Colorado city backs out of new homeless shelter, will close existing one: "Pushed this envelope as far as we can"

The City of Loveland is backing out of their plan to purchase and establish a new homeless shelter in Northern Colorado. The decision to abandon the purchase of a new property comes just weeks after it was approved by the city council in a contentious meeting.

In early January, the city council voted to purchase a new facility in northwest Loveland, contingent on a third party being selected to operate the facility as a homeless shelter. A third party was found. However, late last week the city received notice that the organization was pulling their offer, citing capacity constraints.

"What it has done for us is put us at a stop," said Loveland Mayor Pat McFall.

The city has now pulled its offer to purchase the new facility and has no plans to pursue any other properties for such purposes.

"We are basically at ground zero now, again," McFall said. "I think there is going to be a sigh of relief from one side, and I think there is going to be a lot of angst from another portion of the community itself. I think the biggest part about it is -- where are we going to go from here?"

The city had already announced plans to also close the Loveland Resource Center, a shelter for the unhoused, once the new facility was operating. McFall said the city will still move forward with closing the LRC even without a replacement plan.

"It was never purchased to be a full-time shelter solution," McFall said.

McFall said the city was going to have to spend millions of dollars to upkeep and continue running the LRC, making it unfeasible to continue operations, he said.

The mayor called on churches, organizations and the community as a whole to come forward with resources and offerings to the unhoused once the LRC closes.

"We've come to realize, no matter which side you sit on of this, we cannot be the sole provider of a shelter. We are just not capable of doing this," McFall said. "We have done everything we possibly can to help the unhoused and be able to move these things forward. But, there is only so much the city can do. We have pushed this envelope as far as we can by ourselves."