Colorado’s State of Homelessness Report 2025

Framing the report

AKey shifts in this year’s report

Now in its second year, this report builds on the 2024 foundation with two key updates that provide a more complete view of Colorado’s homelessness response system and its impact:

A broader view of the system

In addition to those experiencing homelessness, this year’s report reflects all participants served, including households at risk of losing housing and those who are supported to maintain long-term stability. This broader lens helps illustrate how the system functions across the full continuum—from prevention to housing to ongoing support.

Evolving data and reporting practices

Homeless services data is inherently dynamic, shaped by service provider capacity, system participation, and ongoing data entry and integrity. As participation in the Colorado Homeless Management Information System (COHMIS) continues to expand, some providers began entering data in 2025 for services and enrollments that occurred in 2024. As a result, 2024 data has been updated where appropriate. Specifically, the number of people experiencing homelessness in 2024 has been updated from 52,806 to 54,135.

These updates reflect a more complete picture of system activity over time. Moving forward, each annual report will reflect the most current data available, including updates to previously reported figures as additional information is incorporated.

BWhy this broader view matters

By looking at all participants served across the homelessness response system, it’s easier to see a system that is actively evolving:

Early intervention

Colorado is reaching more households before they enter homelessness.

Sustained success

Colorado is demonstrating that many of the housing programs support long-term stability, not just temporary fixes.

Strategic investment

Understanding the relationship between economic demand and system performance helps identify exactly where more resources are needed to sustain the momentum.

How we measure progress: COHMIS and PIT

Homelessness is a fluid experience where people move through different parts of the system over time. To reflect that reality, this report draws primarily on COHMIS data to show how the system responds to ongoing need, utilizing the Point-in-Time (PIT) Count for additional context.

Together, COHMIS and PIT offer complementary data points on homelessness—COHMIS providing a comprehensive, year-round view of how people engage with the system, while the PIT count offers a single-night snapshot for context. By looking beyond a single-night snapshot to the total population served, the figures below highlight how the full scope of need—and the system’s impact—becomes more visible over time through COHMIS data.

CUnderstanding key terms and program types

The following terms are used throughout this report and illustrate how individuals navigate the broader housing continuum, from immediate crisis through long-term stability.

Population definitions

Total served

Everyone who interacted with the homelessness response system during the year—from people experiencing unsheltered homelessness and engaging with street outreach, to those staying in emergency shelter, to households seeking prevention assistance, to those in permanent housing.

Experiencing homelessness

A subset of the total served population, this refers specifically to people who, based on available data, experienced sheltered or unsheltered homelessness at some point in 2025.

Program types

Understanding who the system serves

APurpose and framing the population

Colorado’s response system supports a broad spectrum of housing and prevention needs. To understand the scale of this work, it’s important to distinguish between two overlapping groups:

Keeping people housed is the least expensive way to fight homelessness.

BWho is being served

The homelessness response system serves a diverse population across household types and life stages, including single adults, families with children, youth and young adults, older adults, veterans, and people experiencing chronic homelessness. The dashboards and sections that follow use COHMIS data to explore how these groups are represented across the system and highlight what the data shows.

Youth and young adults (ages 24 and under)

Youth and young adults are experiencing the most rapid proportional growth across the entire system. While they represent a smaller share of the total population, the double-digit increases seen in 2025 signal a growing crisis that requires targeted intervention.

What the data shows

• Youth homelessness increased by 10.3%, while the total number of youth served grew by 15.3% compared to 2024.
• This trend is driven by a combination of rising economic barriers, family conflict, and the transition out of systems like foster care or juvenile justice. As affordable housing becomes harder to secure, young people are increasingly vulnerable to housing instability.
• Part of this increase is also a success of the system: Expanded outreach and youth-focused resources, including projects funded through the Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program (YHDP), have improved Colorado’s ability to identify and support young people who were previously undercounted.

Early intervention matters. Without timely support, youth experiencing homelessness face severe barriers to education and employment. Connecting youth to the system early is the most effective way to prevent long-term, chronic homelessness in adulthood.

Families with children

Families also represent a growing segment of those seeking support, with a notable shift toward the success of early intervention. While the number of families experiencing homelessness rose by 6.0%, the total number of families served by the system increased by 12.1%.

What the data shows

• This data highlights a major system success: Colorado is reaching families earlier. Families now represent 37.6% of all persons served, and they make up the vast majority (69.2%) of households in homelessness prevention programs.
• The increase in families seeking help reflects statewide economic strain, including rising rents and a critical shortage of family-sized affordable housing units.
• Because even short periods of instability can affect a child’s health, education, and intellectual or emotional development, the system’s focus has shifted toward proactive support to ensure children stay in their homes and communities.

The Total Served view reveals that Colorado’s system is effectively acting as a buffer for families. By engaging them through supportive services and prevention, thousands of children have been protected from having to enter the emergency shelter system.

Overrepresented groups across the system

Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) continue to be overrepresented among those experiencing homelessness and those accessing services from Colorado’s homelessness response system. To better understand and highlight these disparities, each group’s representation in COHMIS has been contrasted with their share of Colorado’s overall population using statewide population data from the Vintage 2024 Census Population Estimates Program (PEP) prepared by the Colorado Statewide Demography Office.

What the data shows

• Several groups are overrepresented within the system, including Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander (5.5x more represented), Black, African American, or African (3.4x more), American Indian, Alaska Native, or Indigenous (2.7x), Two or More Races (1.5x), and Hispanic/Latina/o residents (1.3x).
• These disparities are especially stark for Black residents, who make up about 5.0% of Colorado’s population but 17.0% of those experiencing homelessness and 17.6% of all people served.
• American Indian, Alaska Native, Indigenous, and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander residents also remain significantly overrepresented, reflecting persistent inequities in housing access and stability.

While disparities exist statewide, their scale and composition vary by region. Each Continuum of Care reflects different patterns of overrepresentation, underscoring the need for locally informed, data-driven responses.

Older adults (ages 62 and older)

As Colorado’s population ages, a growing number of older adults are expected to enter the homelessness response system for the first time in their lives. Driven by fixed incomes that cannot keep pace with rising rents and medical costs, this demographic faces a unique “double burden” of housing instability and declining health. Reporting from a 2025 Colorado Sun article titled “Aging with nowhere to go: Increasing number of people age 65 and older are becoming homeless in Colorado” underscores this shift, highlighting how the intersection of a high-cost housing market and a lack of specialized senior care is driving record numbers of older Coloradans toward the crisis system.

• Rising utilities and housing costs are pushing seniors—many of whom have been stable for decades—into crisis.
• Our current emergency shelter infrastructure was not originally designed for the complex needs of older adults.
• Many seniors require assistance with Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) such as medication management, bathing, and mobility support.
• Cognitive needs: Increasing rates of cognitive decline require specialized, low-stress environments that standard congregate shelter settings cannot always provide.

Perhaps more than any other demographic, older adults highlight the urgent reality that housing is healthcare. Success for this group means moving beyond a bed in a shelter toward a permanent home that can accommodate their changing physical and health needs.

Together, household type, patterns of overrepresentation, and age help paint a picture of who is being served across the system, while population characteristics—including veteran status, disability, and experiences of long-term homelessness—provide a deeper view into the needs of those served. The dashboard below highlights these characteristics, with the following sections exploring trends among these groups.

Veterans

Veterans remain a priority population within Colorado’s homelessness response system, serving as a powerful example of how targeted, data-driven strategies yield meaningful results.

What the data shows

• In 2025, the number of Veterans experiencing homelessness decreased by 2.9% (falling from 3,429 to 3,330).
• Simultaneously, the total number of Veterans served by the system increased by 3.4% (reaching 6,264). This indicates that our “front door” is wider than ever, connecting more Veterans to supportive services and prevention before they reach a point of crisis.

These outcomes are not accidental. They are the result of sustained investment, coordinated systems, and strong partnerships, particularly with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and local VA teams across Colorado, who play a critical role in aligning housing resources, healthcare, and case management.

The progress seen among Veterans offers a clear insight for the broader system. When communities have access to dedicated resources, shared data, and coordinated pathways to housing, reductions in homelessness are not just possible but obtainable. Expanding these conditions across other populations, including families, youth, and single adults, represents a key opportunity to drive similar progress statewide.

Chronic homelessness and disabling conditions

While progress among Veterans is notable, data for 2025 shows a growing need among those with complex health challenges and long-term instability.

An individual is considered chronically homeless if they have a documented disabling condition and have either been continuously homeless for at least one year or have experienced four or more episodes of homelessness totaling at least 12 months in the last three years.

What the data shows

• The number of people with a reported disabling condition served by the system grew to 39,492 (+4.6%), representing 47% of all people served and 55% of those experiencing homelessness.
• Individuals experiencing chronic homelessness increased by 3.8% statewide. This growth reflects the ongoing challenge of a housing market that lacks enough Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) units to support those with the most intensive support needs, who often require long-term housing paired with ongoing supportive services.

Trends in chronic homelessness are not uniform across the state and are closely tied to local capacity and resource alignment. PSH is specifically designed to move people experiencing chronic homelessness off the streets and into stable housing with ongoing support. In Northern Colorado, the opening of the Star Rise PSH project corresponded with a measurable decline in chronic homelessness—demonstrating that when these resources are brought online, they function as intended. Similar declines were reported in Pikes Peak, while Metro Denver and the Balance of State saw increases, underscoring gaps in available resources. These variations highlight that while targeted investments like PSH can drive reductions in chronic homelessness, scaling resources to meet the full scope of need—and expanding additional pathways out of homelessness—is essential to sustain and accelerate these trends statewide.

Contributing and regional factors

AContributing factors

While Colorado’s homelessness response system is performing, it does not operate in a vacuum. Three primary forces continue to drive inflow and create barriers to stability.

The housing affordability gap

Housing affordability remains the primary driver of homelessness. A statewide shortage of affordable and family-sized units creates a “bottleneck,” making it difficult for individuals to exit the system even when they have a housing voucher in hand.

Rising eviction pressures

Rising eviction filings in 2025 are a direct contributor to system inflow. This economic pressure is pushing families and individuals into the response system for the first time, often overwhelming emergency resources. Evictions are often the result of the inability to pay rent or rent increases that are outpacing wage growth.

Intersecting health barriers

For low-income Coloradans with physical disabilities, mental health challenges, and/or substance use disorders, securing and maintaining safe, stable housing can be a challenge. Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) pairs affordable housing with access to intensive coordinated supportive services to help persons with histories of homelessness and complex barriers to housing stability live independently with improved health outcomes and reduced emergency system utilization.

BRegional variation and system context

Homelessness looks different across Colorado’s diverse landscapes. The regional data in this report reflects variations in local housing markets, service infrastructure, and geographic realities.

Infrastructure and scale

Larger metro areas possess a denser network of specialized services, while rural and frontier communities often operate with leaner infrastructure where a single provider may cover multiple counties. Mid-sized regions often fall between these extremes— operating more robust systems than rural areas, but without the scale or specialized housing inventory found in large metro regions.

Inventory and outflow

The ability to exit the system is closely tied to local housing market conditions. In larger metro areas, more housing exists, but high demand, rising rents, and competition can make it difficult to secure a unit, even with assistance. In mid-sized regions, limited inventory and low vacancy rates continue to slow exits from the system. In rural and frontier communities, a severe shortage of rental housing creates challenges for any program relying on rental assistance, from Rapid Re-Housing (RRH) to other voucher-based permanent housing programs, even when funding is available. Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) is often limited or unavailable in these areas, further restricting options for people with the most intensive needs.

Geographic barriers

In Colorado’s frontier areas, the distance between services and a lack of reliable transportation are significant hurdles. In these regions, street outreach teams must often travel hundreds of miles to connect a single household to the system. Mid-size regional systems face a different set of geographic challenges, where services may be concentrated in key population centers, requiring households from surrounding communities to travel significant distances to access shelter or supportive services. In larger metro areas, geographic barriers are less about distance and more about navigation and access of services.

How the system is responding and performing

ASystem performance: a dynamic system

Homelessness in Colorado is not a static problem—it is a dynamic challenge met by an increasingly effective system. While external economic factors have increased the number of people seeking support, our state’s response system is performing at a high level. This is reflected in housing outcomes across the system, from prevention to housing stability and exits to housing.

Spotlight: the impact of permanent housing

While the broader homelessness response system provides essential crisis services, Permanent Housing (PH) programs represent the state’s most effective tool for long-term resolution. The 2025 data confirms what decades of evidence have shown: once individuals are placed in stable housing with appropriate supports, they overwhelmingly remain housed.

Permanent housing: strong outcomes, limited supply

Permanent Housing programs are working exactly as intended. Once people are connected to stable housing with the right supports, they overwhelmingly remain housed. At the same time, the system is seeing roughly 1,450 people experiencing homelessness enter for the first time each month, while only about 575 enter Permanent Housing programs. This creates a widening gap between what is working and what is available, highlighting the need to expand access to Permanent Housing so more individuals can move from crisis to stability.

BThe role of prevention

Homelessness prevention programs serve households at risk of losing housing, often before they experience homelessness. By helping people remain housed, these efforts reduce inflow into the homelessness response system and allow resources to be more effectively directed toward those already experiencing homelessness.

Prevention plays a critical role in reducing the number of people entering homelessness and easing pressure on the system overall. However, across Colorado, rising housing costs and financial instability continue to put more households at risk of losing their housing. Recent data from the Colorado Judicial Department’s 2024 “Eviction Legal Defense Fund Five-Year Evaluation” shows that nonpayment of rent is the leading cause of eviction in the state.

Eviction trends

Data from the Colorado Courts “Residential Eviction Data by Closure”, and Denver County Court records shows a sharp increase in eviction filings, from 39,620 cases in 2023 to 47,613 in 2024, and then surged by over 30% to approximately 62,134 cases in 2025. This continued increase we see in the data highlights the growing number of households experiencing instability and underscores the importance of prevention efforts.

It is also important to note that formal eviction filings only represent those who are formally requested to leave. Some households may leave housing situations, or “self-evict”, prior to a formal court filing or displacement in order to avoid legal consequences or escalate instability. As a result, actual housing loss and near-loss may be higher than what the eviction court data reflects alone.

Homelessness prevention data

Homelessness prevention data in COHMIS reflects support provided to households at imminent risk of losing housing and entering the cycle of homelessness. While most participants are not experiencing homelessness at enrollment, these interventions play a critical role in stabilizing households and reducing inflow into the homelessness response system.

11,748

people served by homelessness prevention projects in COHMIS statewide in 2025, a 7.8% increase from 2024, reflecting continued expansion of prevention efforts.

74%

of all exits result in housing. An average of 4,190 people are served each month, with nearly 400 exiting to housing monthly, demonstrating strong stabilization outcomes.

~70%

of people served are in households with children, and 39% of participants are under age 18. The population served is largely family-centered.

4,299

people remained actively enrolled in prevention projects as of year-end, reflecting ongoing support to households working to maintain housing stability.

CProgress and ongoing challenges

Investments in prevention have supported households across the state, but there is still significant work to be done to meet the growing needs of Coloradans.

1. During the COVID-19 pandemic

   Colorado received over $689 million in federal Emergency Rental Assistance funding, assisting more than 57,500 households facing eviction.

2. As federal funding wound down

   The state has continued these efforts through the Colorado Emergency Rental Assistance (CERA) program, which is expected to serve over 2,800 households annually.

3. 2023

   The Division of Housing awarded over $14.6M in Transformational Homelessness Response grants for eviction and homeless prevention activities. These grants began in January 2024 and will support over 4,000 individuals through September 2026. Since these awards began over 4,355 people have already received assistance.

4. 2025

   The Division of Housing awarded over $1.5M for homelessness prevention activities through the Homelessness Resolution Program. These awards are made on an annual basis.

Additional investments, including eviction legal defense funding, homelessness prevention grants, and strategic planning have collectively supported tens of thousands of households in maintaining housing stability.

Even with these investments over the last six years, demand for resources far exceeds what is available. Currently, the Colorado Emergency Rental Assistance Program is only able to select between 7% to 13% of applicants who apply each month for funding, leaving an unmet need for Coloradans at imminent threat of eviction or displacement.

At the same time, prevention can be more difficult to measure than other parts of the system. Success is often not visible in homelessness counts, as it reflects situations where homelessness was avoided altogether. While Point-in-Time counts and annual service data capture those who experience homelessness, they do not fully capture the impact of households who are able to remain stably housed due to timely intervention.

Even with these limitations, prevention remains a key part of a comprehensive response. As eviction filings rise and more households face housing instability, prevention efforts play an essential role in reducing system inflow, stabilizing communities, and supporting long-term housing outcomes.

Across the state, communities are making progress in strengthening the homelessness response system and expanding access to housing and services.