Housing Is a Right. Treatment Is a Lifeline. Dignity Is Not Optional.
We have over 14,000 Coloradans without a home on any given night, and our response has been a patchwork of underfunded programs, sweeps, and finger-pointing between cities and the state. That ends with my administration. If the need arises I will freeze rent to keep people and families from being homeless.
My approach is built on four pillars:
- Housing First, Without Apologies. The evidence is clear: getting someone into stable housing is the prerequisite for everything else — sobriety, employment, family reunification, mental health stability. I will direct the Department of Local Affairs to fund Housing First placements at scale, paired with my existing platform’s state-backed affordable housing loan program.
- A Behavioral Health Bed Guarantee. Colorado is short thousands of psychiatric, substance-use treatment, and crisis-stabilization beds. As Governor I will commit to a five-year build-out so that no Coloradan in crisis is turned away or sent to jail because the bed didn’t exist.
- Veterans Off the Streets. Roughly 1 in 13 unhoused Coloradans is a veteran. I will appoint a Governor’s Veterans Housing Coordinator with authority across DOLA, CDPHE, and the Colorado Department of Military and Veterans Affairs to drive veteran homelessness toward functional zero within four years.
- End the Criminalization of Poverty. I will use executive authority and budget leverage to push every Colorado jurisdiction away from camping bans and toward outreach, navigation, and housing. Sweeps without housing offers don’t solve homelessness — they relocate it and traumatize the people inside the tents.
Specific actions in my first 100 days:
- Convene a Governor’s Cabinet on Homelessness with mayors of Denver, Colorado Springs, Aurora, Pueblo, Grand Junction, and Fort Collins.
- Direct CDPHE to fully implement and expand 988 mobile crisis response, statewide.
- Establish a state-level “Right to Counsel” pilot for tenants facing eviction.
- Launch a Rural Homelessness Initiative — because homelessness on the Eastern Plains and Western Slope looks different and deserves dedicated resources.
