The town of Carbondale has confirmed two shelter locations for the group of Venezuelan migrants currently living in cars or residing at a temporary shelter in the town’s Third Street Center. 

Back in November, the town of Carbondale hired former Roaring Fork School District Superintendent Rob Stein for a newly created, temporary unpaid position dedicated to finding housing for the group of unhoused Venezuelan migrants living in a temporary shelter in Third Street Center.  

Stein’s main responsibility is to find shelter for the migrants for the winter months of December through March, during which they face the most risk from the cold. 

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Throughout the past month, Stein has been communicating with different organizations to find shelters for the migrants. He said his goal is to split the group of roughly over 100 migrants into smaller shelters, both for the sake of delegating responsibility and costs. 

One of the two confirmed shelters is part of a large meeting room at Carbondale’s Town Hall, which will be divided in half by a dividing wall. One half of the room will be open as a shelter space to the group during the night, allowing for the town to operate in that space during the day. Stein said the shelter will begin accepting migrants later this week. 

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The second shelter is a downstairs meeting hall at Carbondale Community United Methodist Church on Second Street in Carbondale. Stein said the church spoke to its congregation over Christmas about the shelter and will open after Jan. 1. 

Both shelters will each house roughly 20 people, resulting in 40 total migrants who will soon be housed through the town’s efforts. 

Even with the newly acquired 40 spots, however, the town will soon need to find a replacement shelter for those who have been staying at the Third Street Center. 

“The Third Street Center, who has been operating the shelter now for probably two months or so, is starting to feel the fatigue, and many of their tenants and other users are feeling ready to see other organizations start to carry the responsibility,” Stein said. “And so they’ve informed us that they would like to stop offering shelter over the course of the month.” 

The Third Street Center had been housing approximately 40-60 migrants through the two months it operated as a shelter for the migrants. 

“If that happens, we’re actually still short-spaced,” Stein said. “We were shooting for 80 to 100 spots, so we’re still in need of more shelter spaces because we just don’t want people sleeping in their cars or outside, especially now that the weather’s really cold.” 

In addition to the two shelters, Stein said the town recently dedicated a parking lot south of Town Hall for the migrants to park their cars. Since the temporary shelter opened at Third Street Center, many of the migrants had slept in their cars in the center’s parking lot, though the arrangement resulted in a few noise complaints from nearby residents. 

While the town doesn’t have a figure for how many of the migrants are still sleeping in cars, Stein said the designated parking lot would give the migrants somewhere to park their cars without worrying about being ticketed, whether or not they are still living in their cars. The camping ban which would normally bar people from parking overnight will also be lifted for the lot, according to Stein. 

The proximity of the parking lot to Town Hall and the Recreation and Community Center would also grant the group access to facilities like bathrooms and showers. 

“(We wanted) a place for our newcomers to park without being ticketed if they’re unregistered or unlicensed,” Stein said. “We’re going to start shifting cars there as soon as possible … We’d rather have them sleeping in a space where it’s safer, where they’re not disruptive to the neighbors across the fence.” 

The town of Carbondale has also been in communication with a nonprofit that manages shelters. The nonprofit has proposed to take on management of the shelters, though the town is still working on finalizing the budget. 

Carbondale enlists additional help

Like it did with Stein, the town recently hired a coordinator in charge of managing volunteers, donations, support operations and other responsibilities that have “currently fallen on the shoulders of Voces Unidas,” according to Stein. 

“(Voces Unidas) staff has been working a lot directly with our newcomers, but the town feels it needs to take on a more direct role in that,” Stein said. 

The new coordinator, Brooke Coon, will be onboarding this week as a paid employee of the town. Stein’s work is still unpaid, meaning he’s been volunteering in his position for the past month. 

One of the opportunities Coon will have in her new role will be to potentially organize and facilitate communication between Garfield County residents and the Venezuelan migrants. According to Stein, many people have come forward and offered rooms in their homes to help house the migrants, though neither Voces nor the city have accepted any offers from private residents for several reasons. 

“We’re going to have to figure out a better way to help people meet people who need a room and matching them with people who are offering a room, but it gets very complicated,” Stein said. “When people do that, it’s very generous and they’re taking on some risk. So the town or any other intermediary doesn’t want to be overly involved in making that connection … because we can’t assume responsibility.” 

Carbondale receives funding to support migrants

Earlier this month, the Carbondale Board of Trustees approved a request for an emergency grant of $223,880 from the Colorado Department of Local Affairs at a special meeting. Carbondale Mayor Ben Bohmfalk said in a letter to DOLA that they were requesting the funds to assist with housing services, transportation and local government staffing and more. Local government costs include the staff expenses of hiring two full-time shelter coordinators. 

The town received confirmation for the grant roughly two weeks after the request.

In response to the outpouring of support the town has seen from some Garfield County residents, Carbondale decided to set up a fund with the Aspen Community Foundation. People who wish to get involved in supporting the town’s efforts to care for the migrant community can write a check or go online to the Aspen Community’s Foundation website to leave a donation (those making a donation should indicate in their checks that the donation is for the Town of Carbondale Newcomer Fund). 

“Those additional funds that people donate will be used to meet whatever needs are either not covered by the state grant, or when those funds are exhausted,” Stein said. “We’ve also gotten individuals that reach out and say, ‘Hey, how can I give?’ This is how.” 

Though not specific to the newly arrived migrant community in Garfield County, the Joint Budget Committee approved an interim $5 million supplement to the Department of Public Safety “to help build capacity in community-based organizations throughout the state to support recent arrivals to Colorado,” according to a post from Voces Unidas.

The funds are largely in thanks to Rep. Elizabeth Velasco, who has been working with Voces Unidas since the Venezuelan migrants arrived in Carbondale. Voces credited her for securing support from the Governor, House leadership, and the JBC for additional funding.