Boulder’s Homelessness Issues
There are a lot of things that I like about living in Boulder. It’s both walkable and bikeable, there’s access to amazing outdoor areas, and the weather is gorgeous. All of these things have remained a constant since moving here in 2021, and they are often some of the first items that I list when people ask me if or why I like living here. However there has also been another constant, which is unavoidable in discussion around life in Boulder. According to John Herrick of the Boulder Reporting Lab, homelessness in Boulder County hit an all time high in January at 839. Additionally, about half of those people are experiencing homelessness for the first time. (Herrick, 2023). The same article cites that of these 839 people considered homeless, 243 were ‘unsheltered’ meaning living or sleeping outside or without shelter. The City of Boulder website cites a prior survey in 2020 counting 689 people in Boulder County, estimating that “a significant portion of single adults experiencing homelessness in Boulder County do so in the city of Boulder.
When it comes to dealing with homelessness, Boulder boasts its ‘Housing First Approach’, stating “The City’s Homelessness Strategy is built around the belief that Boulder community members should have the opportunity for a safe and stable place to live.” This same page states that about 80% of homeless people in Boulder are in some form of shelter. Some of the goals of this strategy include but are not limited to:
- Expand pathways to permanent housing and retention
- Expand access to programs and services to reduce or prevent homelessness
- Support access to public information about homelessness and community solutions
It is also important to note that the City of Boulder website states a goal to hit 15% affordable housing by 2035, noting a current rate of 8.3% in 2022. With these statistics in mind, I studied the Boulder Data on various subjects relating to homelessness in Boulder including shelter attendance rates, affordable housing, and new housing constructions between 2015 and 2020. The data presented in the findings suggests that despite efforts to ease the housing crisis, the problem of homelessness in Boulder continues to grow.
Data Collection
Three databases were used in the data collection process of this study, all from the Boulder Open Data website listed as follows:
- ‘Attendance in Boulder Homelessness System Adult Programs’
- ‘Affordable Housing for Low and Moderate Income Households’
- ‘Building Use and Square Footage Details’
The first database has a very self explanatory name. The affordable housing database contains information about housing units considered part of affordable housing, including the year it was built, the square footage, and the number of bedrooms. Additionally, the database entitled ‘Building Use and Square Footage Details’ contains information about building permits applied for in Boulder. Using this data, one can examine both the efforts to increase affordable housing in Boulder, but also housing entirely. The data can go as far back as 1987, but for the purposes of the study the most recent data is what will be examined. One limitation of this data is that while the building permits seem to be mostly up to date, the affordable housing data only seems to cover up to 2018, and the homeless shelter attendance data spans 2017 to 2019. Additionally, the affordable housing data and building permit data share no overlapping columns of information, so one cannot be entirely sure which new constructions were intended as affordable housing. Despite this obstacle, it is still possible to proceed forward with analysis.
Data Processing and Findings
Housing Analytics
Processing the data collected from the Boulder Open Data website proved to be somewhat of a challenge, mainly because of the limitations discussed in the previous sections. Although the databases from Boulder Open Data were not entirely up to date, it is still possible to examine the efforts made by the City of Boulder to curb the housing crisis and homeless population. This is possible through analyzing the change over time in new housing projects, new affordable housing, and the change in shelter attendance.
In order to narrow down new constructions to housing, a column in the building permit database called ‘BuildingUseType’ was used to tell which structures were ‘Dwellings’ intended for people living in. After filtering, it was found that there were 4817 building permits applied for between 2015 and 2019. Of those, over 3000 of them were for single family detached dwellings, normally requiring a higher income, not qualifying as affordable housing. Contrast that to the likely candidate for affordable housing, the multifamily dwellings, which only had permits reach 506.
Looking at the bar plot of this information, it only further exemplifies the steep dropoff from single family detached homes to every other housing construction. Multifamily dwellings and townhomes together make up just over one sixth of the single family detached dwellings. This indicates that although Boulder claims to make efforts to increase affordable housing, the new freestanding homes seem to still completely dwarf the cheaper options that would help curb homelessness.
Secondly, the affordable housing database must be explored in order to see if there has been an increase in availability over time. First, the database was filtered down using a column called ‘Built_Year’ in order to only see the 2015–2019 results. Using this, one can see the change in new affordable housing units being created over time. There is also another column named ‘Year_Unit_Became_Permanently_Affordable’, which shows exactly what it says. It is important to note that not all affordable housing units are built with that intention, and some become an affordable housing unit after its construction via housing programs in Boulder.
It can be seen that from 2014–2017, few units are constructed or classified as affordable housing. Between 2017 to 2018, a steep jump can be seen from about 10 total new affordable units, to 87. This figure represents a stark increase in affordable housing, but how does it match up to the City of Boulder’s goal of increasing said housing to 15% by 2035?
In order to prove this, it must either be shown that affordable housing outpaces growth of other housing units, or that affordable housing growth year over year exceeds 15% of other housing endeavors. As stated above, the affordable housing and building permit databases do not overlap, so the first option is not available. This means that I as the researcher must make some assumptions using the building permit data. Using the statistics from the above paragraph on new housing permits, I assume that multifamily dwellings and townhomes are classified as affordable housing. Their total permit applications from 2015 to 2015 are 645. Compared to the 3026 permit applications for new single family detached dwellings, this means that roughly 17.5% of new housing permits are possibly affordable units. This would indicate that Boulder is overall increasing affordable housing at a rate which will improve its total percentage over time, but because it cannot be shown for certain how many developments are intended as low-income dwellings, it cannot be said with certainty that this figure is correct.
Effects on Homelessness
Finally, the database containing information on homeless shelter attendance rates was examined. The inquiry in this analysis is two fold:
- Have Boulder’s housing and homeless programs made an impact on shelter attendance?
- Do the goals of Boulder’s Homeless Strategy align with the data available on its website?
To examine these questions, let’s revisit some of the statements about homelessness on the City of Boulder website. Boulder boasts that 80% of people experiencing homelessness are utilizing some form of sheltering. Since the open data available on homeless shelter attendance only covers up to 2019, we will compare this to the 2020 Boulder Point-in-Time Count, assuming no drastic changes in one year. This Point-in-Time Count, according to the City of Boulder, is an annual count of all people experiencing homelessness in Boulder carried out on a single night. The 2020 Boulder PIT counted 689 people experiencing homelessness. This 80% figure is not represented in the open data whatsoever.
According to the open dataset, the average monthly attendance based on the data provided was about 74 people. This is well below what would be expected to reach that 80% figure mentioned above. This indicates that there is significantly less data available in the open data set compared to what the City of Boulder used to create these statistics, which brings us to the second question. The data available to myself as a researcher is significantly limited, which is in direct contradiction to the goal statement on the website which reads, “Support access to public information about homelessness and community solutions”. The actual lack of publicly available, and up-to-date information made this subject significantly more difficult to analyze.
Conclusions
To conclude, it is evident that the City of Boulder is making efforts to increase its affordable housing and prevent or reduce homelessness through its various programs. Unfortunately some of the only available data on such a topic is both outdated and clearly incomplete. The affordable housing data shows a drastic increase in housing construction intended for low income residents, as well as continual efforts to classify more housing as permanently affordable. Although efforts to expand housing are clear, the effect on homelessness is inconclusive as of now as a result of lack of publicly available data. Considering the earlier mentioned figure of 839 homeless people as of January this year, it can be speculated that Boulder’s homeless population will continue to grow.
Works Cited
Affordable housing in Boulder. City of Boulder. (n.d.-a). https://bouldercolorado.gov/guide/affordable-housing-boulder
Herrick, J. (2023, July 25). Boulder County homelessness rises to more than 800 people. The Boulder Reporting Lab. https://boulderreportinglab.org/2023/07/26/homelessness-in-boulder-county-rises-to-more-than-800-people-according-to-recent-point-in-time-count/
Homelessness in Boulder. City of Boulder. (n.d.-b). https://bouldercolorado.gov/guide/homelessness-boulder#section-16888
