04-21-25 Interview - Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman

If you've listened to this program for any length of time, you know that I am a huge advocate of the style of help that a place like step Denver gives, which is, we're gonna help you and give you a place to stay, but you're gonna work, You're gonna be sober, and you're gonna be accountable. And I know it works because it's been working for decades. Now here in the Denver metro and joining me now is a man who is using that approach in a city right next to Denver,

Hey, thanks for having me Mandy.

You know, first of all, Mayor, I want to talk about what we were talking about off the air for just one second, and that is Aurora's food scene, Okay, because I think this is the undersold portion of Aurora that should be on every billboard. Like your food scene in Aurora is outstanding. Are you still making it from you know, making it around town and going to visit all the mom and pop restaurants.

That are in Aurora.

Yeah, I do, and I got twenty pounds to shelter. But it's great. I mean, we you know, we have a very culturally diverse city and we've got you name it, We've got in here.

You really do speaking of culturally diverse, Aurora has had a rap for a long time of being not the place you want to live. And I've been talking on the show for the past couple of months. I feel like Aurora is on a trajectory right now that is incredibly positive. What good things are happening in Aurora right now? And why do I have that impression that you're on the on the upswing?

You know, because we are on the up swing.

I mean we've got, first of all, our crime rate is less than that of Denver on a per capita basis in every single category when it comes to violent crime, when it comes to property crime. We've got a business friendly environment. I mean you're talking about restaurants. Look at the restaurants and the number of restaurants are closed in Denver versus Aurora.

And so there's so many.

Other metrics, but you know where the a Cu and Shoes Medical Campus is a huge economic generator that is expanding with bioscience, adding bioscience research there and working with the university on that. We're going to be redeveloping the eastern end of Rorri. We're going to be working We're working on redeveloping and revitalism, revitalizing callfax between Pure and Yosemite.

I mean, there's so many incredibly.

Positive things that are happening, really growing economy, dynamic economy.

So really excited about our future and as.

Well, as you mentioned almost this and so I'm really excited to take a different approach on that.

So let's talk about Aurora's approach first. We'll start there because the Common Sense Institute paper that I've linked on the blog today so people can read it for themselves and they should, really outlines two different approaches. One is the housing first model, which requires nothing of the people that they're giving free housing too. And the second, I

For Aurora pors Well, a healthy person is the only program right now recognized by the federal governor.

I think that Trump administration will hopefully change that.

I was there in Washington with some of my colleagues about a couple of weeks ago to talk to officials in the Trump administration, and so they're certainly looking at I think it is in statute, will require the help from Congress to get a change.

And so what we want to do is what you mentioned. You mentioned step Denver, which is a pure work first model who says, you know, you've got to be sober.

You know, we're gonna we're gonna help you, We're going to get you back on your feet, and you're gonna have You're gonna have stable housing through self sufficiency through work. What is recognized by the federal government right now, what is the standard practice nationally is called housing first, and housing first basically says that housing is so basic to the human condition.

If you solve for.

That, then you solve for other things, so that there is a requirement that you cannot put any.

Uh. Basically, I'm going to use requirement again.

On people experiencing homelessness that you like in Denver, you have to get you give them a room and a hotel, and you provide what's called permanent support of services around them like mental health, like addiction recovery, like job drinking. But you can't require them to participate in anything. And so I I just don't. I think that's a failed model. We also have an Aurora. We we do have all the based nonprofit called the Bridge House and they have a ready to work program that.

Is also based on a WORKFORCET model.

What is different in the approach that I'm going to take the City of Aroor is going to take is that we're gonna have to take all comers.

So we're taking people that are are you know, that have been moved on.

Through trespassing and and wind up in our facility.

And so there's three tiers.

First tier is emergency services for people that are just off the street and they're going to get minimal services.

They're not yet engaged in case management.

Second, as it has sent better living circumstances, uh semi private circumstances for people that are engaged in case management and addition recovery and mental.

Health and job training.

But you only get a room in the Aurora program, this work First program if you're working and you're going to pay part of your income for rent and you know you still need some services. So it's it's transitional housing, but it is it is based on getting people to work and you And if you read the success stories under housing person, nobody's ever working. They're under a lot of government programs at tax basically expense, but they're not working.

Well.

I'm sure you've toured step Denver as I have, and when you see I always tell people you can tell when you go in there, because when the men first come into step Denver, to your point, they have basically a shelter situation where they've got a cat and a dresser and a thing that they're responsible for taking care of.

But you can always sell the guys who just got.

There right because their bed's not really made that well, maybe it's a little bit of.

Things out of place.

And then on the other end of the room, as the men move down, you see hospital corners on those beds. You see everything neat and tidy because I believe, and I think you probably do too, Mayor, that work is.

Ingrained in human beings.

We want to feel productive and we want to feel like what we're doing matters. So is that kind of the core of this whole program.

It absolutely is the core of this program.

That you know, just like those housing first people say, you know, housing is basically the human condition.

I believe work is basically the human condition.

Contributing to society and having a worth, having a value through that work, I think is important. And in fact, we've got a lot of employers that are very interested in this program. Now we're not going to be fully operational until November of this year, where we purchased along with help from our county partners Douglas County and Rapid County and Navas County and the state of Colorado using one time federal dollars and another Biden administration called America Recovery Plan Act.

That led to inflation.

Right, they shipped us the money and so we purchased the hotel in mid sized conference center on.

I seventy in Chambers.

If we wanted to take holidate our programs there, we're clearly going to be taking care.

Of more than Aurora, but it will be on a workforce basis.

And the great thing about it, and I'm really appreciate comment Census too for their work, is that you're going to have two major cities side by side with opposite programs, and it'll be a great test case, not just for Colorado but for the country.

Well, the numbers are not really very good. According to the report Growth and Homeless Populations among US States between twenty twenty and twenty twenty four, we are sitting pretty at number four. We've had a ninety percent increase in homelessness over that same four year period.

But the reality is it is not evenly just attributed.

Because El Paso County, with a similar process that you're describing, with a workforce model, with a hand up model, as I like to call it, instead of a handout model, they've actually seen a decrease in their homelessness. And I think that it would be interesting to and I'm keeping an eye on this Mayor to sort of note the statistics between Aurora and Denver.

Are you.

What part of you thinks that maybe the hardest cases, the person's most resistant to help and change and bettering themselves. Do you think they're going to self deport to Denver.

Well, I think we're going to do everything we can afford for them, you know, in the city area.

So the goal is not to do that.

In fact, I would like the state legislature in the next legislative session to in fact put legislation forward that essentially says, look, you can't you know, export your whether it's migrants as in the case of Denver, to an ORR which created a well host of problems without telling us using a third party nonprofits, or it's it's that you know, in fact, Douglas County was systematically putting people in a or in Denver, and so I think it's

One of the challenges that we have because.

We're our program, this conservative program, is not recognized by the federal government that we can't get federal funds for our operating part of the program.

And so we have to raise it privately.

And folks have stepped forward like Daniels Fund and the Engines Foundation to help us out and put that it will be a continual problem until we get the federal government to change this policy and recognize work first, as as a viable model and not simply housing first.

I think it's ridiculous that the federal government would think that there would be a one size fits all solution that they should mandate, you know, if you want to give out block grants or however you want to give them money out. But in my mind, let the communities make decisions about what's going to serve their community the best. Let me ask you one last question before we have to go, because I just realized I'm late for a break.

What would you give that relationship right now?

Well, I think I think government to government in a probably myself. Oh and Mayor Johnson not so good.

You know. I think that you know, he hurt my city. I think when.

He he asked me to help on the myrank situation, we've never been in a sanctuary city historically. I said no, And he want AHAD and used a nonprofit UH to basically place them in my city without telling me. That's not against the law. I think it ought to be. That's not against current law. But I think that that doesn't generate the kind of trust in a relationship that I had with Mayor Hancock, his predecessor.

Right, Mayor Mike Coffin. I appreciate your time today.

I look forward to watching this experiment unfold and continuing to see Aurora move in a positive direction because there's a lot going on there that's super positive and I hope you guys can keep it going.

Thank you. We're going to keep it going.