BOULDER - Two events addressing homelessness in Boulder and Boulder County will take place in Boulder this month. The purpose of the events is to explore solutions to the area’s significant population of houseless people.
The first event is a virtual, 3-hour study session with the Boulder City Council and Boulder city staff on February 13 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. The session can be accessed on various platforms online. Study sessions are held by the city council to gather feedback from community members about particular issues. This particular study session is titled “Homelessness Programs Evaluation, Process to update Strategy and High Utilizer Update.”
According to the Study Session Memorandum, “as Boulder city staff moves forward on updating the Homelessness Strategy, staff is looking to [the city] council to provide broad policy direction.”
Then, on February 22 from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m., a TedxBoulderSalon will take place at the Boulder Public Library, in the Canyon Theater, which will address what Boulder has done, is doing, and aims to do to address homelessness in the community. Tickets are free.
According to the event’s Eventbrite page, “TEDxBoulderSalon is a smaller, more intimate version of a standard TEDx event, designed for deeper discussions and community engagement around a focused topic.” The agenda for the event includes ten four-minute presentations given by people in Boulder County who are addressing homelessness in the community. Speakers include Aaron Brockett, the mayor of Boulder; Kurt Firnhaber, Boulder’s director of housing and human services; and Stephen Redfearn, the Boulder chief of police.
The goal of the event, as stated in the Eventbrite page, is for attendees to leave with a “comprehensive understanding of Boulder’s past, present, and future efforts to address homelessness, along with a clear overview of the programs and services available.”
The front range area in Colorado saw a ten-percent increase in homelessness between 2023 and 2024, according to the Boulder City Council Study Session Memorandum for February 13. However, the memorandum also declared that Boulder has shown a marked decrease in unsheltered homelessness over the past two years, with a 28.9-percent decrease in unsheltered homelessness between July 2023 and July 2024.
