New partnership brings $500,000 to Colorado Springs to address homelessness
The City of Colorado Springs, Kaiser Permanente and the Community Health Partnership (CHP) made the announcement Thursday morning
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KKTV) - The City of Colorado Springs, Kaiser Permanente and the Community Health Partnership (CHP) announced a $500,000 contribution to help those experiencing homelessness in our area.
1,339 individuals reportedly experienced homelessness and 981 people were being counted as being sheltered in emergency or transitional housing, leaving 358 people unsheltered, according to the El Paso County 2020 point-in-time count.
The Colorado Springs Housing and Homeless Services Fund will be used to make sure those who do not have a steady roof over their heads, has the resources they need and will reportedly increase access to stable housing.
Mayor John Suthers knows this issue is complex, but is something that the community needs to work to fix together. “Single programs don’t end homelessness – whole communities do” said Mayor Suthers.
This fund uses some of the data from the data found in the national “Built for Zero” campaign, which uses real data and people to help reduce homelessness.
Mayor Suthers said in a press conference the half a million dollars will go towards several efforts in our community. “We want to help people get into affordable housing, we want to increase our caseworkers to help steer people towards affordable housing and we also want to do a little bit of a systemic study to see where our barriers are,” said Mayor Suthers.
Kaiser Permanente says safe and stable housing is the key to a person’s physical, mental and social health. Lack of stable housing reportedly leads to poor health outcomes. Jennifer Mariano, the director of programs at Community Health Partnership agrees health is related to housing stability.
“Housing is health! It makes for a much healthier community if we have people that have homes to stay clean, get better food, be able to remain stable and employed, get sufficient sleep,” says Mariano.
This contribution was the largest community health investment from Kaiser Permanente to the City of Colorado Springs.
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