Food pantries and local providers of emergency services are facing a stark reality for the year ahead.  In the last 12 months we see that overall demand throughout the metro region has surged from 300 plus to well over 1,000 people a month in many agencies. The staff of local support services is worn out and demand seeks to outstrip services as the unemployment numbers far exceed the projected impact of the economy in every sector. Analysts see that unemployment will continue to rise for 14 quarters before we hit bottom. The Human Services Administration is poised to cut more than a quarter of the budget sweeping aside all of the efforts of Denver's Road Home to maintain a stable outreach program thus reducing the overall effectiveness of primary services.

At Denver Urban Ministries, 1717 E. Colfax Ave., there were 2,346 individuals and 1,256 families who passed through their doors in October. These alarming statistics further stress the already frayed nerves of direct social service providers throughout the state.

One Executive Director of the largest day shelter in Denver expressed the common view, "We are allowing people to sleep in doorways, in drafts, and on the floor." This is unacceptable.  More and more facilities that have supported a large number of homeless people are turning away individuals and families. The budget for Denver's Road Home for emergency shelters is for single men, which is $60,000 and that was supposed to be eliminated this year because of additional housing and supportive services. Outreach programs were reduced by 25 percent this year. Cuts in the Human Services Administration amount to $1,449,312.93 for Denver's Road Home. Only medical respite care and emergency shelter funding was maintained. This means that substantial numbers of programs are in jeopardy of being scrapped after April 2009 when these cuts begin.

The Department of Human Services is considering cutting 12.2 million dollars in services by July 1, 2009. At the same time the state of Colorado will cut 100 million dollars in the 2009 budget. In case after case the economy is hitting hardest the working poor, the indigent who are uninsured – there are one million in Colorado – those who are offenders leaving corrections with neither a safe nor stable place to live. Only Crossroads, the Salvation Army shelter for men places felons in temporary shelter. Almost every one of the largest shelters has already been on overflow nightly. This includes Samaritan House, Jesus Saves, and Crossroads.  The day shelters have reported that they are seeing a rise of 150 people daily in their numbers, and the number of people needing emergency services throughout the Front Range has doubled in suburban areas like Jefferson, Boulder, Broomfield, Aurora, Arapahoe and Douglas Counties, where homeless people were hard to count. 

"Denver's Housing Plan 2008 - 2018," released on September 30 says on page 7 that, "Low income residents and working poor bear the brunt of Denver's high housing costs. The market analysis revealed a lack of affordable housing for the 41,000 rent households in Denver who earn less than $20,000 a year." On page 27 of this same plan the chart figure 11: financial cost analysis under goal priority one states, "Create 5,500 rental housing opportunities, including 3,500 opportunities for households at or below 30 percent annual mean income of each person." The remaining 10-year gap of this figure is "$50,534,692." Low-income housing is not a priority in Denver. In the market analysis "2006 Denver Housing" on page 112 the study sends the message that "renters who earn less than $30,000 annually could afford to buy only 1 percent of the detached units for sale."  In the same study on page 18 the question is asked, "Are the housing markets balanced?" This report adds, "Markets should provide adequate housing for renters and owners across the income spectrum." 

The assertion that only a fraction of the housing necessary for the lowest income level leads to the conundrum that Denver planners have decided that the market is saturated with low income housing. The burden of housing for the largest segment of the rent burdened families and individuals over the next decade will most likely be born by the suburban communities.  This unlikely outcome will mean that more and more people living in poverty are driven far from the urban landscape.

The "trickle down" economic philosophy surely is ineffective.  The "trickle up" poverty is a fast track for dying.  What means will be necessary for all of us to realize that only through the neighborhoods and among our citizens can we keep America safe and out of harm's reach?

Many faith communities are stretching their resources to provide emergency food and assistance.  One church, St. Luke's United Methodist Church, Brad Lauvick, the Associate Pastor, created a program in which super market patrons were given a printed bag with the words, "feeding the 5,000," in all the Highlands Ranch King Soopers, Albertson's and Safeway stores over a period of two weeks. The paper bags were brought filled with the food to the church on Saturday and Sunday afternoon. In this way they raised 22 palettes of food, which was stored at the Food Bank of the Rockies to support a food pantry. All of that food has been distributed.

We are facing the single greatest demand for assistance in the history of the United States.  People are literally loosing housing because they have no way to heat their homes and no way to feed themselves. Across America today there are over two million young people out of doors and in unsafe places on any given day. The age range of those who are in unsafe, unstable and unsheltered surroundings is from inception to 25 years of age.  Forty percent of the people who leave foster care at 18 years of age end up homeless. The first place for discharge from corrections is Stout Street Clinic for medical care and many are unable to find a place to rent. People leaving corrections cannot survive without services and the most serious offenders are unwelcome in any community. The homeless who are discharged from corrections with terminal illnesses, because the state is unwilling to pay for their care have nowhere to go except St. John's Hospice, because there is nowhere to take care of these individuals, and they have a long waiting list. 

There are over a 100 homeless people who have died this year throughout the metropolitan region, whose names will be read at the City and County Building of Denver, on the east steps this December 18, at 5:30 p.m.  The public is invited to show support by saying, "We will remember."  More than anything at this time the community need to embrace all residents, whether they are poor or rich, and whether they have lived in supportive conditions or on their own.  Whether these people are veterans who come from the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq or are people with severe disabilities, both mental and physical, they are all one of our neighbors. They are here right in front of you.