Residents of Colorado Springs consistently rank homelessness as the most significant issue facing our City. Unfortunately, a recent editorial places blame, shifts responsibility, and supports a policy that will do nothing to meaningfully address the problem – and may make it worse. Let’s start with accurate information about our City.

The Gazette’s editorial supporting a vehicular camping ban asserts that “chronically homeless campers” are parking “dilapidated cars, SUVs, RVs” throughout the City, implying that the people living in vehicles across Colorado Springs are overwhelmingly chronically homeless, substance addicted, and mentally ill.

That claim is not supported by national data, nor by what we know locally. People living in vehicles are strikingly more diverse than the editorial’s caricature.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development reports that people experiencing unsheltered homelessness include families with children, seniors on fixed incomes, workers with low wages, survivors of domestic violence, and individuals who have experienced financial shocks such as job loss, medical debt, or rent increase. Living in a vehicle is often a strategy to avoid sleeping outdoors or entering crowded shelters, not evidence of chronic homelessness. This research is affirmed by local leaders who work directly with this population.

Studies conducted in multiple states and national surveys of vehicle residents find that:

· A significant share of people living in vehicles are employed.

· Many are recently homeless rather than chronically homeless.

· Families with children are disproportionately represented among vehicle dwellers compared to those sleeping outdoors.

· Older adults and people on fixed incomes increasingly use vehicles as a last line of housing stability.

Chronically homeless individuals, defined federally as people with long-term disabling conditions who have experienced extended or repeated episodes of homelessness, represent a subset of the unsheltered population. Suggesting that “car campers” are synonymous with chronically homeless individuals struggling with addiction and mental illness is inaccurate.

The claim that banning vehicle habitation is the “first step” to getting people into treatment or housing assumes that treatment slots, shelter beds, and housing units are readily available. They are not. Communities across the country, including ours, face shortages of affordable housing, stagnant wages, and a lack of behavioral health treatment capacity. The Pikes Peak Continuum of Care entry system has a list of 350-400 people each month experiencing homelessness who are engaged with services and seeking housing with only a handful of units available. When there is nowhere adequate for people to go, enforcement does not create housing; it simply moves people from one block to another.

It is also irresponsible for local governments to set policy that places the onus for outcomes on nonprofit service providers downstream without consulting them and without increasing resources.

The City recently convened 40 providers who comprise a crucial part of the region’s safety net to discuss collaboration in meeting the needs of people living in vehicles. This is what we learned: Providers serve many people living in vehicles – including students, families, and seniors – some with disabilities and chronic health conditions; resources are already stretched; and enforcement displaces people engaged in services, making them harder to serve, which results in greater homelessness, not better access to care.

Changes to programs such as SNAP and Medicaid, which provide food and health coverage for low-income households, are intensifying demand for local services. A 2025 study on the extent of homelessness completed by Data Driven Economic Strategies for the City of Colorado Springs and El Paso County found that in 2024 6,900 households representing 8,400 individuals self-reported homelessness on their SNAP applications, a 144% increase from 2019 to 2024. This includes people living doubled up, couch surfing, staying in motels, and living in their vehicles.

As federal support diminishes, more households fall into crisis, and more people seek help from already overburdened local organizations. Adding enforcement without parallel investment downstream is local government shifting responsibility, not a compassionate strategy for helping people off the streets.

Residents have a right to safe and livable neighborhoods, but policy must be grounded in facts, not rhetoric. People living in vehicles are not a monolithic group of chronically homeless “drifters.” Most are neighbors navigating a shortage of affordable housing in a system that does not have the capacity to meet growing needs.

We must have an accurate understanding of who is living in vehicles, what resources exist, and what outcomes we are really striving for. Rather than blame the victim, or simply shift responsibility, what if we as local leaders prioritized creating the conditions – good jobs, affordable housing, healthcare access – that prevent homelessness in the first place.

Nancy Henjum represents District 5 on the Colorado Springs City Council.