March brings a new tool that creators hope will enable community members to be part of the solution to ending homelessness.

As of this past Sunday, downtown shoppers, workers and urban dwellers can click on a QR code with their cell phones to report concerning behavior being exhibited by people who presumably are homeless and hanging out in the core of the city.

That could include people who are sleeping on benches or in doorways, acting agitated, yelling, seemingly needing a place to spend the night or giving other indications of requiring assistance, according to Beth Roalstad, CEO of Homeward Pikes Peak, the organization behind the experimental initiative.

Emergency situations will need to be handled by police, she said, by calling 911. Those would include suspected criminal activity, violence, medical problems requiring an ambulance and fires.

Filing an online report for non-emergency issues will trigger a street outreach team from Homeward Pikes Peak to respond, assess the situation and help the person obtain food, emergency sheltering, mental health assistance, housing and other needs.

“We want citizens to feel empowered to support vulnerable community members,” Roalstad said.

The QR code is not an application that needs to be downloaded, she added, but rather is a web form that people fill out. It’s based on the city’s popular application, GoCOS!, by which people can report homeless camps.

The new feature is an extension of the Downtown Clean & Safe program that the Downtown Partnership, a merchants’ association, introduced last year.

Roalstad’s organization, which provides transitional housing for singles and families who are leaving homelessness and substance use recovery programs, also is supplying street outreach employees for the downtown project toward a collective goal of “connecting people to resources quickly and making downtown welcoming to all citizens.”

The reporting system will further help the outreach team pinpoint where areas of concern are in the immediate downtown area and dispatch trained professionals to work with people, she said.

“We’ve found the outreach workers can approach someone who’s agitated and calm them down through engagement tactics,” Roalstad said. “If we can calm them down, maybe they can have a rational conversation about ‘I need food or somewhere to sleep tonight.’

“Two weeks ago, the team housed a man who’s been homeless for 24 years and living in Acacia Park for two years. Over time with repeated work, he let the team help him get documents he needed to apply for a housing voucher,” she said. “He’s been more stable than he has been in decades.”

Pat Rigdon, director of downtown environment for the Downtown Partnership, said the non-emergency concerns are what downtown ambassadors and security personnel hear about the most regarding the urban transient population.

Since the Clean & Safe program started last July, outreach workers have been in contact with more than 500 people, 150 of whom were unique encounters, he said. They’ve made 250 referrals for service and helped one person get into supportive housing and several more in various programs.

“It’s been a real success,” Rigdon said. “Ambassadors have made roughly over 1,400 contacts with the unhoused population downtown – a lot of that maybe simple things such as saying ‘hello,’ but there are success stories, and they’ve managed to get enough trust with people to get outreach workers involved and get people real help.”

Colorado Springs Mayor Yemi Mobolade signed a $700,000 contract last month with the Downtown Partnership to continue the Clean & Safe program using revenue from recreational marijuana sales tax.

It’s unknown whether the Clean & Safe program is reaching everyone, which Rigdon said is why the new QR code reporting program is a useful addition.

“I think this process will ensure we’re reaching out to everyone possible,” he said.

An emergency solutions grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and funneled through the city of Colorado Springs funds the dedicated outreach workers for downtown. Roalstad said her organization is seeking additional funding to increase the web-based reporting and response service to be citywide by year’s end.

Downtown restaurants, banks, shops and residential buildings are receiving posters to display the information and QR code. And the city will print signs that will hang on street poles.

“Homelessness does not resolve quickly, and it’s not always a solution to go to the rescue mission every night,” Roalstad said. “People want to have real hope that there’s something on the other end of this effort.”