This article was done in collaboration between KDNK Community Access Radio and The Sopris Sun.
Carbondale Mayor Ben Bohmfalk said that the most challenging few months of his term were around this time last year when several dozen people were found to be living under or near the Veterans Bridge at Highway 133 and 82. These people were migrants, many refugees, and, without any connections in the area, their situation quickly became dire. As winter set in, multiple community leaders from across the Valley came together to provide emergency assistance.
“It was the first weekend of November 2023, I was sitting at home and got a call from Alex Sanchez from Voces Unidas de las Montañas,” Bohmfalk told KDNK. “He said that there were 80 unhoused migrants, mostly from Venezuela, living under the bridge in Carbondale and that Voces Unidas was going down there. It was the first I’d heard of it, and we were completely unprepared to take on a challenge like that.”
Carbondale is a fairly small municipality, with a population under 7,000 people. Chronic homelessness is an issue, but not rampant, which meant that there weren’t many shelters or sufficient resources readily available to proactively address the problem. Local officials are more focused on helping existing residents stay local and housed. “Our whole workforce is in a housing crisis and has housing instability throughout,” lamented Bohmfalk, “the whole range of the workforce — from low wage to high wage jobs at this point.”
By February 2024, Texas had transported more than 102,000 migrants to “sanctuary” cities across the U.S. — including Denver. In September 2023, buses were arriving in the state capitol daily — sometimes four in a day — and more than 1,600 migrants were housed in its city shelters. Nearly 20,000 asylum seekers from the southern border had received shelter and support there prior to the time we saw the influx of arrivals in the Valley.
“Every community found itself completely unprepared. Places like Denver were able to spin up a larger scale response because they’re a larger municipal government and a combined county — the city and county of Denver,” Bohmfalk explained. “When services would sort of run low there, and they would be over their max of people that they could support, those people found their way to other communities.”
When the migrants were discovered here in late fall, Carbondale got busy finding creative solutions.
“Colin Laird, one of our trustees who is the director of the Third Street Center, [said,] ‘We’re going to open the doors to the Third Street Center,’” Bohmfalk recalled. “So right away there was a place for people to stay. But that also presented huge challenges, because we didn’t have staff in place and that facility was really not equipped to house 40 to 60 people a night, which it started doing. Then, there was a lot of pressure on the Town government to take the pressure off of the Third Street Center and open up our own shelter.”
Multiple organizations pitched in to help. As the Third Street Center phased out its shelter, Carbondale Town Hall and the Methodist Church opened their doors to serve as temporary shelters, which Recovery Resources helped staff. The Town provided a Post Office box so arrivals could pursue temporary protected status. Some community members even opened their homes to accommodate a few of the new arrivals. Bohmfalk said that Carbondale residents were mostly supportive of efforts.
“The Methodist Church opened up their doors as a shelter, and there were some concerns from neighbors initially. But people mostly were, I think, proud of the way that Carbondale responded compassionately to a really challenging situation,” the mayor stated.
While the Town and nonprofit community pooled resources, help was still needed — financially speaking, particularly. The Colorado Division of Local Affairs granted the Town $223,880 so it could reimburse itself for expenses like food, medical care, staffing and transportation.
While the state readily provided, Garfield County officials weren’t as receptive to supporting the new arrivals or helping Carbondale’s situation. The Garfield County commissioners denied the Town of Carbondale’s $50,000 request to assist with addressing the unprecedented inpouring of new arrivals. A short time after that the commissioners declared Garfield County as “non-sanctuary.”
“We were trying to keep it non-political. It was just that there were a bunch of people in our town as winter set in who didn’t have a place to sleep, and they weren’t just going to disappear,” stated Bohmfalk.
Political?
There is no firm definition of a “sanctuary city,” but the National Alliance to End Homelessness described that it is generally understood to be a municipality that has a policy to limit cooperation with federal agencies responsible for deportation.
The ruling by Garfield County last year might be indicative of a greater cultural shift happening across the country. President-elect Donald Trump espoused anti-immigrant sentiment throughout his campaign, and promised to deport millions of undocumented people.
While Kamala Harris won Colorado, the state’s third Congressional District elected Republican representative Jeff Hurd — although his Democratic opponent Adam Frisch received the majority of votes in Garfield County. Hyperlocally, the Garfield County commissioner panel is entirely Republican, including incoming member-elect Perry Will.
Whether politics is a factor or not, Bohmfalk said the response from governmental entities to last year’s crisis was markedly different.
“Our U.S. Senators’ offices were very involved. Both Hickenlooper and Bennett’s offices were inquiring and asking how they could help. So we felt like we had support, but … just not at the county level.” said Bohmfalk.
Even within the Latino community there are various outlooks on migration. Carbondale Trustee Christina Montemayor is the liaison between the board or trustees and the newly formed Latino Advisory Board. She said that local Latinos are not of one mind when it comes to their politics.
“I definitely have heard among some of Latinos — and immigrants — that Trump’s second presidency does spark fears or scary times due to … talk around mass deportations. There’s so much unknown around that,” said Montemayor. By the same token, “You also hear Latinos voted for Trump, right?”