Mental Health Colorado is shutting down its program to help people leaving the Arapahoe County jail to find stable housing and prevent further arrests.
Vincent Atchity, the group’s president and CEO, said the Safer program succeeded: only three of 221 people that Mental Health Colorado worked with picked up new criminal charges, and no one overdosed.
The pandemic relief dollars that funded the program have run out, though, and Mental Health Colorado hasn’t been able to find another reliable funding source, he said in a letter to stakeholders. He did not say how much the program has been budgeted each year.
The organization still has a small amount of money to help the last clients find other sources of support, Atchity said.
The program started as an attempt to find stable housing for people released early from the jail because of the risk that COVID-19 would spread through it.
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