The day shelter to serve area homeless individuals reopened earlier this month following a hiatus in April and May.
Recovery Resources — a nonprofit that has been helping Pitkin County to secure grant money for various initiatives, including programs designed to address homelessness — has been awarded space in the county’s health and human services building near Aspen Valley Hospital to operate and manage the day shelter and also a seasonal overnight emergency shelter during the winter and other cold months. Recovery Resources already has been running a detoxification unit in the same building for several years and providing pretrial drug-testing services for the local court system.
The day shelter closed on March 31 with the departure of another nonprofit, Aspen Homeless Shelter, which had been overseeing services designed to aid local homeless people for more than a decade. In late December, the AHS board announced that it would cease its operations at the end of March, leaving county staff with the task of finding a replacement. Recovery Resources, which during the pandemic began assisting the county with case-management services for homeless people and also finding temporary housing for many in need, was selected after responding to a county request for proposals. Recovery Resources was the lone applicant, and was asked by the county to revise its plans after its initial proposal was deemed incomplete since it did not include plans for a winter overnight shelter.
The day shelter had a “soft opening” on June 6. Two days later, the Pitkin Board of County Commissioners approved a lease for Recovery Resources through an emergency ordinance. The arrangement gives the nonprofit the space at no charge, similar to its rent-free policy for other nonprofits that operate within the county-owned building. The Aspen Homeless Shelter — which operated for 12 years under the direction of longtime director Vince Savage until he retired last fall — also had a rent-free deal. Without Savage at the helm, AHS attempted to maintain a level of service with help from Recovery Resources and the county, but it ceased all operations in the spring. While the day shelter remained open through March, a winter emergency shelter was shuttered just before Christmas after Recovery Resources said it had enough federal pandemic-recovery funds, administered by the state Department of Local Affairs, to place many of its regular clients in temporary housing, including hotel rooms.
The county’s contract with Recovery Resources marks the end of a few years of relative instability with regard to Aspen-area homeless services. While since early 2019 a county-led coalition had been holding quarterly meetings and developing plans aimed at eradicating homelessness under a national model known as “Housing First” and bringing together regional agencies to develop short- and long-term initiatives, the Aspen Homeless Shelter organization struggled to find a permanent home for its winter emergency shelter program. The winter shelter was located in various places over the years — usually St. Mary Catholic Church in Aspen, but also at the Aspen Chapel off Castle Creek Road and Aspen Community Church on East Bleeker Street.
As Commissioner Patti Clapper noted at the BOCC’s June 8 meeting to pass the emergency ordinance, “It’s a sigh of relief. We won’t have to be scrambling around [for an emergency shelter] during the winter season.”
The reopening of the day shelter means that clients can get back into the routine of doing laundry, taking showers and receiving a meal in the space at the county building. But Janelle Duhon, founder and CEO of Recovery Resources, noted during the housing stability coalition’s meeting on June 10 that the facility will provide much more than that, including case-management services where clients can receive direction in the areas of health care (including mental health), job training, job placement and more.
“We want to provide services in the space,” she said. “Not just come in, grab a shower, do laundry and get a meal.”
She said a program is being formulated in which clients can get paid if they use computers for workforce training.
Lindsay Maisch, the county’s director of human services who has been coordinating efforts to find a replacement for the Aspen Homeless Shelter, noted in an interview last week that there hasn’t been a lot of demand for day-shelter services since the March 31 closure. Therefore, the period was seen as a good time to seek the new operator and prepare the space in the county building for a transition. It took time, she said, to find and come to an agreement with a new tenant-operator, clean and build out the space, and obtain the necessary permits for occupancy.
Recovery Resources soon will move its detox unit from a separate area of the building to spaces next to the day shelter, which has been renamed. It is now to be called the “Resiliency Center.”
AHS had a policy of refusing service at its day and winter shelters to those who were under the influence of drugs and alcohol, or were disruptive. At the new Resiliency Center, no one will be refused service, but they first will be directed to the detox unit if they are inebriated or high. Once sober, they will be allowed to access other services and mix with other clients and staff.
It has been estimated that there are between 60 to 100 homeless individuals in the Roaring Fork Valley. Many tend to bounce between Aspen and Glenwood Springs, which also has been addressing its housing instability issues. Duhon said while demand has been slow since the reopening of the day shelter, clients are “slowly trickling in,” and the numbers are expected to pick up now that the facility has reopened. Maisch added that with the warmer weather, many homeless residents have been camping outdoors in authorized and unauthorized spots — a longtime practice frowned upon by county officials for various reasons, including the possibility of sparking a forest fire.
Maisch said food-service issues are still being worked out at the day shelter, but other aspects of the operation are intact. She said community meetings with neighbors will be held later this summer to address various concerns about the presence of the shelters.