The need
Veteran homelessness here is falling — and the county lost the very capacity that makes it fall. That is the gap we fill.
The gap
On a single January night in 2026, the Pikes Peak Continuum of Care counted 131 homeless veterans in El Paso County. Forty-five had no shelter of any kind. Thirty met the definition of chronic homelessness.
A year earlier the figure was 195. Counted veteran homelessness in this county fell 33 percent in twelve months, and chronic veteran homelessness fell 55 percent. We state that before a funder finds it, because it is the strongest thing we can say: veteran homelessness falls where transitional and supportive capacity exists.
This county lost its only dedicated veteran instance of that capacity. The Crawford House — a 20-bed veteran transitional facility operated for twenty-two years by the Colorado Veterans Resource Coalition — closed permanently with thirteen beds still in service. The largest dedicated veteran transitional program remaining in the region serves ten veterans at a time.
131
veterans homeless on one January night, 2026 — 45 with no shelter at all
195
additional shelter or transitional beds the county is short (2026; it was 518 in 2025)
10
beds in the region's largest dedicated veteran transitional program — its cap
15.6%
of El Paso County adults are veterans — 85,526, nearly triple the national rate
Pikes Peak CoC 2025 and 2026 PIT/HIC Key Takeaways and PIT Summaries; U.S. Census ACS 2019–2023. Where press coverage of these counts differs from the CoC's own release, the release governs.
The Continuum of Care states its gap as additional year-round emergency shelter or transitional housing beds needed — 518 for January 2025, 195 for January 2026. The gap narrowed because the count fell. That category, emergency shelter and transitional housing, is precisely what this organization adds and precisely what the county lost.
The 2026 count night fell below zero degrees Fahrenheit, which drives people into shelter and suppresses unsheltered counts. Both years should be read as floors rather than precise censuses.
