Denver’s nearly $4 million investment is aimed at providing homeless people with “safe outdoor spaces” as an alternative to public shelters, which many have chosen to avoid due to safety concerns or restrictive rules.
The Associated Press
“I’d rather freeze than spend the night in a shelter," Peters said, noting the threat of theft or assault in traditional shelter facilities. But such tiny homes can cost nearly $25,000 per unit to build, whereas Denver's ice-fishing tents run by the Colorado Village Collaborative come at a price of less than $400 each. Last year, the Denver program served nearly 240 people across three locations and this year the collaborative estimates it will help about 370 people with a fourth location.
“People can’t afford housing and the emergency sheltering system that was sort of developed, you know, largely in the 80s, when the federal government got out of the business of funding housing is just like busting at the seams at this point,” Chandler said.Nan Roman, president of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, said it's much better for people’s health and long-term chances at finding permanent housing to get them off the street and into indoor housing.
“Not everybody is immediately ready to come indoors," he said."And I don’t want that to get played up as people don’t want housing, people want housing. But people want to come indoors on their own terms.”
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