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Commerce City highlights Community Well‑Being programs: housing placements, food market and outreach
Summary
Community Well‑Being staff told council the program made more than 3,000 resident contacts last year, running a mobile food market (1,100+ served), eviction prevention and housing navigation that resulted in 28 transitional and 24 permanent placements; staff requested continued policy and operational support and will deliver quarterly updates.
Staff from Commerce City's Community Well‑Being division presented a program update that outlined a broad set of homelessness prevention, housing navigation and health‑and‑food equity efforts, and shared outcome data for the last reporting period.
Sarah Mondizar, who led the presentation, said the city was selected for the National League of Cities 2025 Community Health and Well‑Being Accelerator and identified five priority focus areas: access to housing, healthy food, transportation, economic opportunity and quality health care. "We're about 3 years old," Mondizar said, describing her team's navigator roles and the 5th‑floor community campus that hosts partner nonprofits.
Program highlights included a mobile food market at the RTD light‑rail station that staff reported served more than 1,100 residents in 2025; a "Fill the Fridge" post‑move‑in service for newly‑housed clients; case management and motel‑bridge housing in an intergovernmental agreement with Adams County; a street medicine partnership that recorded 85 medical contacts in outreach during 2025; and a safe parking program that placed 12 parkers into housing last year. Mondizar reported totals of roughly 3,000 contacts, more than 2,000 case management touchpoints and over 1,200 referrals recorded in the division's case‑management system.
Council members praised the team's work and asked follow‑up questions about partnerships, program capacity, trends and operational barriers. Council and staff discussed whether current land‑development code rules are constraining safe parking or RV programs; staff said the code imposes registration and insurance requirements that can limit enrollment and that staff will propose code updates and operational fixes as part of future requests.
Mayor Douglas and several council members urged continued data reporting and asked staff to return with specific, feasible policy or budget recommendations to address identified gaps. Staff said it will provide quarterly updates tied to the National League of Cities work plan and seek council guidance on policy barriers to program expansion.
