Urban Peak Denver

Housing services: Urban Peak manages three Denver housing properties (studio and one-bedroom apartment complexes) with sixty-eight units of supportive housing for youth experiencing homelessness. Additionally, Urban Peak oversees and provides case management to youth in twenty eight community housing sites through Denver's road home and the family unification program. In total we manage ninety-six units of housing for Denver youth experiencing homelessness. Two of our properties serve youth with serious mental health conditions and those with serious substance abuse addictions. Individual treatment, support groups, and case management are combined in our three housing programs to offer a stable and safe platform from which to achieve a life away from the streets. Every youth in Urban Peak housing has a case manager as well as access to education and employment programs, mental health and health services, transportation, life skills classes, and basic needs assistance. In fy23, 189 unduplicated youth and 7 dependent children were housed, case managed, and received comprehensive support services. 89% exited to a safe and stable place.

Day shelter: Urban Peak's day shelter offers respectful, low-barrier drop-in services in a safe environment for youth to receive a meal, take a shower, do laundry, and access medical care. In addition to addressing basic needs, the spot provides numerous life skills classes including anger management, healthy relationships, cooking and nutrition, sex and sti education, budgeting, and more. Youth have the opportunity to participate in art, music, yoga, and recreational activities. The drop-in center often serves as a gateway for youth to access other Urban Peak programs, and uses a restorative justice model which complements trauma informed care and ensures that conflict is repaired within the community. In fy23, 771 unduplicated youth accessed services, 45,179 meals, 7,314 showers, and 2,250 life skill classes on healthy relationships, social/emotional development and safety/harm reduction were provided.

Overnight shelter and day services: homeless youth are invited to stay at the shelter as long as they are actively receiving services and making progress on their case plan for achieving self-sufficiency or reunification with family. When youth enter the shelter, they participate in an intake assessment to help determine individual needs and identify personal barriers to exiting the streets. With a case manager, each youth develops a case plan to achieve stability and self-sufficiency by building on existing strengths and accessing community resources.components of case management may include mental health assessment and intervention; legal advocacy; individual, group and family counseling referrals; substance abuse counseling and support; independent living program referrals; transportation assistance; education assistance; assistance obtaining id's and birth certifications; peer leadership development; and more. Throughout our program services, Urban Peak has implemented an organizational structure and treatment framework called trauma informed care (tic). Tic involves understanding, recognizing, and responding to the effects of all types of trauma. We emphasize the physical, psychological, and emotional safety of both youth and staff, and assume that every youth accessing services has experienced trauma. In fy23, 293 unduplicated youth stayed at the shelter for 11,368 bed nights. Covid protocols allowed for a return to bed capacity of 40 in fy22.

Youth support services: Urban Peak offers education/employment, medical and social emotional services to all youth clients. Because the majority of homeless youth do not have a high school diploma or ged, Urban Peak encourages youth to complete their high school education at their home school. As an alternative, Urban Peak offers educational counseling, tutoring, and on-site ged instruction and testing. A computer lab is open during the day and in the evenings so youth can acquire or enhance computer skills. Financial assistance for higher education is available. Urban Peak provides employment counseling and job readiness training to equip youth with the tools and support necessary to obtain and keep good jobs - including resume development; application completion; interview skills and other soft skill development; work ethic development; clothing suitable for job search and interview; and personal makeovers (haircuts and styling, makeup tips, help choosing clothing, etc.). Volunteers provide ongoing job mentoring to youth throughout the process. Urban Peak also works with local businesses to secure job opportunities for youth, provide ongoing job retention case management to youth, and support to employers who have hired our youth. In fy23, 192 youth established and/or worked on their education and employment goals, 120 referred to medical providers and/or received site-based medical care and or medical education, 172 youth participated in site-based behavioral health, social emotional groups, recreational, and community enrichment programming. Urban Peak also provides in-house training to program staff on topics such as mental health first-aid, trauma informed care, de-escalation, and direct client support. Our program evaluation includes collection, collation, and interpretation of an extensive amount of client data used for purposes of reporting, outcome measurement, decision-making, and program strategic planning. Outreach: Urban Peak's street outreach team members are on the streets at various times throughout the day, seeking out runaway and homeless young people wherever they may congregate. Staff engage youth in conversation and distribute hygiene supplies, clothing, food, and other items that offer protection on the streets. We are able to offer services provided throughout the agency including testing for hiv, sti, and hepatitis c. our outreach staff is adept at establishing trust with these young people and providing referrals for shelter, education and employment, mental health services, drug and addiction services, health care, and meals. In fy23 our outreach team contacted 309 unduplicated youth an average of 7 times per youth - an additional 60 youth, not entered into the homeless management information system (hmis), recieved street outreach services. 64 (21%) of youth living on the street were placed in emergency shelter, permanent or transitional housing.