AURORA | Aurora officials this month will gauge public appetite for possible tiny homes, city-sanctioned public camping sites and shower trailers that could soon be made available to homeless residents in the city.
The city’s housing and community services department is slated to host an open house in the parking lot of a local church next week, where officials will discuss various shelter options and potential locations for their placement.
The event will take place from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. May 19 at the Restoration Christian Fellowship at 15660 E. Sixth Ave.
City staffers will field questions about a variety of possible dwellings that could be placed throughout the city, including pallet and tiny homes, safe parking and camping sites, and a shower and bathroom trailer designed by Florida-based benefit corporation Clean the World.
The designs will remain on display for the public to peruse at the East Sixth Avenue church through May 27. Residents will be able to submit their feedback on the options online through the end of the month.
The town hall comes about two months after city staffers announced plans to phase out a temporary shelter in a north Aurora warehouse and establish a sanctioned campsite in the city.
Aurora Mike Coffman has spurred continued debate on how to address homelessness in the city in recent months, particularly after he posed as a homeless person for a televisions special earlier this year.
In a statement posted to his Twitter page last week, Coffman said he supports providing temporary shelter to Aurora residents who meet certain stipulations.
“In my view, the reality is that the more services you provide the homeless, without any requirements placed on the chase in their behaviors, the more homelessness you will get,” he wrote. “I support providing temporary shelter with the understanding that able-bodied individuals experiencing homelessness must participate in treatment programs to get sober and job training programs until they get (sic) find work. Taxpaying adults, who get up every morning to go to work, should not be forced to support individuals who have no intention of ever getting up in the morning to go to work and share in the adult responsibilities of life. In my view, being compassionate also means not enabling their destructive behaviors.”
Councilperson Nicole Johnston rebutted Coffman’s statements in a letter published in The Sentinel, saying his comments were based on “political rhetoric.”
“He continued with misinformed generalizations as if he is the expert in this area,” she said. “He is not.”
There are currently about 150 shelter beds available in Aurora at any given time, according to Cristal Dukes, spokesperson for the City of Aurora.
Housing advocates estimated there were about 400 people experiencing homelessness in Aurora last year, according to a recent point-in-time survey. Such reports are often believed to be underestimates of the overall homeless population.
Alternative shelter options in the metro area have made frequent headlines in recent days after Denver officials last week announced their intent to purchase and convert a downtown hotel into shelter for unhoused residents.
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