The City's homeless program focuses on connecting people to resources that meet immediate needs—such as shelter, food, mobile laundry, and outreach services—while working toward long-term stability. To be effective, the City works closely with nonprofit partners, faith-based organizations, and volunteers to deliver these services.

At the same time, the City must also ensure that public spaces remain safe and accessible for all community members. The City of Loveland works with a contractor that assists with the cleanup and removal of encampments.  This is part of maintaining shared public spaces as encampments can sometimes include materials that pose fire hazards, attract pests, or obstruct sidewalks, parks, and other public property.

Our actions are never intended to target people experiencing homelessness, but rather to maintain safe, clean, and accessible spaces for everyone. Striking a balance between providing services and managing public spaces is important to fostering a healthy, inclusive, and well-managed community.

While compassion and support for our unhoused neighbors remain a priority, there is also a responsibility to address abandoned or unsafe property at the Loveland Resource Center. For those actively using and maintaining personal property at the Loveland Resource Center, the City offers temporary storage space. Our approach at the shelter offers additional time and effort to notify guests, and it allows for discretion at the shelter based on extenuating circumstances.

It’s important to recognize how the management of abandoned property at the Loveland Resource Center affects the broader system of care. When local shelters and service providers divert staff and resources away from providing food, shelter, and outreach to shifting our focus to managing, storing and protecting large volumes of personal belongings, our ability to focus on helping people secure stable shelter, care resources and employment is reduced.

Balancing compassion with practicality helps ensure that limited resources directly support people’s path toward stability. With this balancing act in mind, City staff continue to evaluate and balance effective services with maintaining safe, accessible, pest-free and livable shelter space.

The City understands that homelessness is an emotional and complex issue. Addressing homelessness requires collaboration and resources and the City remains committed to being a community partner. 

In response to recent community questions and misinformation, here are the facts:

Storage at the LRC: There are 62 indoor lockers and seven outdoor temporary holding spaces for people’s property. Property cannot be abandoned, or it will be removed. 

Disposal of items: Staff confirmed with mobile laundry provider Homeward Alliance that laundry was not removed by a City contractor as abandoned property.

Overnight shelter at the LRC: Indoor space is prioritized for women and individuals with physical disabilities. Outdoor capacity varies depending on available space for tents. The only outdoor tents that are removed are those that are abandoned and unsafe or unusable.

Showers at the LRC: The LRC shower was recently repaired. Use by our unhoused population continues to be sporadic, with many unused shower time slots remaining available on any given day.

Chilson Center access: The City does not provide free passes to those experiencing homelessness. However, the Chilson Recreation Center offers a reduced fee program available to Loveland residents who qualify based on income.

Visit lovgov.org/homelessness for updated FAQs and evolving information. While there is no set timeline for a long-term strategy, the public will be notified as updates become available.