Let These Uncertain Times Drive our Support for Those in Need |

“Am I going to lose my housing?” |

This post by Michael Block originally appeared as a DAILY CAMERA GUEST OPINION | PUBLISHED: November 7, 2025.

When the pandemic hit back in 2020, I remember thinking with a deep sense of gloom, How is this going to work? We didn’t know much and had only questions. How could a congregate setting like a homeless shelter stay open? How will we staff it? With the economy in a tailspin, how would we pay the bills? And of course, how many people — staff and residents — would we lose? But despite the extreme uncertainty, we kept going. Staff showed up. And then the community stepped up and donations increased.

This time it’s not the uncertainty of a pandemic, but rather a host of other challenges. Our steadfast partners at the city, county and state are all facing budget shortfalls. The Feds seem determined to throw 12 million people off Medicaid, and the proposed 2026 HUD budget proposes a 50% cut in funding for programs benefiting our poorest residents. Food assistance was cut off for some on Nov. 1. And those who qualify for any of these programs, like our clients, will face greater barriers like work requirements, time limits and paperwork that appear designed more as a hurdle than a help.

Our loyal supporters in the community feel uncertain, too. While the Administration disrupts the world economic order and markets shudder, you start to worry about your own future and the security of those you love, those you are responsible for.

The uncertainty impacts our clients as well. For the “lucky” ones, those who faced years of hardship on the street but now find refuge in one of our housing programs, they have been asking our housing case managers a yet unanswerable question: “Am I going to lose my housing?”

Tragically, all of this leads us to things that we are quite certain of. Life is going to become more precarious for more people, and the demand for our services is going to increase. The safety net of today is no luxury. Benefits to counter the natural forces of bad luck and the systemic headwinds of generational poverty — a shortage of 6.5 million units of affordable housing, inequity and more — have always been defined by scarcity. But as cuts to health care, housing assistance, food assistance, mental health care and addiction treatment arrive, more people are going to fall through widening cracks. More people will need help. More people will be without homes.

However, there is another certainty, and it’s much more uplifting. With your help, the individuals who get up every day to do the hardest work for those in the greatest need will continue to do so. These beautiful people, who put aside their own interests on behalf of others, are willing to do the hardest work so long as we allow them to do so. They did it the last time life seemed so uncertain, risking their own health during the pandemic, and they will do it again this time. They will fight as hard as we let them. The rest is up to us as a community — a community long defined by its generosity.

We know what works. By coordinating with the City of Boulder, Longmont, the county and the state, and focusing resources on creating sustainable housing exits, the homeless census in Boulder decreased while other cities and all the counties in the metro Denver region have seen increases. Just last year, 200 people found their way out of homelessness with our help. We know that housing reduces municipal crime in homeless adults by 90%. We know it reduces Emergency Room visits by 80%. The city’s new homeless strategy puts a renewed focus on the work we have started and guides us to continue our progress while paying close attention to reducing the impacts downtown and in our parks.

So, as we did during the pandemic, let’s find a way to let this uncertainty drive our support for those with less. More to the point, at this uncertain moment in history, let’s refocus ourselves on the core safety net that Washington is shredding: Keeping people alive, with hope for the future.

And let’s be more generous than in years past. Whatever you gave, in dollars and hours, last year, think about doubling it. Let’s honor the suffering of the needy and those who come to their aid by supporting All Roads and other providers who stand on the front lines and represent the best of us in the most uncertain of times, who give of themselves out of generosity to those with the least.