Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman envisions a campus for the homeless after living on the street with the unhoused

Two years after Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman went undercover as "Homeless Mike" he is unveiling an ambitious plan to help those living on the street.  

Coffman stayed in encampments and shelters for a week in 2020, telling only CBS News Colorado's Shaun Boyd where he was. He said he needed to see firsthand why the homeless problem was getting worse and worse even as the government spent more and more money.

He discovered it was not about a lack of housing: "People want to tout it as an economic crisis and it is not. It's an addiction issue."

Since then, Coffman has studied countless programs, read endless reports from outreach workers, and visited shelters across the state and even out of state: "I've seen some great programs and some bad programs."

The best program, he says, is at Springs Rescue Mission in Colorado Springs, where they've adopted a "work-first" philosophy to help the homeless.

"I believe fundamentally that there is dignity to all work," Coffman says. "This whole notion that the solution is to just give somebody an apartment, not transitional housing but an apartment without any requirements, I think is wrong, number one, and I don't think it's helpful to the individual because they're continuing their drug use."

Aurora Housing, he says is building an apartment complex for those who, because of mental health issues, for example, will never be self-sufficient. His plan is to build a homeless services campus, with physical and mental health support, as well as substance abuse treatment, on land the city owns in an industrial area near East 32nd Avenue and Chambers Road.

It would include a basic shelter for those who want just a bed and a meal, nicer housing for those who want treatment and job training, and even better housing for those who are sober and employed full-time.

"It's aspirational. You want better living conditions, you participate," said Coffman. "We should concentrate our resources on those who want to change their behavior."

Democrats on Aurora City Council and some homeless advocates have pushed back on his plan, saying a "housing-first" approach, that doesn't impose any conditions on individuals experiencing homelessness, would be more successful. They accuse Coffman of moralizing.

"There are a lot of good people who work in these nonprofits but sometimes I think of it as the homeless industrial complex where there are a lot of people who benefit from infinite spending on this issue," said Coffman. "There's always, 'If you just give us more money, we'll change the equation,' and the equation never changes. Until we define the problem accurately, we're never going to be able to solve it."

City Council approved Coffman's plan on Monday night but the design and financing will still need to be worked out. Coffman says he's already trying to secure some American Rescue Plan dollars to help fund the project. He says the city will build the basic shelter and will partner with a nonprofit that will build the other two shelters and run the campus with some government assistance.