Thornton staff recommends pursuing safe‑parking pilot and regional shelter partnerships to aid people experiencing homelessness

Thornton City staff on Monday laid out three sheltering options for people experiencing homelessness — safe parking lots, pallet shelters and participation in the Aurora Regional Navigation Campus — and recommended the council pursue a safe‑parking pilot and regional partnerships while preparing funding options for the 2027 budget.

Jessica Prosser, assistant city manager, introduced the research and turned the briefing to Myra, the spot‑team lead, who reviewed program models, eligibility and costs for each option. Myra said a typical Adams County safe‑parking startup is about $94,000, with an ongoing regional contract in one location that includes a $1,000,000 rapid‑rehousing arrangement (the Adams West site contract was described as covering multiple years and targeted to run through 2027). She noted safe parking is a low‑cost, immediate option but only serves people with vehicles and is temporary; pallet shelters provide private, 24/7 units but carry substantially higher upfront and operating costs (staff cited pilot startup figures in the low‑millions and nightly costs many times higher than safe parking).

Council members pressed for local outcome data before committing to a program. Council member Drew asked how many of the roughly 900 outreach contacts in recent years represent people living in vehicles and requested trend breakdowns for planning. Myra said staff will provide quarterly and trend reports, including numbers of unique people served and referrals, and stressed the importance of regional coordination with Adams County, Commerce City and nonprofit partners such as Almost Home and the Salvation Army.

Council member Justin pointed to a large San Diego study that found about a 40 percent positive exit rate from safe‑parking programs (participants with case management who later moved into permanent housing) and said that success supported exploring safe parking here. Several council members, including John and Roberta, voiced support for the staff recommendation to explore safe parking locally as a near‑term option and concurrently evaluate regional indoor shelter partnerships such as the Aurora campus for medium‑term capacity.

Staff recommended next steps: evaluate candidate sites for a pilot, examine partnerships for operations and case management, and draft a funding strategy that could be included in the 2027 budget. Council signaled general support for that direction and requested more granular data (e.g., how many people live in vehicles, average length of stay and historic trends) to inform a pilot scale and budget assumptions.

The council gave staff direction to continue exploring safe parking and regional shelter partnerships; no formal vote was recorded. Staff said it will return with site‑level analysis, cost estimates and data on regional partner capacity.