Since November, the Town of Carbondale has been responding to an unprecedented influx of unhoused migrants — specifically addressing housing needs during the winter months. We are now transitioning to our third and final phase of this response which involves gradually phasing out emergency services while participating in a coordinated regional approach to homelessness throughout the Roaring Fork Valley. We are proud of the success of this winter’s community response, and grateful for the overwhelming support of Town residents for our actions, but the long-term work of addressing homelessness in the Roaring Fork Valley is just beginning. I encourage you to join us in building a coordinated approach to these challenges.
This winter’s response presented numerous short and long-term challenges to our community. As we enter this next phase of building capacity as a broader valley to address the long-term challenges, I want to take a moment to celebrate our successes here in Carbondale. I’m happy to report that our temporary winter night shelters and related services have operated smoothly. Some newcomers have received work permits while others await processing.
Additionally, we have successfully mitigated the impacts of a large unhoused population on Town residents, businesses, and the migrants themselves. The refugee population has been fairly steady in Carbondale since November, with 40 people sheltering indoors and a few others accessing some services but sleeping elsewhere. Opening our shelters did not lead to a major influx of unhoused people. We addressed life and safety concerns by providing indoor shelter during the coldest nights of the year.
The key to this success is twofold: funding from the Colorado Department of Local Affairs (DOLA) and support from local organizations. The funding ensured we did not have to dip into the Town budget to respond to this emergency. The collaboration with and support of local organizations enabled us to implement a highly structured approach that served both the migrants and our community. Specifically, thank you to DOLA, Town of Carbondale staff, Voces Unidas de las Montañas, Roaring Fork School District and Family Resource Center, Recovery Resources, Carbondale Community United Methodist Church, the Third Street Center, Valley Settlement, West Mountain Regional Health Alliance, Clínica del Pueblo, Alpine Legal Services, Age Friendly Carbondale, Garfield County Public Health, Pitkin County, Ace Security, and the multiple groups of volunteers who contributed to the humanitarian effort our community put forward this winter.
The third phase of our plan involves a gradual phase-out of services leading to the closure of our shelters on April 1. New shelter residents are no longer being admitted. Each shelter resident is receiving individualized case management to plan their next steps. Dinner service ends on March 22. Our emergency funding from DOLA expires at the end of April. Carbondale police are planning to enforce our camping ban as usual this spring and summer. This plan is designed to transition us to longer-term work and ensure we don’t end up repeating where we’ve been.
The longer-term work is developing a coordinated regional approach to managing the impacts and needs of unhoused people throughout the Roaring Fork Valley. Carbondale took the lead on this winter’s response because the refugees were sleeping outdoors right outside Town limits. But the refugees came for the jobs throughout our region and will continue to seek to have their basic needs met in each county and municipality, not just in Carbondale.
Therefore, we ask that each county and municipality join us in funding and supporting a regional effort to address homelessness, as experienced by newcomers and long-term locals, led by a joint coalition of nonprofit and government agencies. Carbondale has earmarked $20,000, or .002% of our general fund budget, to this effort.
We acknowledge that we have not done enough in the past to address the needs and impacts of our unhoused population. This winter’s influx of unhoused refugees forced us to respond, and we have shown that a systematic approach can successfully mitigate the impacts and address life and safety concerns without straining our other systems. The alternatives to such a regional approach are for each jurisdiction to respond individually or to take a ‘do nothing’ approach and hope that the challenges disappear. I worry about the burden on our law enforcement agencies if we take an enforcement-only approach to people sleeping outdoors, and experience shows that this approach only pushes the impacts around rather than mitigating them.
Immigration has always been a hot political topic, but Carbondale has attempted to respond to an influx of unhoused people in an apolitical way. We are not a sanctuary city, nor are we a non-sanctuary city. We are simply a small town that was unwilling to go through winter with a large group of unhoused people sleeping outdoors. Please join us in developing a regional response so none of our communities face a similar emergency next winter.