Colorado Springs shelters discuss goals to address homelessness in 2020
Travis Williams smiles as he watches hundreds of homeless people gather for a Christmas Eve feast on Tuesday at the Colorado Springs city auditorium.
"This is what it looks like in this community to love our neighbors just a little bit more," said Williams, who is the chief development officer of Springs Rescue Mission. "We hope this message can really inspire all of us at this Christmas time."
As a new year approaches, local homeless shelters say their priority is to help more people get off the streets and back into the community.
Kristy Milligan, the CEO of Westside CARES, says she would like to see the city leaders of Colorado Springs get more involved when addressing homelessness.
"In addition to the revitalization projects we would love to see strides made toward the creation of affordable housing," she said. "We would love to see investments in programs that prevent eviction."
The latest estimate from a Point in Time survey suggests there are more than 1,500 homeless people living in El Paso County. But Milligan thinks the number is much higher because the survey doesn't take into account people living in their car or couch surfing.
"I think that it is significantly under reported," Milligan said.
While advocates would like to see a greater initiative from the local government, the mayor of Colorado Springs has been blunt about how he thinks the city can and can't help.
"The city is not in the shelter business. We don't want to be in the shelter business," said Mayor John Suthers. "But we rely very heavily on these nonprofits to make sure that we have enough shelter beds so that we can aggressively enforce our camping bans."
Still, the city council approved the mayor's budget for 2020, which includes $500,000 for 680 extra shelter beds managed by Springs Rescue Mission and the Salvation Army.
Williams says he's hopeful that the city will work with local nonprofits next year to provide additional affordable housing and consider the needs of homeless people within city limits.
"There's always more need then we can often tackle," Williams said. "But it's exciting today to see that there are people who are coming together and at least asking the right questions so that we can come up with the right solutions."
In the meantime, Milligan says people living in Colorado Springs can do more good than they think to address the homelessness issue.
"For anyone who wants to make a difference, it just starts with a little bit of eye contact, a simple hello, an acknowledgement that another human being is there," Milligan said.
