People to Watch 2023: Cole Chandler, Speaker for the House

Over the past five years, Cole Chandler has had a major impact on homelessness policy in Denver. As the head of the Colorado Village Collaborative, he guided efforts to bring tiny-home villages and safe-camping sites to the Mile High City, so that people living on the streets who weren’t inclined to go into traditional shelters could still work toward long-term stability. Those concepts have now become an integral part of Denver's approach to the issue, but Chandler isn’t quite as involved in the city these days.

In August 2022, the 34-year-old left his role as executive director of the CVC to become the director of homelessness initiatives at the Colorado Department of Human Services, the first person to hold that position. “I loved my grassroots work, and it’s just exciting to be able to be at the table and be a part of shaping strategy around this challenge in our state,” says Chandler.

While much of Chandler’s work at the CVC focused on gaining support from the city and community members for various projects and then implementing those initiatives, in his role at the CDHS he'll be concentrating on certain populations that the Department of Human Services supports: children, youth and families, older adults and people with mental health issues. Then, working with various offices within CDHS, he will be “trying to essentially work in all of our programs, trying to figure out where’s the intersection of homelessness,” Chandler explains.

“All of my previous work — obviously in Denver — was focused on this problem of unsheltered homelessness, which is a huge challenge,” Chandler says. “That work is really far downstream, and I think one of the things I’m really excited about is having the opportunity to prioritize prevention work — trying to turn off that faucet. Being able to use data in different ways, look across systems and target services to individuals that are at risk.”

Although his previous job was firmly planted in Denver, in his new role Chandler has already traveled to many parts of Colorado, including the San Luis Valley. “You see how it’s in some ways similar to the work that we’ve done in Denver, but also really different. If you’re living in the San Luis Valley and looking at those mountains every day, just the pure geography makes your life different,” he says.

Since the state puts a strong emphasis on local control, the approaches to homelessness vary from city to city and county to county. That’s both a strength and a challenge, according to Chandler.

“We really know that to effectively respond to homelessness, we can’t just take a city-by-city approach," he says. "We have to have a regional approach, at minimum. People experiencing homelessness in Denver don’t just stay in Denver all the time. Regional collaboration is something we have to do a lot more of, and I think there’s an opportunity to lean into that. That’s something I hope to be a champion for in this role, too, is really breaking down silos and advancing strong system-level coordination.”

The rate of people falling into homelessness nationally has outpaced the rate of people getting out of homelessness in recent years, he notes, and the state has been putting more resources into resolving the issue. In 2022, the Colorado Legislature passed a package of spending bills totaling $200 million that will focus on homelessness and housing.

“There’s just a new level of focus on this,” Chandler says. “Just the fact that the position exists says something. We’ve just got a lot more priority on it as a state.”

Other people to watch in 2023:

"Jami Duffy, Leader of the Band"
"Kourtny Garrett, Downtown Defender"
"Daniel and Luis Ramirez, Hosts With the Most"
"Nga Vương-Sandoval, Welcome Committee"
"Michael Gadlin, Arts Ambassador"
"Penelope Wong, Top Shef"
"Michael Spencer: Anchor Man"
"Robert Kenney, Power Broker"
"Scott Gilmore, Playground King"