They are called the “new homeless” because seemingly out of nowhere they’ve been filling shelters, the fastest-growing segment of the homeless population.
They are women and children.
When the Denver Commission to End Homelessness released its report last month, outlining a strategy to sweep people off the streets and into homes, a surprising figure stood out: 1,600.
That’s how many women and children are living in shelters, constituting a whopping 40 percent of the homeless population in metro Denver. Every day, the total rises.
Unlike many homeless people, who are struggling with mental illness and drug and alcohol addiction, this new group has a different demon: abusive men.
An overwhelming majority of the women and children filling shelters – some local experts put the figure at 85 percent – are fleeing abusive partners. They wind up there because there is no room at the battered-women’s shelters.
It’s a crisis that puts these women and their neighbors at risk because homeless shelters, unlike safe houses, are not in guarded, secret locations.
The figures tell the story.
Last year, 4,793 women in the state could not be placed in a battered-women’s shelter, according to the Colorado Domestic Abuse Assistance Program. The actual numbers are likely much higher because these figures are tallied solely from 39 programs funded by the CDAAP, the only state agency that keeps such records.
Those women often don’t have anywhere else to turn because many of the women’s homeless shelters are also full.
“We are filled every night,” said Julie Duffy, executive director of the Delores Project, an overnight emergency shelter for women. “Sometimes, in the middle of the night, we get a call from a nurse at an ER saying (an abused) woman is being discharged and needs a place. We ask, ‘Have you tried the safe houses?’ They say, ‘We have, but they’re all full.’ ”
In 2000, there were 13,929 domestic violence charges in the state and 11,951 restraining orders issued specifically to women seeking protection from their spouse or live-in boyfriend, according to the Colorado Judicial Branch.
By 2003, the most recent figures available, there were 14,997 domestic violence charges and 16,159 domestic violence restraining orders issued.
That explains why Brandon Center, the largest domestic-violence shelter in Colorado, with 90 beds, is nearly always full.
Lynne Watson, a director at Volunteers of America, which runs Brandon Center, said the need for safe houses is tremendous because women who can’t find room and wind up sleeping in alleys are most vulnerable to being victimized again on the street.
Ellen Stein Wallace, executive director of SafeHouse Denver, which has 28 beds, said Denver never has had enough shelter space for battered women.
“Why? I think it’s because the community doesn’t support it … most nonprofits are struggling financially, and running a shelter is expensive,” Wallace said.
That’s why, sometimes, battered women have to wait while intake workers call around, from one safe house to the next, fingers crossed.
“The scariest thing is wondering how many women stay with a batterer because they can’t get into a safe house,” said Duffy of the Delores Project.
If they can’t get into a safe house, and the homeless shelters for women are all full, there are two other options: Dolores House can write a voucher for one night at a motel.
Or, worse, they send them to St. Francis Center, the place of last resort, where the homeless have to sit up all night because they don’t have beds.
Cindy Rodríguez’s column appears Tuesdays and Thursdays in Scene. Contact her at 303-820-1211 or crodriguez@denverpost.com.
