What We Do
The Delores Project partners with individuals experiencing barriers to housing to identify their path to stability. By providing shelter, housing, and supportive services, The Delores Project works alongside individuals as they overcome barriers and challenges. In addition, The Delores Project community collaborates with other community leaders to ensure those who have experienced barriers to housing are represented on issues of public policy and community development.
Learn more about our programs, impact and work to end homelessness:
Hospitality and Welcome
The Delores Project believes in extending true hospitality to everyone who walks through our doors, helping them believe they are worthy of care and respect. Services are provided with as few requirements and barriers as possible. For example, guests at The Delores Shelter are not required to present identification or immediately commit to a long term program. The Delores Project welcomes each individual as they are, with no immediate expectations that they must “fix” their lives as quickly as possible; people are not broken.
Hope and Self-Determination
At the Delores Project, hope is held for people who have temporarily lost their capacity for confidence. Change comes differently for each person, and our guests and residents deserve a choice in planning for their future. The Delores Project programs work in partnership with guests and residents as they identify their individual needs and goals. An individualized path to stability is then developed with each guest or resident and the staff provides the necessary support for the guest or resident to meet the milestones on their path. There is value in recognizing mistakes or poor choices as places to learn from and to move forward. Everyone deserves second, third and more chances to recover and reclaim their lives.
Our Programs
Each year, The Delores Project serves nearly 450 individuals experiencing barriers to housing and provides 20,000 nights of shelter through the Emergency and Extended Stay shelter programs. To learn more about The Delores Project’s welcoming shelter programs and permanent supportive housing, please visit the programs page.
24-7 Shelter
What began in the year 2000 as a winter-only, overnight shelter for women has morphed into a robust, 24-7 low-barrier shelter serving 60 women and transgender individuals year-round. While with us, each shelter guest is provided an assigned bed, locked storage for their belongings, 24-7 access to showers and hygiene, on-site laundry facilities, transportation assistance, and three meals and two snacks each day. We have at least two staff members working at all times to help maintain a safe, inclusive, and trauma-informed shelter environment and, all guests are offered on-site housing-focused case management and behavioral healthcare which includes 1-on-1 counseling as well as processing and art therapy groups. As a low-barrier shelter, we believe housing is a primary intervention to homelessness and that individuals are better able to find stability and achieve their goals when their basic needs are being met.
Rehousing & Continued Care
While the shelter team manages day-to-day shelter operations and works to maintain a physically and psychologically safe environment for all guests, the Rehousing team helps guests find safe, appropriate, and affordable housing. This team has three on-site Rehousing Case Managers who assist guests in identifying and working towards their goals, housing-related and otherwise, a Housing Navigator who serves as the intermediary between guests and landlords and who regularly provides available housing resources to guests, and two continued care Housing Specialists, one of whom is a Peer, to provide community-based case management for shelter guests who have transitioned into housing. This team embraces a housing-first model of care, working to get individuals out of the shelter system and into housing as quickly and safely as possible while providing the necessary support before, during, and after the transition into housing.
Supportive Housing
Directly above our 24-7 shelter at Arroyo Village sits The Delores Apartments (TDA), a 35-unit Supportive Housing building serving those who were previously chronically homeless and have some type of disability, whether physical, or developmental, psychological, or substance use disordered in nature. All units at The Delores Apartments come fully furnished and all residents are offered on-site case management and behavioral healthcare, as well as life skills programming and ongoing community engagement events and activities. Individuals in Supportive Housing pay 30% of their income is for rent (or a minimum of $50/month for no-income residents) and the remainder is paid for by a housing voucher attached to the unit. At TDA there is a Housing Assistant staff on-site 24-7 to provide a sense of safety and community for residents and a team of TDA Case Managers dedicated to connecting residents to benefits and community-based resources.
Behavioral Health and Wellness
Our Behavioral Health and Wellness team consists of a Clinical Supervisor, Therapist, and Group Facilitator who work collaboratively with all other program team staff members, offering on-site individual and group counseling to shelter guests, supportive housing residents, and continued care clients. The Behavioral Health and Wellness team oversee our relationship with Colorado Access, helping guests and residents enroll in teletherapy and psychiatry and facilitate on-site skills workshops and therapeutic processing groups.