The city council has added more funds to assist the disabled homeless population.
Denver agreed on Monday to extend a contract with Rocky Mountain Human Services by about $5 million in order to provide assistance to homeless people with disabilities.
About twenty percent of Denver’s homeless population may be eligible for the “Mission Supports” program, which provides assistance to those who are homeless and have been diagnosed with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Those who received a handicap diagnosis before to turning 22 are the target audience for the program. It gives people access to a range of services, such as primary care doctors, disability compensation, guardianships or legal help as needed, and permanent housing when it becomes available.
During its meeting on Monday, the Denver City Council decided to add $4,913,600, making the new contract total of $67,413,600.
Mayor Mike Johnston of Denver has declared a homelessness emergency and committed to housing 1,000 homeless individuals before the end of the year.
The Colorado Fund for People with Disabilities is moving the program to Rocky Mountain Human Services.
Executive Director of Rocky Mountain Human Services Shari Repinski stated, “We are delighted to help CFPD transition Mission Supports to RMHS, a significant step towards addressing the pressing issue of homelessness in Denver for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities.”
Georgia Edson, Chief Program Officer at Rocky Mountain Human Services, continued, “It’s evidently a highly vulnerable group. Essentially, the goal of Mission Supports is to identify homeless individuals and assist in getting them to a location where they can determine whether or not they qualify for these assistance.
The program is designed for persons with neurological problems that necessitate long-term demands for daily living tasks, such as autism, Down syndrome, and other developmental difficulties, according to Edson.
“What makes a difference for us is that we can unify them under one roof and allocate even more resources to their work,” Edson continued. It is our belief that any assistance, consideration, or resources we can provide for this issue would be greatly appreciated. According to Arnie Swenson, director of Colorado Fund for People with Disabilities Mission Supports, the support program assists homeless people in applying for and receiving information on benefits, “with Social Security disability, income applications, connecting them to an attorney, or whatever resource they need to get those activated.”
“After that, we take care of any missing tasks if they require a phone conversation partner.” We carry that out.
According to Swenson, Mission Supports has served more than 250 Denverites thus far.
Edson stated, “The truth is that it takes a long time because we have to stay in touch with people.” “Obviously, we have to work really hard to achieve that when someone doesn’t have a place where they are every day.”
A Denver homeless housing monitor shows that as of right now, Johnston has provided housing to 183 individuals, with housing pipelines to look forward to.
Swenson claimed that the Denver homeless population has a wide range of problems as a result of the diversity of infirmities.
“It’s extremely customized,” Swenson remarked. “One area that is desperately needed is a neurodiverse treatment center because all the other treatment centers will call us and tell us, ‘No, we were not prepared or able to do this kind of work.'”
