Every year, the Metro Denver Homeless Initiative releases a Point-in-Time count of the number of people experiencing homelessness on a given night. This year’s report painted a complex picture — but one we can and should still take hope from.

According to the annual report, which was released last month, 727 people were identified as experiencing homelessness in Boulder County, compared to 839 in 2023. On the surface, this is a decrease worth celebrating. One hundred and twelve fewer people living on the street, a 13% decrease, is proof that our housing-first approach and investments in initiatives and resources are working.

But beneath the surface, the picture is more complicated.

Despite the tangible decrease in Boulder County, homelessness across the metro area continued to surge. The count showed 9,977 were experiencing homelessness in 2024 compared to 9,065 in 2023 and 6,884 in January 2022. Nearly 3,100 becoming unhoused in just two years is astounding and heartbreaking — and incredibly indicative of our times.

Across the country, growing numbers of people are losing their housing as rising rents and inflation take their toll. According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, a 2020 study indicated that for every $100 increase in median rent, homelessness rates go up by 9%. While costs of living continue to soar, incomes are only inching up, creating an ever-widening gap between what people can afford and what they are being asked to pay.

In other words, the Front Range’s upward trends in homelessness track with rising rates around the U.S. Nationally, homelessness has increased by about 6% per year since 2017, reaching its peak last year when over 653,104 individuals were homeless, according to NAEH data.

So how do we reconcile Boulder County’s decreases in homelessness with the continued increase occurring around us?

According to city and county officials, despite the decrease in point-in-time numbers, Boulder County actually saw an increase in the number of people enrolled in Coordinated Entry, the first program that unhoused people need to enroll in to access public homelessness services and resources. The 10% increase in enrollment since last year suggests that more people are becoming unhoused.

Put another way, Boulder is doing a good job of lifting people out of homelessness, but a bad job of keeping people from falling into homelessness in the first place.

Understanding this dichotomy takes some nuance. First, we must address and celebrate our successes. Lifting people out of homelessness is no easy task. It takes a patchwork of initiatives on top of simply providing housing: mental health care, addiction treatment and peer support networks to help keep communities together.

Boulder has made great strides recently in several of these areas. The two biggest recent accomplishments include the opening of the Bluebird permanent supportive housing facility, which saw 40 people move in when it opened in January, and the long-awaited opening of a homelessness day services center at All Roads (formerly Boulder Shelter for the Homeless).

These are real and meaningful steps in the right direction that add to the progress Boulder has been steadily making — since 2017, more than 1,997 individuals have successfully exited homelessness.

We must continue investing in these sorts of services and initiatives and continue pursuing a housing-first approach (not the punitive approach at the heart of our camping ban).

But by the same token, we must also address our failing: that people are falling into homelessness faster than we can lift them out.

Of course, as we’ve already noted, Boulder isn’t alone in seeing a precipitous spiral toward precarity for our most vulnerable. In fact, many of the most intractable causes of homelessness are national issues that we have little control over.

But part of living in a democracy is believing that we have the ability, through collective action, to chart a course for the future we want. To build a better safety net — through affordable housing, strong wages, access to child care and child tax credits, and eviction protections — we have to start somewhere. And that somewhere might as well be here.

Of course, it is easy to talk about these principles when they are just that — principles. It is another thing altogether to realize them. To invest tax dollars in them. To find the infrastructure and the professionals and employees to make it happen.

But Boulder has already done so much good on this front; we’ve shown these past years that we can lift people off the street and provide them with the ability to live a life of dignity and contribute to their community. Now we have to take that energy and optimism and use it to do what we can locally to stop people from becoming homeless in the first place.

We have the ability to care for those in need in our community.

All it takes is a willingness to invest in our values and our priorities.

To make an impact today, we can volunteer with or donate to a variety of organizations, like the Emergency Family Assistance Association (efaa.org), Sister Carmen Community Center (sistercarmen.org) and OUR Center (ourcenter.org). We can speak before the City Council and the County Commissioners and make our priorities heard. And, we can do our part to vote for leaders (and ballot measures) who prioritize our values and recognize the urgency necessary in addressing this crisis.

(Those who are in danger of losing housing can contact the above organizations and find more information and resources through the county’s Emergency Rental Assistance Program.)

There is no magic solution to preventing people from falling into homelessness. Meaningful progress will take a broad patchwork of initiatives backed by sustained funding and real communal support. But it is possible for Boulder to act. Other cities have made meaningful headway. Other countries have seen successes.

Today let’s take heart in seeing Boulder County’s number of individuals experiencing homelessness decrease this year. Making that happen took immense work and a great investment from our community. And tomorrow let’s build on that work, continue investing in solutions to homelessness, and continue putting real focus on creating a safety net — and a society — that won’t let people reach such lows in the first place.

— Gary Garrison for the Editorial Board