What is Housing First and why does it matter?

On this first installment of “The Way Home,” host Andy Schultheiss talks with Michael Block, the CEO of All Roads BoCo, formerly known as Boulder’s Shelter for the Homeless, and Annie Bacci, the CEO of Boulder’s TGTHER, a nonprofit servicing youth who are facing homelessness.

Boulder County adopted a Housing First approach to tackling homelessness in 2017. Since then, the city has provided housing for more than 1800 people. Even so, as housing prices rise, so does the number of unhoused individuals. In Boulder County, according to the most recent count, about 850 people are homeless meaning 1 in 393 people do not have housing in Boulder. That’s slightly higher than the national average. In the US, more than 65,000 people do not have housing which equates to about 1 in 500 people.

The Way Home is a miniseries about homelessness in Boulder created in collaboration with Boulder’s Shelter For the Homeless and KGNU. Throughout it, we will host conversations with unhoused individuals, caseworkers, community members and experts with the goal of weaving a more informed and nuanced dialogue about one of the biggest social issues of our time in Boulder and across the US. You can catch episodes on the first Monday of every month at 8:35 AM on KGNU.