Homeless navigation center in Colorado closes amid renovations, with goal of creating full-time shelter
RecoveryWorks in Lakewood has been a central gathering point for the area's homeless population in need of resources. The navigation center, which sits on the corner of W Colfax Avenue and Allison Street, provides services such as behavioral health aid, medical help or just a hot meal. But, for the next six months, the center is closed as RecoveryWorks renovates the space.
The hope, executive director James Ginsburg says, is a 103-bed, full-time overnight shelter to help get people off the street and provide a more consistent and reliable resource to add in the transition from homelessness to housing.
RecoveryWorks is operating out of MountainView Flats, a transitionary or "bridge" housing community in Lakewood. Registered Nurse Shawn Marzan and his street medical team at STRIDE Community Health Center have set up shop in one of the rooms, planning their day and being a medical resource for those that live there.
"If [people are] in a centralized location where we know where they're gonna be, you can provide them medical, you can provide them behavioral health," Marzan told CBS Colorado. "You can provide not just the medical piece but the social piece too."
Without a full-time overnight shelter, members of the homeless population tend to be more transient, making things harder on the resources and services that are trying to find them and help their transition out of homelessness.
"It's great in that moment because you can take care of that immediate need but that follow up may not be there tomorrow," Marzan explained.
Typically in Jefferson County, overnight shelters are employed during times of severe weather. RecoveryWorks was one of three major organizations in the area that stepped up after the closure of the Severe Weather Shelter Network statewide last year. Ginsburg told CBS Colorado, the chance to renovate the navigation center into a full-blown daily and nightly shelter will be a game changer.
"Rather than chasing people around while they're sleeping outside, we can focus on that endgame of permanent housing," Ginsburg said.
The shelter will have 103 beds, a number that Ginsburg said is modest relative to the county's needs. But it's a good start toward creating a pipeline that will pay dividends in the long term.
"The intent from the beginning was to create a year-round shelter because we know that's just a much better model," Ginsburg added.
The renovations are slated to begin May 1st and the navigation center will be under construction for roughly six months. Ginsburg hopes that the shelter will be ready to go by the winter of this year.
"Everyone is someone's somebody out there and what if that somebody was you?" Marzan said. "So knowing for me that I have somewhere that I may have somewhere I can go? That means everything."
