Arvada Homeless Center Debate Reflects Denver Metro’s New Approaches To Tackling Homelessness

The future of a shuttered Arvada charter school is in doubt just months after the city purchased it for $6.3M to address its homelessness problems.

The city hasn't yet finalized its plans for the site, but one option is to make it a “navigation center” for homeless people, and residents are pushing back, The Denver Gazette reports.

The 44K SF East College Arvada school at 4905 W. 60th Ave. that served students in sixth through 12th grade closed at the end of the 2023-2024 school year, primarily due to declining enrollment, according to a memo issued by the Colorado Charter School Institute. The building went on the market in April, and by May, the city of Arvada had gone under contract to buy the facility. The city council approved the purchase in July, finalizing the sale.

The building could be used as a shared space for nonprofits, a navigation center, an always-open emergency shelter and/or other uses that align with Arvada’s Homelessness Action Strategy, according to the city.

Arvada cited four primary reasons for the purchase:

• The building’s “reasonable cost.”
• The building’s location is technically in Adams County. Arvada is a home rule municipality sitting in Adams and Jefferson counties. This will allow for both counties “to jointly seek more resources for financial stability.”
• The building’s zoning allows on-site sheltering.
• It has nearby access to public transportation and “food resources.” 

Nearly 24 members of a nearby homeowners association made a show of force at a recent city council meeting, which didn't have the building’s future on its agenda, to voice their reservations about a homeless shelter sitting on the southern edge of their neighborhood.

They cited the potential for increased crime, decreases in property value and whether the city can financially sustain operations of a shelter in the long term as their concerns. Other arguments included alleged misuse of city funds to “land bank” instead of filling potholes, fixing lights and focusing on affordable housing.

It was enough to make at least one council member publicly question the building’s use and future.

“I'm going to be glaringly honest. I had no idea that this was going to take this direction,” Councilmember at large Sharon Davis said, according to the Gazette. “When I voted on this, I voted to buy a building. I didn't know what the building was going to be used for, and so I have to say that I've just been struggling with this process. And I did express that frustration to the mayor.”

Councilmember Bob Fife said the first question that needs to be answered is what the city means when it says “navigation center.”

The Colorado Department of Local Affairs defines a navigation center as “a primarily centralized and coordinated campus that provides low barrier, public access to a continuum of wraparound, co-located services for people experiencing homelessness.” 

Homelessness is a major issue across the Front Range, just as it is in metros across the country. The Metro Denver Homeless Initiative’s most recent report, released in August, found that nearly 10,000 people were homeless in the seven-county metro Denver area as of January. About 70% of them were sheltered in emergency shelters, traditional housing or safe haven programs. The remaining homeless population “slept on the streets or another place not meant for human habitation,” according to the report.

While Denver Mayor Michael Johnston’s House1000 program, now branded as All In Mile High, has shown promising results, work remains. City data shows that more than 2,000 homeless people have been moved indoors, with 83% of them finding permanent housing or in nongroup shelters.

Homeless navigation centers are a newer strategy being tried across the American West, from Salem, Oregon, to Oceanside, California.

DOLA awarded $52M in funding for five such campuses across the Denver metro in October 2023. It was part of more than $86M the state issued in 2023 via its Transformational Homelessness Response grant program.

Englewood, Littleton, Sheridan, Aurora, Boulder, Jefferson County and Denver proper were all recipients of cash and vouchers to build these campuses.

Englewood, Littleton and Sheridan have teamed up to form the Tri-Cities Homelessness Initiative, which is working with service provider Boulder Bridge House. Its 13K SF navigation center at 4675 S. Windermere St. in Englewood is expected to open this year, the city’s communications director told the Englewood Herald in January.

Aurora’s Regional Navigation Campus, funded by DOLA, cannabis tax revenue and Aurora’s general fund, sits in a former Crown Plaza hotel at 15550 E. 40th Ave. The city just contracted with Advance Inc., which describes itself as specializing in helping people without homes “live to their full potential,” as the campus operator.

In Boulder, officials chose a vacant 6K SF former office facility at 1844 Folsom St. It will initially be used primarily as a day services center, but the city plans to partner with a developer and build about 50 apartments for permanent supportive housing.

Denver’s planned navigation campus is a three-location center in northeast Denver owned by housing-focused nonprofit Rocky Mountain Communities. It will be operated by The Salvation Army, providing always-open shelter and services, as well as a planned 300 units of bridge housing.

Lakewood, which received much of the Jefferson County state funding, teamed up with housing-focused charity RecoveryWorks to open its own navigation center in a 10K SF former movie theater and motorcycle retailer at 8000 W. Colfax Ave. The new building is an expansion of existing services by RecoveryWorks about a mile away, according to Denver7.

It is unclear whether DOLA funds are being used for the Arvada center.