As pandemic funding runs out in Colorado, Boulder nonprofits brace for cuts

On Thursday, dozens of Boulder County nonprofits turned to the public for support. The Boulder County Family Resource Network, which is a coalition of dozens of area nonprofits, held a press conference asking for financial help, as it expects cuts to funding in the new year.

As federal pandemic relief funds come to an end, and there remains a bigger need for services across the county, the social safety net grant funding is getting stretched thin. This also comes alongside a higher demand from nonprofits asking the county for funding. When the county realized this might impact grant funding, it reported giving many affected nonprofits notice at the start of the year. Now with budget cuts just months away, community services like the homeless shelter at All Roads are taking a close look at their budgets.

As the chief development and communications officer at All Roads, Andy Schultheiss helps manage the shelter and its budget as the demand for their services grow. 

"It's a national problem," Schultheiss said. "There isn't enough housing, and this is where you see the brunt of it."

This year, All Roads reports filling its beds regularly. So far this year, Schultheiss says they've had to turn away 1,300 people. That's more than three times the number of people they had to turn away in all of 2023.

"Our budget has exploded, really. In the last five years or so, it's multiplied by about three, and that's because the problem has exploded in the last three years," Schultheiss said, "Unfortunately, we've had news recently of a big cut in the county's funding for the shelter in particular, which has been really hard to swallow."

"We're really not mad at the county. They're great partners. It's, it's just, you know, the budget," Schultheiss continued.

All Roads expects to see an 11.5% cut to its sheltering budget, or about $300,000. "This room is about 20 beds, which actually is exactly the number that we may have to cut," Schultheiss said.

Boulder County Commissioner Claire Levy explained, "Boulder County is going to have to use [Safety Net] funds in order to support the core services that we provide to community members to help them have food assistance, housing assistance, general cash support, child care assistance."

And there's more to the issue than just a finite amount of federal aid. Levy explained funding from one area can impact another. 

"The state is not providing adequate funding to us, and so in order to serve the families that we need to serve, we are having to use a portion of the human services safety net tax," Levy said.

But no matter where the funding comes from, people will still see the cuts. Including those at All Roads and dozens of other Boulder County nonprofits from food banks to family resources to community centers.

"The hardest thing that we do here at the shelter, which is turn people away at night, especially when it's really cold, we're gonna have to do to 20 more people than we were then we were planning on," Schultheiss said.

Ultimately, Boulder County Organizations are now looking to the public to help get funding. 

"It's the last thing [the county] want[s] to do. But budgets are budgets, and sometimes you're the one being cut," Schultheiss said. 

This is not cutting all funding from the county to nonprofits, but limiting what has been previously available.