Boulder County human services providers are sounding the alarm about the state of the local social safety net, which continues to see a spike in demand for services amid deep cuts in public funding.

At a press conference in Lafayette on Thursday, leaders from the Boulder County Family Resource Network, a constellation of nonprofits serving families across the county, urged community members to pitch in and help support the groups providing safety-net services like rent assistance, food pantries, health care and childcare.

Boulder County’s once-strong safety net has started experiencing “fissures” due to the acute needs in the community and the decreased resources available to meet those needs, according to Suzanne Crawford, CEO of the Sister Carmen Community Center, a Lafayette nonprofit that serves the east county.

“It’s becoming harder and harder for all of us to keep up,” she said.

The press conference came a few weeks after county commissioners announced $4 million in cuts to the county’s competitive Community Partnership Grant program for 2025.

Commissioners said the cuts were necessary because local, state and federal funding sources, such as the American Rescue Plan Act and other COVID-19 relief stimulus programs, are drying up and there is less funding available now for human services. But numerous safety-net providers that rely on this funding, such as All Roads — formerly the Boulder Shelter for the Homeless — and the Emergency Family Assistance Association, were left reeling by the news.

At the conference, safety-net providers from Boulder, Longmont, Lafayette, Nederland and beyond shared wrenching stories of families who have needed their support but are running out of options.

One family that moved to Boulder County in 2016 needed rent and food assistance when the father was laid off from his job and the mother could not work because she needed to stay home with the kids. The family nearly exhausted their savings to make ends meet, and their rent assistance through Sister Carmen is about to run out.

A pair of single mothers from different families living in emergency housing couldn’t afford new places to live on their single incomes because rents were so high, but their time in emergency housing was ending and there was nowhere for them to go. One mother took her daughters to stay with family while on the waiting list for a housing voucher, and the other ultimately had to send her daughter, who was born in the U.S., to live with family in Mexico.

Ana Karina Casas Ibarra, access and community development coordinator at El Centro AMISTAD, said her organization has health and mental health programs to help people develop better habits, but families are calling in distress because rent keeps increasing and they can no longer afford to buy food or keep their kids in sports.

“How can we help people, how can we teach them to eat healthy and live a healthier lifestyle, when they can’t even afford to buy food?” asked Casas Ibarra.

As public funding for human services dries up, hundreds of thousands of people in Colorado have also lost their Medicaid coverage, which has put a strain on the health care safety net. Simon Smith, President and CEO of Clinica Family Health and Wellness, said that from spring 2023 to spring 2024, everyone who secured Medicaid coverage during the COVID-19 pandemic had to re-enroll, a “complicated and cumbersome” process.

As a result, compared to before the pandemic, 5.9% more of Clinica’s clients are now uninsured, and 8.2% fewer are covered by Medicaid. More than 70% of Clinica’s clients who lost Medicaid coverage now don’t have insurance at all. Clinica provides primary medical care, behavioral health and dental care across Adams, Boulder, Broomfield and Gilbert counties to at-risk and marginalized community members.

Smith said millions of dollars in funding cuts had “forced extremely difficult choices and large-scale cuts.” Clinica has had to eliminate programs like mom, baby and home visits, a walk-in clinic, homelessness outreach and refugee screening. More than 15% of Clinica’s workforce has also been laid off.

Anne Tapp, executive director of Safehouse Progressive Alliance for Non-Violence, said Thursday’s press conference was a “call to action” for the community to support the organizations offering essential safety-net services. She urged community members to consider volunteering and donating to these groups, and she suggested calling for legislation that makes it easier for limited and low-income families to “thrive in our communities.”

And Marc Cowell, executive director of OUR Center, a family resource center in Longmont, concluded the conference with a dire warning.

“What you heard this morning is truly just the tip of the iceberg. The growing enormity of this crisis is becoming quite alarming. We’re seeing it every day, right up front, and we’re quickly approaching a critical moment in our community where we need to act,” he said.

“We’re committed to doing all we can with the resources that we have available to create a stronger and more resilient community. But we can’t do this alone.”