CARBONDALE, COLO. (February 4, 2025) – Today, Community Solutions announced that Colorado’s Roaring Fork/Eagle Valley Region – which comprises Eagle, Garfield and Pitkin Counties with 133,728 residents – became the eighth community nationwide to obtain real-time by-name data on all single adults experiencing homelessness.
“Understanding who is experiencing homelessness is the critical step in reducing homelessness,” said Beth Sandor, chief program officer at Community Solutions. “By gathering data on all adults experiencing homelessness, the Roaring Fork/Eagle Valley team has established the foundation for solving homelessness in their community for good.”
Most communities rely on the annual Point-in-Time Count, which only tallies the number of sheltered and unsheltered people once a year. Quality by-name data is a comprehensive source of information on every person experiencing homelessness, including their name, history with homelessness, and health and housing needs. Outreach teams and case managers collect the data with consent and update it monthly.
Unlike the annual Point-in-Time count, real-time data allows cities to evaluate whether their strategies reduce homelessness over time. It also enables communities to prioritize resources and monitor whether homelessness reductions are racially equitable.
The Roaring Fork /Eagle Valley region joined Built for Zero, an initiative of nearly 150 cities and counties working to measurably and equitably end homelessness, in 2019. The rural region spans more than 5,500 square miles and includes ranchland, canyons, mountains, and several of the country’s most expensive zip codes. Many Roaring Fork Valley residents also live in one county and work in another. The region’s geographic diversity and high mobility posed extra challenges for comprehensively identifying everyone experiencing homelessness in the community.
To address these challenges, more than 20 different organizations across all three counties banded together to establish the Valley Alliance to End Homelessness, the coalition that serves as the backbone for the community’s regional collaboration. Now, people at risk of or experiencing homelessness anywhere in the region can approach the Valley Alliance to swiftly get the help and resources they need.
The Roaring Fork Valley team’s commitment to diversity and equity also played a crucial factor in collecting the data they needed. Due to the region’s sizable Spanish-speaking population, being bilingual and bicultural is a requirement for staff conducting street outreach. Staff with lived experience of homelessness also guide the team on how to best address the needs of people experiencing unsheltered homelessness.
Next, the Roaring Fork team aims to use this data to reach functional zero for veteran homelessness — when the number of people experiencing homelessness doesn’t exceed the region’s capacity for moving people into permanent housing.
“We can now confidently say how many people are entering and exiting homelessness across our tri-county region,” said Mike Barbee, acting data manager at West Mountain Regional Health Alliance. “This data not only helps us measure the progress we’ve made, but it helps us track homelessness trends and needs across all three counties so we can respond as effectively as possible.”
Organizations that contribute to the Roaring Fork region’s shared homelessness database include the West Mountain Regional Health Alliance, Catholic Charities Western Slope, Pitkin County Human Services, Garfield County Human Services, Housing Eagle County, Mind Springs Health, Recovery Resources, and Salvation Army Glenwood Springs.
Seven other Built for Zero communities — Fairfax County, Va., Washoe County, Nev., Missoula, Mont., St. Louis, Mo., Thurston County, Wash., South Central Indiana, and Southeast Tennessee — have secured by-name data for all single adults. More than 75 Built for Zero communities have achieved quality by-name data for at least one homeless population.
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About Community Solutions
Community Solutions is a nonprofit committed to making homelessness rare and brief. It leads Built for Zero, a network of nearly 150 communities using a data-driven methodology to improve local housing and homelessness response systems and the impact they can achieve. To date, 14 communities have reached functional zero veteran and or chronic homelessness, a milestone for homelessness being rare and brief for a population. Learn more at www.community.solutions or follow us at @CmtySolutions.
MEDIA CONTACT:
Lauren Barnes
903-539-0809
lbarnes@community.solutions
