If Boulder builds a larger homeless shelter, more homeless people will come. So says the "magnet theory." It is touted by those fighting to keep the homeless away from their homes. It is bunk.

The Boulder Shelter for the Homeless is now functioning in an old motel on North Broadway. The shelter, which opened in 1987, has 84 beds (originally, it had 68). There are another 32 beds at a temporary, remote "overflow" site.

The shelter is proposing to move two blocks from its current site. The shelter would be in a new building and have space for 160 residents a night.

Some critics characterize the proposed shelter as a homeless Hilton that would lure street people from elsewhere. They forget that the homeless are already in town and in need.

So far this winter, the shelter has accommodated 24 percent more demand for beds than it had by this time last year. Much of that increase reflects rising unemployment. Some of that growth reflects the fact that the homeless population — like the general population — is burgeoning.

The homeless population is rising at roughly the same rate as the statewide population, according to surveys by the Metropolitan Homeless Initiative and the Colorado Department of Human Services. Since the shelter opened, the population of Boulder County has increased by 35 percent. But the capacity of the main shelter site has increased by only 23 percent.

To accommodate the extra demand, the shelter relies on emergency overflow beds and on the kindness of churches. The homeless are showing up in greater numbers because they're in desperate straits, not because there are beds aplenty.

Bob Mann, the shelter's executive director, rebuts the magnet theory. A couple years ago, seven homeless people in Denver were murdered. The Boulder shelter expected people from Denver would flock to the relative safety of Boulder. But they didn't come.

The Boulder shelter polled residents during this period, to determine how many had come from Denver because Boulder was safer. There were never more than two people on any night who'd come for that reason, Mann says. If they don't come to escape potential homicide, why would they come for a bed?

Mann notes that the homeless population tends not to be migratory. Often, a person with minimal means moves for the promise of a relationship or job. When the promise capsizes, the person becomes homeless. "We do have people who are new to town, but they didn't move here for the shelter."

Moving takes money, which the homeless lack. Further, the homeless often develop strong social ties, which help them survive. These are all reasons they tend to stay put.

Scholarly research buttresses the point. A 1995 study published in the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry found that most homeless people move to find employment or to flee from a bad home, not to find a better shelter.

Colorado is growing like a noxious weed. Consequently, people accept wider roads, fatter crowds, smaller plains and vanishing species. You'd think they could tolerate a slightly larger shelter.

Reach Clint Talbott at (303) 473-1367 or talbottc@thedailycamera.com.

January 10, 2002

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