Boulder City Council spent its Feb. 13 study session reviewing a yearlong evaluation of the local homelessness response system and mapping next steps for a strategy update and implementation planning. Staff and outside consultants reported a mix of progress and continuing gaps: shelter demand and nightly turnaways are higher than prior years, exits from homelessness totaled 264 in 2024, and some state housing vouchers were frozen in 2024, constraining placement capacity.

Kurt Furnhaver, director of Housing and Human Services, and Megan Newton, policy advisor on homelessness, presented data and program updates. Newton told council that the city’s day services center—opened nine months earlier—has recorded thousands of visits, hosts 15 partner agencies and links about 85% of visitors to partner programs. She reported the shelter system had a high percentage of nights with turnaways in 2024 (peaking at roughly 83% of nights in November) and that 264 people exited homelessness in 2024; staff calculated an exit rate of about 39% for that year. Newton also said the City secured 30 state housing vouchers tied to the day services center and that ARPA-funded retention programs (Building Home, peer support and a housing retention team) showed a reported 88% retention rate for 2024 and 94% retention over two years, while ARPA funding for those services will expire in 2025–26.

Carl Castillo, chief policy adviser in the city manager’s office, summarized the proposed “high-utilizer” initiative targeted at people whose combined service and criminal-justice contacts drive high system costs and public-safety impacts. Staff described a full plan previously costed at about $5 million for year one; after council feedback staff developed a phased approach focusing on core elements with a phase-1 cost of approximately $1.7 million. City staff said they are exploring philanthropic fundraising and reallocations of existing resources to fund the phase approach, and emphasized that some elements could be delivered by redeploying current services rather than adding all-new line items.

An independent evaluation of the Homeless System Board Collaborative (HSBC) by Public Policy Associates (PPA) was presented by Meg (Margaret) Chamberlain. PPA used a mixed-methods review—system data analysis, interviews, provider roundtables and focus groups with people with lived experience—and concluded that HSBC’s housing-first approach and collaborative model are sound but can improve on six themes: data systems (limited integration between county Connect and HMIS), equity (greater transparency on prioritization and engagement of people with lived experience), community climate (perceived hostility to people experiencing homelessness), housing and supports (long-term funding needs for permanent supportive housing and retention services), crisis response (outreach and case management critical), and collaboration/governance (recommendations for clearer roles, rotating leadership and a shared vision). PPA cautioned that certain alternative shelter approaches (for example, sanctioned outdoor encampments) can be costly and require careful planning and funding.

Council members repeatedly asked for more granular, quantitative program-performance and budget-aligned data that staff and consultants can use to prioritize limited resources. Several councilmembers and staff noted program-level figures available now (for example, the city’s Keep Families Housed allocation of $450,000 in 2024 served 624 unduplicated families) and requested that staff supply a consolidated, comparable dataset of budgets, client counts and outcome measures across city-funded programs to support near-term budget decisions.

The city also announced a systems-modeling and strategy-update engagement with Clutch Consulting. Clutch’s founder Mandy Chapman described a four-phase approach (document review, stakeholder design sessions, draft strategy and implementation planning) running through July 2025. Clutch will use system modeling—examining inflow, capacity and outflow—to test scenarios for different investment levels and to identify high-impact, implementable actions. Clutch and staff said the intent is a regional, not purely municipal, strategy and that the work will include providers, Boulder County, people with lived experience and other partners. Staff noted the anticipated timeline could inform the 2026 budget cycle and that the city will circulate a 2024 outcomes report on its hotline for council review.

Councilmembers offered strong and varied feedback: they endorsed the goal of a shared vision and voiced the need for clearer governance and measurable metrics; they pressed for more and earlier quantitative program performance data to inform budget decisions; and they expressed concern about funding cliffs as ARPA and other one-time sources end. County housing staff present (Susanna Lupus Baker, Boulder County housing department director) said the county supports implementing evaluation recommendations and noted some governance changes were already underway (rotation of executive-board chair and two representatives per government entity).

Next steps recorded in the meeting: staff will circulate a 2024 outcomes report and continue data analysis; Clutch will lead stakeholder workshops and produce a draft strategy and implementation plan (targeted for April–July 2025); council requested timely, budget-aligned quantitative data to inform near-term funding decisions. Staff and consultants emphasized the need to pair the strategy with a financing and implementation plan and a performance/evaluation framework.