. But for families, it's around actually 15 just because you're talking to the head of household plus several children. So it's a bit more Yeah. So make it more equitable in that way. And, the case manager I mentioned, she does phenomenal work. So she really actually, her sweet spot, she prefers 30. But I tell her, this one, it you have to look at it too. It's like you have five people that are transitioning to housing because you know they have they're at least set. They're ready to go.

And she's currently at 25, so that means she's gonna go down to 20. So she feels no pressure necessarily adding another person who also has a voucher, and they're about to go to housing soon. So now she's at 29. So we do take into account, like, someone's urgency in a sense. It's like you are very close to finding success and can I manage that? And then we are very good at stepping in and supporting so that a case manager isn't overworked because we do understand, like, burnout and longevity is essential for that rapport building. And if we're burning our case managers, we're not going to help people get housed. Thank you.

And then last question is what are considered survival crimes?

I mean, honestly, that can be anything from, I think, using your body to earn money. It can be stealing food. It can be something as simple as trespassing because you're just laying your head down to sleep, but the police get called on you. So I think there's lots of different examples of that, but those are just a few if that answers the question.

Well, thank you both so much for being here and for providing the presentation. I just was really excited because I know this is a homegrown nonprofit organization serving our community for decades to have you know, to know that this kind of programming exists right here in our city. And like I said, it was created here for our community. So thank you so much. Really appreciate your time today.

And we'll take just a few minutes to transition over to our key point start. Thank you. Have a wonderful day. And whoever's part of the presentation, please feel free to join the table.

Yes. Of course. Doctor. So

while they're getting set up, I'll go ahead and just do a quick kind of overview of this. And so we last week, we had a contract that came to us from Denver Human Services. It was on consent for the START program, which is the Systemic Therapeutic Assessment Resources Treatment program through Rocky Mountain Human Services. And I just thought this would be great for us to learn about. Even though it was on consent, it already passed. But it's important programming that we have for our IDD community. And so I'll turn it over to the folks that we have at the end of the table, if you want to introduce yourselves. And then go ahead and proceed with your presentation. And we'll take questions at the end.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Will Fenn, legislative adviser for Denver Human Services.

Hi. My name is Mikayla Henig, sheher pronouns. I'm the program manager for the IDEAS program at Denver Human Services.

To start off, just a quick note of thanks. It's wonderful to be here with the committee. We really appreciate your ongoing support and attention for all of our programming. I want to thank our other DHS colleagues who are here in support and also our critical collaborators from Rocky Mountain Human Services and my wonderful colleague who's going give you a lot of information. And finally, specifically to you, Councilwoman, for allowing us to put the contract through consent last week but to be here to present today. So thanks for that.

Hey. So does public speaking ever get easier? I'm asking for

a friend.

Okay. Good to know. Thank you again for letting us come and present today and for your flexibility in creating this schedule so that we can support a seamless transition of services for our Denver residents with IDD as we transition between contracts. We really appreciate your partnership in that. Before I start, I did also want to recognize the people who are doing this work and are here today. We've got Joshua Cunningham and Kelly Valdez Moore in the back. They are program managers and team leads at Rocky Mountain Human Services Denver Start program. We also have Doctor. Ashley Hahn. She is the clinical director.

And then we have Amy Becerra, who is the deputy strategy officer for Rocky Mountain Human Services. Thank you all so much passion for this work. Additionally, I'd like to thank my colleague, Lynn Cutner, on the back who has really taken the lead in supporting this contract through Denver Human Services and is a really big part of the success today. So thank you all for being here. Alright.

So as madam chair noted, we're here to discuss resolution twenty five zero eight eighteen, which was on your consent agenda last week to approve a contract with Rocky Mountain Human Services to administer the Denver start program. So the term is from 07/01/2025 through 12/31/2027 for $6,400,000. And I also wanted to kind of introduce who we are as a program and who Rocky Mountain Human Services is. So Denver Human Services IDEAS Millennium Program stands for intellectual and developmental disabilities, equitable access to services. So we serve, as the city stewards of Denver's Mill Levy Fund, which is dedicated to the benefit of Denver residents with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

This mill levy was passed in 2003 in a voter approved initiative by margin of nearly 70%. Our partners with us today, Rocky Mountain Human Services, are Denver's community centered board and case management agency. So that makes them the only legal entity in Denver authorized to complete an IDD determination. And they are also the access point for any Denver residents in need of early intervention or IDD services. And as of January, they are the first and only certified provider of START services in the state of Colorado.

So we're very proud of that. So after all that, you're probably wondering what is START. And like many things in government and nonprofit, including my own program, it is an acronym. And it stands for Systemic Therapeutic Resources Assessment and Treatment. And all of those words represent core components of this service model, which I'll get to in a little bit.

So really in a nutshell, START is a crisis intervention and prevention model for children and adults ages six and over with IDD and mental health needs. And it focuses particularly on serving folks who are coming into frequent contact with emergency services because they're experiencing a lot of crisis in their lives. So these are the folks that are, calling 911, being seen by EMS, police in and out of the hospital, engaging with protective services. And, of course, that requires a lot of city resources, it's traumatic and disruptive. And for those folks, we wanna figure out a way that we can get in and meaningfully support them, create more stability in their lives, and lessen those incidents of crisis.

So we work. Denver Start works with both individuals and families on an individual level, but what I think is super great about this program is it also works on a community wide level. So we're building capacity within communities. We've got doctor Han and her team going out to different organizations, agencies, mental health providers, providing training and and consultation, creating relationships between these providers to really create a community and a system that's best able to support this community of folks with IDD and mental health needs in a way that works for them. And so the triangle that you see on the left, that kind of represents the public health model or tertiary care model that START is built off of.

And so you'll see kind of in the green, we've got your primary interventions, which you think of sort of like the general preventive wellness, kind of like your visit to your PCP. The second would be your secondary, more specialized care that you might receive if you have a diagnosis like heart conditions or diabetes where you might need to see a cardiologist or endocrinologist. You're not in crisis, but you need a higher level of care. And then you've got your tertiary interventions, which is when it's the 911 call. You're in a really dangerous situation.

You need to go to 911. So START takes this public health model and looks at it to figure out what are the needs and conditions that folks with IDD are experiencing and how can we work to create a really strong system that helps people as much as we can at the top of that inverted pyramid. And so whenever necessary, they're not getting all the way down to the bottom. And when they do, because crises do happen, even with the best primary care and intervention in the world, we're all going to need emergency care at some time, we want to make sure the entire system is talking to each other and that the entire system knows how to best support these folks so that it's less traumatic for folks when they

are engaging in crisis services and we can

get them back to stability faster. So these are where all START programs are located throughout The United States. We have ours in Colorado, which is Denver START. It's in total of 33 states that either have START programs that are certified, pursuing certification, or engaged with the oversight agency, the National Center for Start Services out of the University of New Hampshire, in collaborative trainings or designing service models that are similar to that. So we're we're putting Denver on the map in a great way.

So a real brief overview of how START came to Denver. And long story short, it was because IDEAS program, we have a community advisory council comprised of folks with lived experience of IDD and service providers. And they were discussing a needs assessment that we had commissioned in 2018 that identified inadequate mental health services as one of the top five challenges for people with IDD living in Denver. And so they said, well, we want to leverage mill levy funds to help address this need. And we think that the best way that you, Denver Human Services, can do this is bring START to Denver.

So we did our research. We talked to NCSS. We explored the viability of that program, and we put out an RFP. And we ended up actually awarding it to Rocky Mountain Human Services, who is the same provider, and I'm sorry. I meant to clarify this earlier, the same provider for our sole source contract with for Denver mill levy funds where we we leverage mill levy funds to fill gaps and address access barriers in state and federally funded services.

That's the sole source contract. This first contract we're operating now was actually competitively procured and awarded to Rocky Mountain Human Services. So that was in 2021. We executed a separate parallel contract with NCSS to really help guide and support them in the creation of this program and get them to certification. And now here in 2025, how they've achieved certification, they're operating with support of NCSS but independently and have really demonstrated their effectiveness.

And so we are would want to execute a new contract with them now as under sole source because they are the sole certified the only certified start provider within the state of Colorado. So within the scope of work, we have four categories of services that we're paying Rocky Mountain Human Services to perform. We've got the staffing and training, the client services, program certification, and community outreach and capacity building. So Denver Start maintains a team of about 16, full time employees. So we will direct reimburse for those salaries in addition to ongoing training, coaching, and certification that they need to maintain, training they need to maintain their certification.

And then we have our START client services. And that is where the team uses a variety of evidence based practices and coordinates services, including a 20 crisis line to help create wellness and stability in a person's life and prevent crisis whenever possible. And then when crises do occur, the START team supports an individual and their care governing team in designing and implementing a customized crisis plan that can be used across the individual system of care so that everyone is on the same page and can be talking together to help regulate this person, deescalate the situation, hopefully avoid, utilization of emergency services when possible, and get that person back to stability. And CSS and START are really centered on providing person centered, trauma informed, culturally competent care. And so that really underlines all of the evidence based practices that they're providing in this space.

The model typically supports people and their families for about twelve to eighteen months with the goal to take them from a place where they're kind of constantly in crisis when they're first referred to start to a place where they're achieving stability. And at that point, when folks are less reliant on START services and their own support network has been kind of been brought into the fold and they're all working together to help maintain the stability, they can in inactivate from start, which doesn't mean that they're gone, that they're discharged because life will happen and sometimes crises start occurring again so they can kind of be brought back in to start services in a really seamless way that help support their long term success. So here we have a family that has done really well in Start Services. We have Jaden in the red and then his brother Shane right in the middle, and then their brother Jerrell on the left. And Jaden has completed services within START.

He's inactivated. His brother Shane is still in them, and then their grandmother and guardian, Bernays, on the right. And the services that they received made such a big impression on Pernay, and she was so impressed with them that she really wanted to be part of that community. And so she has joined START's Advisory Council and continues to participate as someone with lived experience in the services and is really someone that we really value her participation and tells me as a program manager monitoring that this program is really successful when it's making such a big difference in people's lives that they want to be a part of it moving forward and be a part of its success. So then so we've got our start individual client work, and then we have our community outreach and capacity building.

So while we're providing direct services to clients, we're also working to build up the capacity of local providers to serve people in Denver with IDD and mental health needs through activities that enhance relationship and build expertise. So unfortunately, lot of times what folks with IDD will find is when they walk into a mental health clinic and say, hey, I'd like to engage in services, all the mental health providers kind of shut down. So, oh, well, you've got IDD. We don't do that. We can't do that.

And you go from place to place to place, and you have mental health needs, and you can't receive any services. So Denver Start wants to change that and provide expertise, the therapeutic expertise to say, yep, you can actually serve people with IDD. They also have mental health needs just like the rest of us. And these are some ways that we find that are really effective. And so they've done that not only with mental health agencies they have a great relationship with Well Power Denver but with all these systems of care that are interfacing with start clients, educators, foster care providers, protective services, emergency workers so that we're all better equipped to serve folks in our community that are really vulnerable and oftentimes fall through the cracks.

There are a variety of ways that START does this. And I know we're kind of short on time, so I won't go into details. But happy to answer questions or bring your partners up if you want to learn more about that. And this is just another example of just some of the community organizations that START has formed partnerships with since their program launch in 2022. And really, when we're talking about these partnerships, we're talking about creating bidirectional referrals.

We're talking about doing bidirectional trainings, linking these folks together because you may have a client that's being served not only by Denver Start but in multiple other organizations, including some of the ones you see up here. And it's so much better if everyone's working together. And I say this as a my my first job at Denver at Denver Human Services was an adult protective, caseworker. I was in that role for six years. And I can tell you from experience, when your system is working together to support your client, amazing things can happen.

When people aren't talking together, it's really, really hard. And so when I first learned about this model, like, a light bulb went off in my head. And I just from my own experience working with some folks like those that are served in START, I thought this is it. This is what we need. And I was so excited to be a part of it.

So then that very last piece of services that are within the scope of work is program certification. So we have provided Rocky Mountain Human Services with funding so that they can subcontract with University of New Hampshire to continue receiving consultation, training, technical assistance now that they're a certified program and then receive their certification renewal on a two year cadence moving forward. So to date, here are some of the program outcomes that we've seen from this pilot project that I'm really excited to share with you. So since their program launch in late twenty twenty two, they've served a 193 Denver residents. They currently have an active enrollment, right about a 100 folks.

64% of Denver Start clients identify as a person of color. And Start has served folks speaking languages, including Spanish, Amharic, Arabic, Burmese, and American Sign Language. They have created partnerships, which in start terminology they often call linkages, with 26 organizations serving people in Denver and so have brought the expertise and skill and benefit to not only Rocky Mountain Human Services, but all of these partner agencies, provided 50 community trainings, and have hosted 12 advisory council meetings. And so this also tells me as a program manager that we are really leveraging the funds here by funding one agency and benefiting so many more. And then these outcomes I'm also super excited to share with you because it really shows that we're being successful in reducing emergency service utilization and helping people stay in their homes.

So the two graphs on the left you see from the last annual report covering the periods between July 2023 and June 2024. So you can see with these green, orange, and blue lines, it looks at the percentage of folks enrolled in START that had experience with law enforcement encounters, ED visits, psych hospitalization in the year before they were enrolled in START and then after. And you can see all of those are going down. So we know that this is working, that we're decreasing the need to utilize these services. And then we also know that when these folks pick up the START crisis line and call Denver Start, say I'm in crisis, I need help, 90% of the time those folks are staying home.

And they're not having to get into an ambulance, get into a police car, end up in the ED, experience a lot more trauma. And that is just amazing. I mean, you think about the impact that that provides to that individual and the family, the trauma and the stress and the disruption it saves them, and then also the resources that it saves for the city in providing those crisis services, which are very important, but you all know are also very expensive. So looking ahead in this next contract period, we have partnered with START to identify some key performance indicators that we'll be monitoring on a regular basis to, again, keep ensuring that we're getting the outcomes that we hope out of this contract, which is to help folks engage in START services, decrease unnecessary emergency service utilization, stay in their homes with their families, increase their stability, and increase community capacity. And then we're also at the same time looking forward to receiving a cost savings report that was subcontracted in this current contract from Health Management Associates that can really provide us some good data about exactly how and where this investment in START Services is saving the rest of the public safety net money.

So we'll be excited to share that with you later this summer when those results come out with their next annual report. And then finally, we're looking to leverage the impact of these funds and actively partnering with Rocky Mountain Human Services to explore ways that they can diversify funding source for this. Right now, we are funding this program 100% on a direct reimbursement model. What we've done is we've designed a credit mechanism that's based on a per client per month rate, so roughly how much it takes to serve one client during a month of time. And if START identifies individual outside of Denver that is not eligible for services funded by the mill levy, START can still serve them but will credit us back the amount that it cost to serve them on each invoice.

And what we're hoping to do there is provide them a little bit more flexibility in serving folks who are oftentimes moving back and forth between county lines given that their lives are pretty unstable, but then also start to explore opportunities to make partnerships with other funders outside of Denver that may be interested in bringing this service into their own municipalities and may eventually want to start sharing some of this administrative cost with Denver while we can still ensure that we are only funding services for the benefit of Denver residents. So thank you so much for your time, for inviting us to come and speak to you, and happy to take questions.

Great. Thank you so much for this. I do want to just make a comment before going into the queue. Council pro tem Romero Campbell, she had to log off, but she's heading to the office now because she has a off-site in district office. So, anyway,

she said she won't be

able to comment when your presentation wraps up, but she wanted me to relay this message. She's very grateful for Rocky Mountain Human Services and the broad scope of work that they provide to the community. She has toured and visited with the staff. They are located in District 4 and have leased out part of their building as a mini hub for Denver Human Services. So I think she's just thanking you for the work that you do.

And I'll just piggyback off of that as when I was a caseworker, I remember it was called Denver Options. Is that what it's called then? I was like, I can't remember. But I remember, making a lot of referrals and going through the process with kids in foster care, you know, kids in giving kids that were living in at home, being able to get them, referred to these types of programming and services at an early age. And so seeing that now there's this, like, therapeutic, component, which is a huge challenge trying to find, those types of services for, kids, you know, need and and adults needing those types of services. So we'll pop over to the queue, and I have Councilman Hines followed by Councilman Flynn.

Great. Thank you, committee chair. Thank you for the presentation. Thanks for being here. I am the current Rocky Mountain Human Services client, not because of IDD, but because I'm on Colorado Medicaid and the working adults with disabilities. The program for how am I having a brain fart on that? Anyway, I work. I have a disability. And Medicaid has a program, and I forget its name. But that's Recommended Human Services administers that program here for the County Of Denver.

So public speaking never gets easier. For what it's worth, as as the committee chair said, sometimes you have so many public speaking opportunities, you just get numb. So so there you go. We we just have more opportunities to do public speaking and be on television. So we just kind of so anyway, totally understandable that people are nervous here.

IDD, just for what it's worth, we do a lot of acronyms. It was mentioned on one of the slides. It's intellectual and developmental disabilities or people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Do you know what the population size, the full IDD population in Denver is, and the population size of people served by this program?

That's such a great question. So Rocky Mountain Human Services in their last report reported serving just over six thousand individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. So that's a determination made for folks that are five years of age and older. And folks children, babies, and toddlers under the age of five who have a diagnosed developmental delay. Some of those children will go on to receive services as a person with an IDD.

Some of those children will receive therapeutic services and be able to catch up to their peers developmentally and will no longer require services and will end up receiving that IDD determination. So including kiddos in EI, about 6,000 receiving services. We don't know how many more there are. And I think that's something that's our program ideas in partnership with Rocky Mountain Human Services and other community agencies are really trying to figure out. Because unfortunately, a lot of times these folks fall through the cracks.

And those are the folks that I think we are all really dedicated to helping find and bring back into the folds that we can support them in the way that they deserve as a community member. So I think the estimates are really broad. But I think up to maybe even 10 or 12,000 people in Denver could have IDD and just have not been determined and are connected to services.

So there's a number that we don't know, and it might be 10,000 or 12,000 of the number of people living in Denver with IDD. And then there's a number below that of the people served with Rocky Mountain Human Services. That's six thousand. And then the number of people in this program's 198 or have been through the program?

Those are folks who have been served since the program launch in 2022. Active currently is as of March or last month was 98, and we're still pretty close to there, I'm thinking.

So there's an opportunity to grow, I guess. Certainly, we don't want to grow something without making sure that it works. So totally, I understand that. So I'm not trying to say it's an opportunity to grow and it's a ding on anyone. It's just that we have an opportunity.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think this team is really working to make sure that they are creating these relationships and networks so that folks who will benefit for these services can get access to that. Fortunately, not everyone that's receiving services through Rocky Mountain Human Services is experiencing ongoing crisis, and so wouldn't be in need of Denver Start services. But I think given the systemic barriers that still exist and a lot of the stigma and trauma that this community of folks still experience, there are more people than there should be that are experiencing crises. And I think we have an amazing team in place that's working to continue outreach and make sure that folks are aware of this service and can engage in that if it's the right time in their lives for that.

SPEAKER Yeah. And as someone who identifies as a member of the disability community, there are a lot of people who resist being included in my people. And they don't want to be identified as someone with a disability. The statistics show that seniors 65 and older, one and two, have a disability. But many of those same seniors do not want to be part of the disability community.

They just say, ah, I have this limp or I used this cane because I'm old, not because I have a disability. But they do. Last thing that I just this is something I don't know as much about. And so I'd just be curious about there's a Colorado Developmental Disabilities Council, Colorado Developmental or sorry, there's a CDHS, Colorado Department of Human Services also has the Disability Determination Services group. I'd just be curious, because this is Denver certified, yet there are some state agencies that do similar things. How how does that overlap work?

I if sorry. I'd really love to call Amy Viserra up to the table who has great expertise in working through that system and can explain it well.

You could go to the microphone and just introduce yourself.

Hi. I'm Mimi Vissera with Rocky Mountain Human Services. I'm the deputy strategy officer and former Milibi, director of the Milibi program. So the state, they overlap a couple of areas. They do the disability applications, which kicks off the the services, which is the the the federal definition of disability.

So not a lot of overlap will start there, but more in our intake processes. But specific to crisis response services, the state has attempted to to, fill this gap. They even had several pilot programs, that were in the state that were commissioned by health care policy and finance, and they ran a kind of a pilot in the START space. But those two pilots, one was on the Western Slope, one was in Fort Collins, They were successful for their run, but they did not they were not sustainable. And so there's an ongoing, effort at the state, around this, but they have not successfully been able to fill that gap.

And one of the things that Mikaela brought up that's so important and that the START model embraces is that more communities that have the START model, the more sustainable it is for the general community, and so that's where that growth and expansion is really important. And that's kind of what the state identified through the pilot program, was that we needed more than just a Western Slope and a Fort Collins. And so I think that our success in Denver is really promising to be able to to to encourage other communities, but so that's kind of where it overlapped with the state, and that was I'm I was working at the regional centers at the time of that process around 2018 was when that pilot was going on, and then we all know kind of the things that have happened since then. So that's kind of where they are at this state.

Great.

Other other was that kind of what you were looking for?

Yeah.

Okay.

Thank you. And, yeah, I'm in Medicaid for working adults with disabilities. I remember the acronym. And so thank you. Thank you, committee chair.

Great. Thank you. Councilman Flynn followed by Councilwoman Swire.

Thank you, madam chair. I've I've given the time. I'll I'll try to be brief. But can you tell us, does the contract have any metrics in it for numbers to be served? And the reason I ask is in the executive summary here, there's a discrepancy with the presentation that says that program started in September 2021, but the presentation said 2022.

But when I looked at the executive summary, it said in that time, whatever it is, two and a half or three and a half years, you served a 193 people, and that seems kind of low. So this new contract is about 2 and a half million dollars a year. So I'm wondering if we are setting targets, for Rocky Mountain Human Services to enroll, to do more outreach. I guess I'm trying to understand what is the universe of clients potentially eligible for this.

Absolutely. Thank you so much for that question. And I apologize for the confusion.

Which one is it? Did it start in 2021 or 2022?

Right. So the contract started in 2021. And of course, there was no start program at that time. So Rocky Mountain Human Services spent a year hiring staff, bringing them on, getting a program together. And then there was a program launch in September 2022. And that's when they started taking on clients. And then related to your other question in terms of looking at targets for enrollment

Yes.

We instead of looking at annual targets for enrollment overall, what we're doing is shifting to looking at target caseloads for each start coordinator to be in line with the recommended caseload average for that's through NCSS data. So that's about 18 to 22.

Okay.

And right now, we're a little bit below that. Start is working really hard to grow that. Mhmm. And so that's one of things we'll be monitoring.

Of the 16 staff, I understood 16, how many of those are the coordinators?

Six currently.

Six. Mhmm.

Thank you,

madam chair.

Thank you.

We look forward to seeing the contract itself and rereading it in a weekend.

Yeah. I will just say, thank you, madam chair. My question was very similar to councilman Flynn's question just in terms of the metrics, of how many people were serving. I have two kids who qualify for this program. No one has ever come on to my door and said, hey.

Would you like to take advantage of this? And the thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars and hours that we have put into occupational therapy and speech therapy and ocular therapy and regular therapy and special schools and tutoring and all the things that have managed to get my kids through teenage hood, are pretty extraordinary. And that doesn't even include $3,500 each every three years for testing that has to be done privately only just to get them to qualify for this program. So I just want to say, I think that the 10,000 person estimate of children who qualify for these programs in the city and county of Denver is very low because I know a lot of families who have kids who qualify for these programs too, and not one of them has accessed this program. So I do think that we need to do a significantly better job of trying to do outreach to qualifying families because it is clear in my experience and many of my friends' experiences that we're not even we didn't even know this existed.

So just flagging that, I do think the metrics are important.

We hear you. Thank you.

Thank you so much for that. Thank you for coming and presenting. With that said, we have seven items on consent. Those will move forward to the full council, seeing that nobody has pulled those off. And we are adjourned.