City pulls $400k in funding for program that serves people living in their cars

DENVER — The Colorado Safe Parking Initiative (CSPI) is poised to lose $400,000 of its funding in Denver as the city undergoes contract renegotiations.

The $600,000 budget, approved by City Council in June 2023, was initially allocated to provide two safe parking locations — called “SafeLots” — for people sheltering in vehicles through December 2025 with plans to open two more locations.

Now, under Mayor Mike Johnston’s administration, officials were told that priorities have changed, said Terrell Curtis, CSPI’s executive director.

“[Safe parking] provides some sense of normalcy and community,” said Sheila Pendleton, a 53-year-old who resides in one of CSPI’s two SafeLots in Denver. She regularly interacts with other SafeLot residents — or “parkers” — volunteers and CSPI case managers.

“If someone is in crisis, they are less likely to get hurt or hurt themselves because you go back to the same parking spot every night and people are there for you,” Pendleton said.

After leaving an abusive partner in 2020, Pendleton fled to Colorado from Tennessee without any economic resources besides her monthly Supplemental Security Income (SSI) checks. As someone who lives with an acute chemical sensitivity and who has a service animal to help treat her PTSD, shelters are not a viable place for Pendleton to stay. Her only option was to live in her Hyundai Santa Fe SUV. When that car needed repairs last summer, Pendleton’s friends fronted her cash to buy an out-of-service ambulance that is her current home.

“What people don’t realize is, if they don’t support these parking programs, we will be on the streets. We are one step closer to being in a tent in front of their house,” she said.

Sheila Pendleton, a 53-year-old parker at a SafeLots in Denver lives out of her vehicle, an out-of-service ambulance.
Photo: Lizzie Mulvey, Rocky Mountain PBS

First launched in 2020, CSPI oversees 13 parking lots across the Denver metro area, serving approximately 110 households who live out of their cars each night, according data from CSPI. The program receives both private and public funding from the state, the city and the surrounding counties, including Jefferson, Arapahoe, Aurora and Adams County. Last year, 550 people, on average in their mid-to-late 50s, took advantage of their safe, legal parking spots.

Parkers receive a permit to park in a designated spot in a SafeLot each night between 6 p.m. and 8 a.m. where they have access to a port-a-potty stocked with hygiene products paid for by CSPI. Host organizations provide nightly access to clean water, and an outlet for charging phones and other electronic devices.

CSPI has already had to cut back on services in Denver, eliminating financial assistance for limited vehicle repairs, vehicle insurance or registration, and hotel rooms during weather emergencies such as when temperatures dip below freezing. Case management services for parkers will continue, but on a limited scale, and CSPI officials have eliminated a case manager position.

“We were blinded-sided. No one called us,” said Reverend Eric Banner of First Universalist Church, which hosts eight spots at its SafeLot in southeast Denver. “We were told, after having been a faithful partner in addressing the challenges of homelessness in our city for years, that we were no longer important enough to even be talked to.”

The parking program has been mutually beneficial for both parkers and hosts, said Reverend Banner. For the parkers, it provided safety and security and for Banner, it helped keep church property safe.

“They are watching out for each other, and they are watching out for the neighborhood because this is their home,” Banner said.

Parkers receive a permit to park in a designated spot in a SafeLot each night between 6 p.m. and 8 a.m.
Photo: Lizzie Mulvey, Rocky Mountain PBS

But, throughout CSPI’s contract period, there have been challenges with spending and reporting, said Derek Woodbury, communications director for the Department of Housing Stability (HOST) that oversaw the parking program.

“Spending lagged anticipated expectations, and there were some discrepancies in reporting outcomes,” Woodbury said in a statement to Rocky Mountain PBS.

Curtis chalked the issue up to a reporting error. HOST’s internal dashboard indicated that only three to nine households were served each night, but Curtis said CSPI operates 20 spots in Denver that are almost always full.

“We brought it back to their attention and they went back and updated the numbers,” Curtis said. Despite this reporting error, the city is still working on a budget that eliminates $400,000 in funding, she said.

Host organizations like First Universalist are already experiencing the challenges of funding cuts. Church members spent more than $1,000 in the first week of January for emergency support to parkers such as clothing, medication and car fumigation treatment to eradicate bedbugs, in addition to the $3,000 the church allocates annually for the program, said Banner.

“It’s a little maddening because we know that we are the most cost-effective program for addressing homelessness in the city,” Banner said.

“Having this funding pulled only six months after being awarded is a pretty devastating blow to CSPI as a very young organization,” Curtis wrote in an email to two city council members, Chris Hinds and Diana Romero Campbell. “CSPI is the only service provider to the vehicular homeless population.”

Curtis said they’re working out the details of how the decrease in funding will impact CSPI’s Denver operations, but they plan to focus on their core mission — to ensure safe and legal parking for people staying in their vehicles. With the limited resources available, CSPI hopes to keep the two legal lots at the First Universalist Church in Southmoor Park and the First Baptist Church of Denver in Capitol Hill open through the end of the year.

The city has not yet said where it will redirect the $400,000 pulled from CSPI, but Woodbury said that Johnston’s administration will support citywide efforts to bring families and individuals inside. More specific information will be available as the contract amendment progresses forward, he said.

Banner believes there is still time for HOST to reverse its budgetary decision.

“If our folks end up back on the street, they will frankly be a lot more for the city given the cost of providing services to people who don’t have a safe place to be,” Banner said.

“Our ask of Mayor Johnston is that he asks the agencies to restore funding so that we can continue the full life of our program,” he said.

Lizzie Mulvey is the executive producer of investigative journalism at Rocky Mountain PBS. You can reach Lizzie at lizziemulvey@rmpbs.org.