This week, unhoused youth and families began moving into the newly built Launchpad Apartments. The 50-unit supportive housing project is located on Colorado Springs’ west side, and is the first of its kind for Colorado Springs.
“The youth sign a lease when they move in,” explained Wayne Bland, a board member and head of The Place’s housing stability committee. “The youth age range to move in is 18 to 24, and that’s why it’s designated as a youth permanent supportive housing unit. They don’t age out, so once they turn 25 or 30 or whatever they can stay here. They do sign a one-year lease. They pay rent – 30% of their take-home [income]. If they don’t have a job, part of the wraparound services is we help them find a job. If they want to continue education, get a GED or go to Pikes Peak State College or go to a trade school or something like that, we try to help them do that. We provide mental health care. We provide physical health care. Diversus is a good partner of ours and … the Ronald McDonald dental bus will come here on a periodic basis.”
The Place, a nonprofit serving homeless youth in Colorado Springs, will manage the Launchpad Apartments for Cohen-Esrey, the real estate company that owns the building. While Cohen-Esrey manages the leases and the property, The Place will provide case managers, who have offices in the apartment complex, to assist the residents.
“I’m actually really thankful we have case managers on-site,” said Taylor Branch, Launchpad’s property manager. “That helps not only take some of the burden, but opens those channels of communication because I’m not just the scary lady sitting in an office that’s shaking her finger telling [residents they’re] doing wrong. We’re actually able to build those connections and build that rapport with the kids to say, ‘Hey, if there’s a problem, come to me. Let’s have that conversation. Let’s figure out what’s working, what’s not.’ There’s a little bit more leniency than I think you would see in a typical lease, and I think that’s because everyone’s coming from a more compassionate mindset.”
The complex consists of 47 one -bedroom uni t s and thr e e two-bedroom units for young families.
“We just had a client … she was supposed to move in on Friday, but she has a three-year-old and she had her baby on Thursday night,” said Peggy Byrd, The Place’s housing manager. “I literally took the lease to her at the hospital for her to sign so that when she got out of the hospital, she can have a safe place for both her kids and herself.”
Launchpad Apartments are one part of the solution
According to Colorado’s comprehensive State of Homelessness Report, the Pikes Peak Continuum of Care – which includes a variety of shelters, nonprofits and other groups serving the unhoused community in Colorado Springs – served 6,846 people in 2024. According to their data, just over 20% of those served were under the age of 24.
Bland noted that the Place serves 650-670 youth a year. “Fifty [housing] units doesn’t nearly take care of the problem, but it does provide a solution,” he said. “It provides a solution for the youth to stabilize, to feel safe. You can’t move forward if you don’t have a safe place to live, because you’re concerned about your safety. And that’s one of our priorities, is to provide safe space, however that looks like. Housing is just one of the ways that we do that. We actually have a drop-in center where youth come in off the street during the day to have supportive services and sometimes that may be to get identification. They may not have a social security card or driver’s license. Maybe when they left home they left it, maybe they got robbed. I mean, there are a lot of reasons that that happens.”
Homelessness in Colorado Springs has become an increasing focus of local policy in recent years, with the Colorado Springs City Council enacting ordinances prohibiting sitting or lying on sidewalks downtown and banning urban camping. Many factors contribute to homelessness, making it difficult to address through policy changes.
“There’s not enough affordable housing to start with,” said Byrd. “Also … nobody can get a job – or it’s difficult for people to get a job – when they’re sleeping on the river, right? So … housing first.”
Byrd added that many clients also have mental health or substance use disorders and need support accessing services.
According to the State of Homelessness Report, nearly half of the people who sought housing services from the Pikes Peak Continuum of Care in 2024 had a reported disability. Despite the overwhelming need for housing, the project faced opposition from community activist groups as it went before the Planning Commission and City Council, and in 2023 El Paso County Commissioner Carrie Geitner blocked a $20,750 Community Development Block Grant for The Place, questioning the legitimacy of youth homelessness.
He said … ‘I don’t know that I deserve this.’ I said ‘Yes, you do. That’s why we did this. We did this for you. – Wayne Bland, board member and head of The Place’s housing stability committee
“Minors cannot be homeless,” claimed Geitner in a July 2023 Board of County Commissioners meeting. “They are either living with their parents or they get DHS involved … because the government does not allow minors to be homeless. There are steps and provisions in place for that.”
Church, community organizations show support
Despite the opposition, Bland and The Place have received an outpouring of community support. “I’m really proud of this community,” he said. “I think it’s easy to depend on the government or the foundations. In this neighborhood we had a local church step forward to help us organize move-in kits so that when the youth got here they had plates and towels and soap and pots and pans and that sort of thing. The daycare center north of us, they were early supporters of us. We approached them before we ever put a contract on the property and said, ‘Are you okay with us being there?’ Their response was ‘We’re in the same business. We help youth when they’re really young, and you help youth when they are a little older, and we’re all in the same business.’ They’ve been tremendous advocates for us. They showed up, they wrote letters. The West Side Global Methodist Church … They’ve been constant supporters. The employers in the area have just been really very supportive. They need employees, but beyond that, they want good things to happen in this community. This has been a tough place over the last few years, and we think that we can help bring some stability to the neighborhood and a different look and feel and reputation. So we just want to be good neighbors.”
Changes at the federal level hit home
Despite the support, The Place is feeling the economic uncertainty that comes with changes in federal policy. In May, President Donald Trump appointed Geitner’s husband, former Republican Colorado Representative Tim Geitner, as the regional administrator of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Denver region.
“For a few months now we’ve been convening with other service providers in the community trying to determine – and it’s a little more clear now, kind of six months into the administration – what their priorities are, what will get funded and what will not get funded,” said Bland. “A lot of the funding that was in place will continue to be funded through the end of the year, but that’s the government fiscal year, which is the end of September. So Oct. 1 is a new [year], there are new priorities and we anticipate that there are going to be some services that we’re going to have to really get creative to be able to continue to provide. This facility helps us with efficiency. We talk about other funding sources, and everybody talks about foundations. Well, everybody’s talking about foundations, and so everybody’s going to the foundations. One thing we forget about the foundations is most of the time they have investments, and based on how their investments do is how much money they put back into the community – the return on their investment. It [the market] hasn’t been great in the last six months, so they’re in a tough spot too.”
For the residents of Launchpad, the opportunity is life-changing. “These kids are getting a sense of ownership,” said Branch. “They’re getting a sense of, ‘Oh my God, this is mine. I get to call this home.’ It’s to the point where it’s brought me to tears a couple of times because I’ve never been in the situation they’ve been in, where they didn’t know where they were going to live, but I know what it feels like to have that uncertainty or that lack of ownership in what’s yours. To see these kids – just the smile on their face, or the light coming back into their eyes, because for some of them, they haven’t had anything to call their own in quite some time or ever.”
For Bland, and other staff and volunteers of The Place, helping the youth is their priority. “There was a young man that was here and he was walking through the rooms,” recalls Bland. “He applied to be a tenant here and we were standing in there and he comes out and he goes, ‘Oh man, you got a bookcase.’ He says, ‘I love to read.’ … This youth lives on the street. He looked out and saw the patio furniture and he said, ‘Oh man, that’s so cool’ … and he said ‘Oh, I’d love to be out there,’ and he just stopped. I looked at him and he started to cry. He said … ‘I don’t know that I deserve this.’ I said ‘Yes, you do. That’s why we did this. We did this for you. We didn’t do it for me, we didn’t do it for City Council, we didn’t do it for anybody else. We did it for you so that you can go on.”
