[This article originally appeared in the Denver Gazette as part of a series on homelessness in Colorado.]

A Gazette news series this week on Colorado’s homeless offered much more than an overview of one of the biggest challenges frustrating our state’s political leaders, policymakers and rank-and-file residents. The series revealed the makings of a solution.

Comparing the approaches to homelessness in Colorado’s three largest cities — Denver, Colorado Springs and Aurora — The Gazette’s news staff turned up some basic realities that could serve as overarching principles for addressing the issue:

In context of those simple truths, it appears Denver has been losing ground — and may well continue to do so — even as Colorado Springs and Aurora are employing methods that could turn the tide.

As the series recounted, Denver has directed a torrent of tax dollars at the problem. This year and next year, City Hall is budgeting nearly half a billion dollars to its epic homelessness initiative. That works out to $85,000 per homeless person for the two years.

It’s also worth noting that Wednesday, Colorado’s Common Sense Institute released a study that concluded spending on homelessness throughout the Denver metro area in the past three years will reach $2 billion in public and private dollars by year’s end.

Yet, Colorado’s most populous city counted 5,818 homeless people in January, up by 1,024 compared with the year before. Of the total, 2,763 were "unsheltered" — people who live in public spaces, such as cars, tents or the street. That figure rose by 33% from 2022.

The Colorado Springs metro area, by contrast, has seen improvement — a 17% decline in the El Paso County’s homeless population — from a high of 1,562 in 2019 to 1,302 in January.

The city allocated about $6.2 million to homelessness this year, excluding costs from the police department to enforce the city’s urban camping ban, as well as vagrancy, loitering and trespassing laws. That boils down to about $5,000 per homeless person for one year.

Aurora's homeless population, meanwhile, totaled 572 in January, lower than 2022's five-year high of 612. The city spent about $5.6 million on homelessness last year, about $10,000 per homeless person.

Why the city-to-city disparities? Denver and Aurora are merely across the street from one another and share a lot of the same urban scapes — and issues. A lot of the same homeless people, too. Colorado Springs is just a commute down I-25, and its surrounding county is the state’s most populous. What are Colorado Springs and Aurora doing that Denver isn’t?

Significantly, Denver employs the fundamentally flawed “housing first” strategy, subsidizing accommodations for longtime street dwellers — no matter how urgently they are in need of drug and alcohol rehab or treatment for mental health.

Move them out of one of the city’s many illegal tent encampments into a pallet shelter in one of Mayor Michael Johnston’s newly designated micro-communities — and many will be back on the streets in no time.

Aurora’s Mayor Mike Coffman, on the other hand, advocates a “work first” approach that provides homeless people dormitory housing and services to help them stay sober, receive counseling and upgrade job skills. They are required to work at least 20 hours a week.

Colorado Springs also veers away from “housing first” — and rigorously enforces its municipal camping ban even if it sometimes means a few days in jail for the campers.

In both cities, the lesson for the significant percentage of drug and alcohol addicts among the homeless street population is clear: lifestyles have consequences, and benefits come with responsibilities.

Might Denver give that approach a try?