Just south of Denver's homeless problem, a Colorado county has nearly eradicated homelessness in its county by sending a simple message to its residents: charity doesn't work.
About 70 signs with this message have been placed throughout Douglas County at intersections and roads that were once panhandling haunts. Each sign directs residents to DouglasHasHeart.org, where they can direct donations to the Douglas County Community Foundation. The county used print media and online advertising to spread the message throughout the area.
“The idea came to me from a common sense standpoint. I see a lot of people like my daughter who feel conflicted at intersections,” Republican Douglas County Commissioner Abe Leydon said of the effort.
“When you see someone who's down on their luck, you feel bad to drive by and do nothing. But on the flip side, we all know stories of people who may not have spent the money they received in the most appropriate way. It may be on food, it may be on drugs. You never know where it's going.”
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Douglas County Commissioner Abe Leydon, surrounded by members of the Homeless Assistance Resource Team, holds up one of the many “Charities Don't Work” signs posted around the county. (Courtesy of Abe Leyden)
“The more donations we make at a particular location, the more people we attract. It gets talked about around town. You get money for going to this place,” he continued.
Laydon said intersections and street corners where homeless people once roamed are now clean.
According to the most recent point-in-time reports from multiple nonprofits, the number of people living on the streets in Douglas County plummeted from 43 to just six between 2022 and 2024. When including people sleeping in their cars or in local shelters, the total number of homeless people dropped from 96 to 69.
On July 29, no beggars or encampments were visible across the county's five jurisdictions.
Denver's own tally of homeless people, including those living in shelters and on the streets, rose from 6,884 in 2022 to 9,065 in 2023.
“I knew this was going to happen in Denver, where people would get off the light rail at Longtree without paying for a ticket,” Leydon said, “and the next thing they know, they're on the corner asking for a fare.”
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A homeless camp in Denver on August 23, 2023. (Hyeon Chang/The Denver Post)
Leydon said he first came up with the concept of “charities don't work” when he and his son were volunteering in the town of Lone Tree and came across a homeless encampment “littered with liquor bottles and drug paraphernalia” at the intersection of Lincoln and Interstate 25.
“It was like everywhere, but it was never as bad as downtown Denver. We started in a good place,” Laydon said.[Our smaller homeless population] It gives us an opportunity to nip this problem in the bud before it really gets widespread.”
Douglas County's Homeless Engagement, Outreach and Resource Team, which pairs behavioral health professionals with local police officers in interactions with the homeless, made 250 contacts with homeless people when the effort first launched in 2022, Leydon said.
With five branded vehicles, the HEART team visits each reported homeless individual and provides services to help them get back on their feet.
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Pictured is one of many signs in Douglas County encouraging residents to direct donations collected from panhandlers into a county fund. (Douglas County, Colorado)
“Anyone who needs services will be provided with services. Hotel vouchers will be provided. We've partnered with Ready to Work,” Leydon said. “Anyone who needs a job will be provided with a job. Anyone who needs a bus ticket back to their family in Tennessee, we've taken care of that. Anyone who needs a night's or a week's worth of food will be provided with that.”
Even if a homeless person refuses help, HEART team navigator Tiffany Marsit said the team will continue to help.
“During our first few interactions, we had an individual who was initially resistant to services – he was in a psychological crisis. [Four months later]When he was ready to work with our team again, we were there for him. We helped him fill out an application for Metro Regional Housing Opportunities,” Marsit said.
“People may not be ready now, but they may be ready in the future,” she said. “They see our faces, they know we're there, they know our team cares. They know our community cares about them. It means a lot that we continue to engage with these people.”
Additionally, camping is illegal in Douglas County, and the HEART team says they don't often issue tickets, instead using it to encourage people they contact to check into local homeless shelters.
“Our goal is to bring compliance to the ordinance, to use this ordinance to help unhoused people find better solutions,” explained Rand Clark, a navigator for HEART Team. “Very few people are going to knowingly break the law. We were able to use this tool in a positive light and say, 'You may not be able to sleep here because of our county ordinances, so we can help you find shelter where you want, without breaking the law.'”
But Mr Leydon said: “Illegal conduct is illegal conduct, no matter who it is.”
“If you urinate or defecate in the open or deal drugs on the light rail system, you will be arrested, regardless of whether you have a home or not,” he told Fox News Digital.
So far, the Douglas County Community Foundation has received $11,000 in donations, much of it from residents who saw the signs. Douglas County homeless outreach efforts, including HEART, are funded by the federal American Rescue Plan, not tax money.
Leydon said the “charities don't work” initiative “can be implemented anywhere from Main Street to Wall Street.”
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“This is a systemic behavior change that can stem the rise in homelessness in every community across the country,” he said.
Asked whether such efforts could curb Denver's homeless population, Cathy Alderman, chief communications and public policy officer for the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, said she wasn't optimistic about the prospects.
“We applaud municipalities that are addressing homelessness, but we also know that some don't provide shelter or robust services and bus people to other cities and counties to find help. It's hard to believe that not welcoming homeless people is a true solution to the problem,” she said in an email.
