Tag: Homelessness
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‘The program’: Using the homeless to reap Medicaid millions is not new
Editor’s Note: This article is part of a Colorado Watch series that looked into how homeless people were offered housing and “donations” from a church in return for becoming clients of a home health care agency that billed Medicaid millions. Read the other stories here. Federal rules prohibit anyone from giving any Medicare or Medicaid beneficiary any remuneration —…
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Using housing and cash, ‘the program’ exploits Colorado’s homeless for Medicaid millions
Editor’s Note: This story is part of a series. Read about how home health in Colorado is a complex setup and about the group On Going HHC. They call it “the program.” For the past four years, dozens of homeless people in the Denver metro area have been recruited to live rent-free in suburban houses sprinkled across Aurora…
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‘The program’: On Going HHC roots deeply intertwined with others
Editor’s Note: This story is part of a series. Read about how “the program” exploits Colorado’s homeless using housing and cash, and how home health in Colorado is a complex setup. Seska Bell is a licensed practical nurse who has long worked in the home health industry, according to testimony she recently gave in a…
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‘The program’: Medicaid for home health in Colorado is complex setup
Editor’s Note: This story is part of a series. Read about how “the program” exploits Colorado’s homeless using housing and cash and about the group On Going HHC. Read the other articles here. Home health care in Colorado is a complicated business. To provide the service, agencies must be certified and licensed through the Department…
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Aurora, Arapahoe County see rise in homelessness, but more people sheltered
Aurora and Arapahoe County both saw increases in the number of homeless people in this year’s Point-In-Time count, but fewer of those people went unsheltered this year. Aurora saw a 33% increase in the overall number of homeless people from 2025 to 2026, with 626 last year and 832 this year. While the number of…
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Annual count finds fewer homeless people in Denver
Overall homelessness in Denver went down by 12.5% this year, the first year-to-year reduction in nine years, according to an annual count. Street homelessness is also at a nine-year low, decreasing by 64% since 2023, when Denver Mayor Mike Johnston took office, city officials said. Johnston, who campaigned on eliminating homelessness in his first term…
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EDITORIAL: Aurora’s template for success on homelessness
With homelessness more or less unchanged over the past year in Colorado’s largest urban centers — numbers released this week show a slight dip in metro Denver and a small uptick in the Colorado Springs area — it’s worth another look at the innovative approach underway in Aurora. Colorado’s No. 3 city has been ramping…
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Homelessness drops slightly in Denver metro area
There were 35,601 people homeless last year in metro Denver, compared with 36,065 in 2024, a drop of 1.3%, according to a statewide report by the Metro Denver Homeless Initiative released Monday. Meanwhile, homelessness in El Paso County grew between 2024 and 2025 at a rate faster than any other part of Colorado, according to…
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Colorado Cost of Living: State is now 4th most expensive in U.S., and residents feel the strain
Think of Colorado and what comes to mind? Majestic mountain views; skiing, sledding, rafting, hiking and more in the Great Outdoors; alpine forests and golden plains; ample sunshine, craft beer and breathtaking sunsets. Just to scratch the surface. But the cost of living and housing affordability in Colorado has drastically increased in recent years, gradually…
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Aurora is ‘strong and getting stronger,’ mayor says in State of City speech
Aurora is “strong and getting stronger,” the city’s mayor said on Tuesday, citing successes in a new homeless navigation campus. Mayor Mike Coffman said he leaves work every Friday and goes straight to the Regional Navigation Campus, where he then sleeps in the low-barrier homeless shelter and helps serve breakfast in the morning. The navigation…