You're driving along Interstate 225 in Aurora, trying to take in what little scenery you can, when pockets of tents and clutter suddenly come into view near certain on- and off-ramps. Then you pass another encampment, and then another.
More and more of these tiny tent cities have popped up in Aurora over the past year as Colorado's third-biggest city continues to see an increasing number of unsheltered people living on its streets.
According to the federal government's Point in Time count, which estimates homeless populations through a survey conducted one day a year, Aurora's 2022 homeless population of 612 is the highest the city has seen since 2013, when it was estimated to be around 661 people.
Aurora has kept its estimated homeless population under 500 people for most of the decade, but that number has been growing since 2018, when Aurora reported a homeless population of 357. And today the percentage of unsheltered individuals in that population appears to be much higher than it had been in recent years.
The total homeless population listed by the Point in Time counts include both people who are sleeping on the streets and those staying in shelters or other temporary places. When Aurora tallied 661 homeless people in 2013, only 43 of them were unsheltered. In 2022, the city reported that 301 out of its 612 homeless residents were unsheltered.
While no count was conducted in 2021 because of COVID-19, Aurora reported an unsheltered homeless population of only 61 people in 2020, and only thirty in 2019.
Homeless encampments tend to gravitate toward I-225 — the backbone of Aurora that connects to interstates 70 and 25. Today, commuters will often see gatherings of tents, bikes and tarps around on- and off- ramps near I-225 and Parker, an area with plenty of open space around Cherry Creek State Park and the Nine Mile light-rail station.
Aurora's unsheltered homeless population tends to set up camp in spots with open space, in drainage areas or in the city's "transportation corridors," including its highways, according to Jessica Posser, the director of Housing and Community Services for Aurora.
"There are definitely areas that people tend toward more than others," Posser says. "Just like anyone else that has a neighborhood that they're familiar with — they know the people and businesses and services — they tend to stay in places that they know or where they feel safer or where there's something else that's keeping them."
The space near highways is "less vegetated, more open," she explains, noting how people may also go to "higher-trafficked areas" because they're closer to amenities or services like "a business opportunity, food, bathroom. There are things that are kind of in closer proximity when camping in urban corridors."
Encampments along highways may be more visible because those areas are busy all week long. But "we have encampments throughout the city," she adds.
A tent with tarp, a suitcase and a scooter next to a wall that separates Interstate 225 with a residential road in Aurora.
Bennito L. Kelty
Since then, the City of Aurora has cleared up or abated 399 homeless encampments, according to an update on the camping ordinance presented last month to the council by Emma Knight, manager of the city's homeless programs.
Aurora has an intergovernmental agreement to work with the Colorado Department of Transportation to clear encampments on highways, which fall under state and federal jurisdictions. But the competing jurisdictions can slow down Aurora's ability to remove these encampments.
The area around I-225 and Parker Road where people tend to camp is "really complicated," according to Aurora city spokesman Michael Brannen, with Arapahoe County, CDOT and even the Army Corps of Engineers having oversight of the highway and Cherry Creek State Park.
"Addressing campsites near I-225 and Parker Road is challenging due to the multiple jurisdictions in the area," Brannen tells Westword. "Depending on where a tent is located, either CDOT, Denver, Aurora, Arapahoe County, Cherry Creek State Park or the Army Corps of Engineers is responsible for monitoring it."
I-225 and Parker Road is one of the most abated locations, Knight told the council, and the city also has to work with CDOT to abate areas where the highway intersects with Iliff Avenue, Mississippi Avenue and the High Line Canal.
Aurora has spent more than two million dollars enforcing its camping ordinance, according to city documents — with most of those costs coming from constructing new, small-scale shelters. In order to comply with regulations that keep camping bans legal, Aurora doesn't abate encampments unless it has a place to put the people it forces out.
An abatement starts after a complaint is filed on Access Aurora, or, if an encampment is found on private property, after a code enforcement violation is reported to the city. Once staffers investigate the complaint, they follow through by going out to the encampment to deliver a notice that it will be abated in 72 hours.
Altogether, abatement takes three to ten days. But Aurora takes extra steps to avoid just kicking people to a different curb. "Our job with our outreach team is to encourage people to take services, come into shelter," Prosser explains.
About 130 to 150 shelter beds are available in Aurora on any given day, according to officials. However, the city doesn't operate its own shelter, instead partnering with the Aurora Day Resource Center and the Comitis Crisis Center, which is a long-term overnight shelter.
Aurora has had "a lot of success with our Pallet shelters," which are small, shed-like homes in a "village" run by the Salvation Army Aurora, according to Pallet, the company that helps build the shelters. The village houses 101 people.
"It's very approachable for people that are living in an encampment as a first kind of transition center," Posser. "There's not been a resistance to coming into Pallet shelters."
Aurora's 2022 estimated homelessness population of 612 people is much smaller than the Point in Time estimate for Denver's estimated homeless population of 4,800 people. However, a greater portion of Denver's homeless is sheltered: About three-quarters find places to stay in shelters, according to Denver's most recent data.
Still, more than 1,300 people were reported as sleeping on the streets of Denver during the 2022 Point in Time count. The Colorado Coalition for the Homeless estimates that as many as 3,300 people were unsheltered in Denver in 2022.
During the past five years, Denver's homeless population has increased by about 44 percent, and its unsheltered population has doubled since 2016, to 27 percent of the city's total homeless population.
