Last weekend while I was back in Maryland, a friend of my mothers, who used to bring her family out here to ski, said to me, “I’m not hearing good things about Colorado lately.” And then, she changed the subject, went on to something else, and I didn’t get to respond. Since then, I’ve read reports on homelessness in Colorado, executive orders targeting Colorado and the 15th lawsuit against the administration, another ICE raid… and stories that capture the tension of the final days of the legislative session. So, I was very eager to get some of Colorado’s brightest together for this week’s Colorado Inside out to talk about what’s happening in our state – the lows and some highs!

Homelessness in Colorado: This week, two reports were released with different findings, but the same conclusion – homelessness is no longer a city problem, it’s a statewide problem. One of the reports is a state-subsidized study and the other is a study funded by the Common Sense Institute (CSI).

• CSI’s big takeaway: Colorado is now 4th in the nation for the increase in the number of homeless individuals. Chief legislative reporter for Colorado Politics and the Denver and Colorado Springs Gazettes Marianne Goodland pointed out that the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless criticized the CSI report as being “loosely informed and misguided.”
• The Colorado Homeless Management Information System reports 52,806 people sought out services for homelessness in 2024. Patty Calhoun: “That doesn’t mean they were all homeless. It means they were trying to get housing or food or different kinds of training. People are feeling the economic crunch… it’s around the state now and not just around Denver.”
• Executive Vice President at AdvanceColorado & former Chair of the Colorado Republican Party Kristi Burton Brown commented on the two different approaches Aurora (work-first) & Denver (housing-first) have taken in terms of approaching homelessness: “The Common Sense Institute is diving into what Aurora is doing… let’s train you how to get a job, let’s give you those skills that you’re missing that are preventing you from being able to be gainfully employed… and focus on treatment programs. Lot of people who are homeless also have drug addiction issues or mental health issues, and they actually need treatment. Clearly, Aurora didn’t want to model it on Denver, a city that has been failing on homelessness for years despite some attempts to solve it.”
• Patty Calhoun mentioned a recent Westword article that compares the homeless population to the migrant population. “Denver had 43,000 migrants come into Denver over two years. Most of them are out of any kind of subsidized housing now. And the difference in some of this with housing-first is if you have a support structure and many of the migrants do, they’ve got relatives here, and they have found jobs somehow. So, they have fewer psychological issues and physical issues than many of the people on the streets. The migrants have gotten out of the program a lot faster and are out on their own now, whereas with the homeless, many of those people are really severely damaged psychologically or physically.”
• NOTE: The federally-conducted Point-in-Time count, which provides a more accurate assessment of homelessness numbers, is expected this summer (following the count on 24-hour period in January).

Dwindling Days of the Legislative Session are Jam-Packed: Debates continue over transgender rights, parental rights, and First Amendment rights… among others.

• Senate Bill 86: Governor Polis vetoed SB-86, a social media regulation bill, citing infringement on user rights. The State Senate almost immediately voted to override that veto, but the House didn’t have enough votes to do the same. Oh, the drama! Marianne Goodland: “We have had three veto overrides in the last 37 years and two of them were tied to the budget, which is kind of a different critter when you talk about it. The last time a bill actually had a veto override was during Roy Romer’s Administration in 1988.”
• Senate Bill 1312: Originally, this bill proposed many legal protections for transgender people in education, through public accommodations, and in family legal matters. It has been revised, especially following an 8-hour hearing Wednesday night in which 700 people showed up. Kristi Burton Brown: “Sometimes it really does work to show up and let your voice be heard. SB-1312 would have threatened the custody of parents who don’t agree with the state’s viewpoint on the transgender ideology – basically, parents who don’t want to let their child transition into a different gender. It would have allowed courts to use that against parents in custody hearings and call it coercive control. But, that entire section about parents’ parental custody rights was cut from the bill. I still don’t like the bill…. especially relating to schools and dress codes and businesses across the state. But, this is still a huge victory for parents who showed up to the Capitol.”

Tensions with the Federal Administration: The conversation started with the mention of an Axios Denver headline that reads “Defiance of Trump Peaks at 100 days.” As the new Administration hit the 100-day mark, it rescinded $24 million in grants to Denver, money the city spent on migrant shelters.

• Kristi Burton Brown attributes the administration’s focus on Colorado as having “some of the worst sanctuary state laws in the nation.” She criticizes current legislative efforts to prohibit local government cooperation with ICE and Homeland Security, even when dealing with violent criminals.
• Patty Calhoun notes that Denver’s defiance is “very true to Denver’s brand” as a socially liberal city, but highlights that other areas in Colorado have also become more socially liberal.
• Marianne Goodland argues that the administration has “absolutely no regard for the rule of law” by withholding funds approved by Congress, stating, “the administration does not have the right to just say, we’re going to take away your money.”
• This announcement of rescinding money and putting together a federal list of sanctuary cities and sanctuary states follows a huge ICE raid in Colorado Springs. Kristi Burton Brown states that gang members and over 100 people in the country illegally were apprehended. Marianne Goodland raises concerns that no charges had been filed as of yet, questioning the characterization of those arrested. Patty Calhoun notes information regarding any arrest is still pending from a late January ICE raid in Adams County.

Education in Colorado: The new state budget provides more money for education, but not as much as educators hoped. Concerns exist over the future of free breakfast and lunch programs, mental health programs in schools and literacy programs.

• Marianne Goodland discusses the School Finance Act, noting that some smaller, rural districts with declining enrollments will not receive additional funding this year despite rising costs.
• In regards to Colorado’s healthy meals program funded by voter approved Proposition FF (from 2022), Marianne Goodland says the programs future may be up to voters again: “The program far exceeded the cost by millions of dollars. So, a measure is likely to appear on the November ballot asking voters to allow the state to keep all collected funds. If voters reject this, the program will likely become income-based, unlike its current universal eligibility.”

OK… so you may be reading through this blog and be thinking ‘she promised us some highs, some of the good happening in Colorado.’ So, as we do every week: the panel shared what makes them happy:

• Patty Calhoun: Cinco de Mayo is Monday but celebrations are taking place this weekend (Cinco de Mayo Denver Events).
• Marianne Goodland: This weekend’s Kentucky Derby features two horses named Publisher and Journalist and how the latter is a 3-to-1 favorite. Marianne delivered a pretty good line. “My guess is that this is the only time that it’s a good bet to bet on journalism.”
• Kristi Burton Brown praised her daughter for qualifying for speech and debate nationals in three events. I noted that her daughter is following in her mom’s footsteps, to that Kristi said “She’s even better.”

Personally, I’m still riding the high of my high school reunion back in Maryland last weekend. It was so great to reconnect with my old classmates and sit down and talk with my favorite and most meaningful teacher, Eleanor Heginbotham, who also worked with me on the school newspaper, The Here & Now. We talked about the joy of counting headlines, a job that really couldn’t resonate with the current high schoolers who now produce the paper with the help of all sorts of technology. But, their curiosity and passion for reporting news and for storytelling made me so happy to see… 40 years (!) after I was Editor-in-Chief!