As Family Homelessness Skyrockets, Elected Officials Say No to $9M in Shelter Funding, Revealing Impossible Choices U.S. Cities Now Face
As cities across the U.S. grapple with rising rates of family homelessness, one city’s debate over providing additional funds to support more shelters highlights the struggles other communities face.
Elected officials in Denver rejected a $9 million budget amendment in November that would have taken money from the city’s police budget and used it to fund homeless shelters serving families. The amendment was offered at a time when a local advocacy group called Housekeys Action Network Denver estimates that between 250 and 300 families experience homelessness on any night in the city.
It was also introduced at a time when Denver is facing a $200 million budget shortfall. One way the city worked to close the budget gap is by furloughing and laying off hundreds of employees.
Denver also revamped its signature All In Mile High program, a rapid rehousing program that city data suggests has helped thousands of homeless people find temporary or permanent shelter since 2023. The revamp includes closing multiple hotel sites that were converted into temporary shelters and shortening the length of stay for people in temporary shelters to 30 days.
“No child should be in those conditions,” Denver city council member Sarah Parady said during the hearing on November 4. “To me, this is a moral red line, and this is an amount of money that we absolutely must spend, regardless of, frankly, where it comes from.”
Parady, who wrote the family shelter amendment, told her colleagues that the money to operate more family shelters would come from the city’s police recruitment budget. She said the city had overbudgeted for police recruiting, as it had in past years, and that the amendment would have no impact on the police department’s ability to hire new recruits.
The amendment also had strong support from local advocates and service providers.
Terese Howard, an activist with HAND, told local news station Denver7 that the money is less than what the city is already spending on temporary shelters, making the amendment a potential win-win for the city and the unhoused community.
“These families are on the streets,” Howard said. “They’re in cars. They’re doubled, tripled up in uncomfortable situations. They are houseless and have desperate situations.”
However, the amendment failed by an 8-5 margin. Some council members argued that the amendment amounts to “defunding the police.” One council member, Flor Alvidrez, said she could not support the amendment because the city has not identified a shelter or provider to serve homeless families.
Nationwide Issues
Other cities like New York City and Los Angeles have run into similar issues trying to help their homeless families.
In New York, residents have pushed back against new shelter investments, saying they’re not a “long-term solution” to homelessness, according to a report by Spectrum Local News.
Homeless Los Angelenos seeking services have not been able to access the city’s Coordinated Entry System for months because there is no shelter space available for them.
These barriers highlight the struggle cities face when working to address family homelessness.
Cities were not initially designed to provide human services, which makes efforts to grow these services financially daunting. Local officials can either ask voters to raise taxes to provide more services, and endure all the political headaches that come with it, or seek support through grants and other investments, which have become increasingly less reliable during President Donald Trump’s second term.
Some foundations like the Bezos Foundation have awarded local governments millions to address family homelessness. However, the lack of funding for this specific group makes it difficult for cities to provide enough services and shelter.
A Growing Issue
The debate about sheltering homeless families in Denver is happening at a time when family homelessness is growing rapidly across Colorado and the country.
According to the latest snapshot data, Colorado saw a 134% spike in family homelessness in 2024 due primarily to the rising cost of housing in the city.
“When we see children in encampments, that’s hard on our collective soul,” Britta Fisher, CEO of the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, told The Colorado Sun. “It would happen rarely, and our outreach workers are equipped to help address situations where a child is involved, but the kind of very visible encampments that included families and children that we have seen over the last couple of years was at a new level for our community.”
That trend follows a more than 30% increase in family homelessness nationwide. As of 2024, there were more than a quarter of a million families with children experiencing homelessness across the country, according to HUD data.
This trend seems likely to continue as the cost of living continues to rise. According to an analysis by the National Alliance to End Homelessness, more than 1.1 million people accessed homeless services in 2024, representing a 12% climb from 2023.
Moreover, no community had enough permanent housing to serve everyone experiencing homelessness, and only 16% of homeless households were able to access shelter.
“The lack of deeply affordable housing is the primary cause of homelessness,” NAEH concluded in its analysis. “For many, rising costs create an impossible choice between paying for housing and other necessities like healthcare, groceries, or clothing.”
Temporary Support
Like many other cities, Denver has offered its homeless families temporary support. For instance, Denver has committed to opening cold-weather emergency shelters for families, offered motel rooms on a walk-up basis, improved its hotline for families seeking shelter, and revamped its contract requirements for shelter providers.
However, the city has also said it has no plans to build another shelter specifically for homeless families. This puts many in a situation where they will need to continue doubling up with others, living in their cars, or staying in encampments while they wait for shelter space to open up.
“We are making improvements to ensure Denver families have access to safe shelter during cold weather emergencies, while using our limited resources as effectively as possible,” Julia Marvin, a spokesperson for the Department of Housing Stability, told Denverite.
How You Can Help
With the Supreme Court’s gutting of essential protections for homeless people, our work is more critical than ever. Nationwide, anti-homeless laws are gaining ground in legislative committees, fueled by hidden votes, corporate backing, out-of-state lobbyists, and conservative think tanks like the Cicero Institute. We’re fighting a crucial battle against misinformation and the criminalization of homelessness.
The pandemic underscored the urgent need to overhaul housing policies in the United States, revealing that many homelessness initiatives rely too heavily on law enforcement rather than social services.
Stand with our vulnerable neighbors and urge your representatives to take meaningful action to address homelessness. As the first step toward ending homelessness, we must prioritize compassionate solutions over punitive measures.