7/15/2020
On Tuesday (7/14/2020), at the request of an unnamed city council member, Kurt Firnhaber, the Director of Housing and Human Services, included Safer Boulder’s petition requests in his presentation to city council. In addition to highlighting the traction that our petition has gained, this inclusion generated discussion on social media and has helped us spread the word about our petition. HHS agrees with most of our petition requests, as noted in green in the presentation slide, and also did not recommend the city move forward with sanctioned campgrounds or safe parking programs; tiny homes were noted to likely be infeasible, but merited more research. Moreover, 5 out of 9 city council members agreed with HHS that additional city staff funding and time should not be spent on campgrounds or parking options (Mark, Bob, Sam, Marabai, Mary). HHS and these council members agree that Housing First should remain the priority and these other programs are detrimental to the goal of solving homelessness. The remaining council members, the Housing Advisory Board (HAB), and the Human Relations Committee (HRC) are not yet willing to stop pursuing sanctioned campgrounds and safe parking programs and both HAB and HRC will continue to research these options.
Comments