In Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, he sets a framework of what every person needs to survive. The bottom level, the most basic and desperate needs of humanity, includes food, water, warmth, rest, and shelter. The lack of any of these is the lack of a human necessity. When food insecure Americans lack the ability to get nutritious meals, we rally around food drives and donate to hunger ending campaigns. However, the lack of shelter is treated much differently in the United States. Housing is absolutely vital to human survival, but often, the lack of it is treated as an intrinsic flaw, the fault of those who suffer from it. In Denver, homelessness is on the rise.

As of January 2019, Colorado had an estimated 9,619 people experiencing homelessness on a given day, many of which are concentrated in Denver, the largest metropolitan area in the state. The causes are complex, but experts agree that poverty is the largest cause of homelessness. That said, social factors like substance abuse, domestic violence, and mental illness have a huge impact as well. And poverty itself is a complicated interplay of education, joblessness or underemployment, and local housing costs.