City manager Elyse Casselberry often speaks about what happened in Delta during the COVID era, starting in 2020 when some 60 unhoused people moved into town and set up camps. Homelessness hadn't been on the city's radar before then.
“I want you to just take a minute and think back to 2020,” said Casselberry. “I want you to think about what was going on with the homeless community in Delta. I want you to remember the encampment that popped up in front of McDonald's at the gazebo there. I want you to remember the number of people that were sleeping on the brand new park benches that we bought on Main Street every single day.
“There was an encampment on the island in Confluence Park. There was an encampment on the island in Gunnison River. There was a very large encampment on private property just past the 348 bridge that was actually in the county, not in the city limits. And a number of areas throughout the city. We were counting over 60 people at that point in time. Our staff began to be very impacted our park staff, our public works staff, our police department. Prior to 2020, homeless. Prior to 2020, homelessness in our community, I don't think was very visible. At least from the city's perspective, it wasn't a very visible problem.
“It was not something that was driving regular business for PD. In 2020, that began to change, and suddenly it was 100. In 2024, it was 238 times that it triggered a report. Now, that does not mean that they only interacted 238 times. We spent $10,000 cleaning up two camps. And that was hiring a contractor to help us do that. Those were two of the two worst camps that we had. And after that, when we're looking at the number of camps and the amount of work that was ahead of us, we said we can't afford to hire help.
“So we started doing it ourselves. When we were sitting around the table talking about this problem, everybody kept saying somebody needs to do something. And you would look around the table who was the somebody? Staff went to council and said, We think the city needs to be the somebody right now. At least right now. Somebody needs to decide how to begin addressing this issue. Council agreed and began to budget and prioritize and identify solutions.”
Things have changed since Casselberry spoke those words at a summit on the homeless called by former police chief Luke Fedler in May of 2025. About 100 people attended the public forum and many had vocal opinions about Delta's approach. Here's a small sampling of comments.
“What can we do about homelessness, especially the percentage that is druggies?” asked one man. “We can make their life miserable. Cut down the bushes, absolutely. Please show up and give them tickets. I'm sorry, you can't cure it and you can't control it. That is a core lesson. The druggies are going to drug — either until they're dead or until they finally hit rock bottom. So if we help them, we are enabling them.
“The question is, is this shelter going to be a help up or is it going to be a handout? And then lastly, it's going to be carried off by grants, which is future money we don't have.”
“My name is Jim McCann,” said another man. “I've managed a couple of businesses here in town. I've dealt with the homeless on a daily basis and still do. If you're looking for code enforcement, the Papa Murphy's Plaza would be a nice place to go look at during the night because every night they're plugging in their electric lights, plugging in all their cell phones, ripping off all the covers off of all the power cords, defecating in the back, urinating in the front. I've got clothes everywhere. The minute they find anything they can break through to try to scrap metal out, it’s all trashed out there. Every morning I go through and clean.”
Now here's Jim McCann from a recent interview. “I haven't had any problems with any of my power lines or my power being shut off or breaking into, you know, the power units, or where I'm going out there and finding scrap where they've been digging out copper out of whatever they found. It's the enforcement. I mean, that's the whole thing.”
In July of last year, with Casselberry in the lead, Delta formed the Homelessness Task Force. Made up of citizens, city staff, and a council member, the task force has steered Delta's response to the unhoused over the past year.
The centerpiece of the city's strategy is the Riverbend Resource Center. The facility is designed to be a shelter in the summer and for emergencies, as well as a resource for the homeless and those who might fall into homelessness. The Riverbend served 136 unique clients over the past year, offering shelter and access to resources furnished by the local nonprofits, as well as support with the logistics of daily living. Lisa Armendariz is a manager at the center.
“We don't have as many crisis calls from the businesses,” she said. “We don't have people doing their laundry in the sink at Maverick or trying to take a bath at City Market bathroom in the sink. We don't have as much theft. Our unhoused guests here are now going to group therapy and stuff, and we have them even picking up trash in the community and they're motivated. Now they have to get20 hours of community service per month to get their SNAP benefits, which is their food. And so they're going out there and picking up trash in the community. They're making the place a prettier place. They're pulling weeds. They're doing yard work.”
The task force held a meeting on October 7th to mark the first anniversary of the Riverbend. The Riverbend was funded by a grant from the state of Colorado that ends this year and has not been renewed or replaced. Along with tougher enforcement measures by the Delta Police, it has relieved the frustration and anger voiced by the crowd at the city's summit on homelessness. But Casselberry says the crisis prevention unit was the first thing that made a difference.
“When we started CPU, which was step one, we were able to start intervention,” she recounted. “Yeah, we got the funding, we started in 22, we hired CPU in 23, so it was midway through the year in 23. And it's always been two or three people.Believe it or not. I think we're more effective as a team of two and they're able to work hand in hand better. They were able to start stepping into situations where law enforcement didn't really need to be involved, but law enforcement was involved because there was nobody else. That's where the shift began. I would say that the interaction shifted from an always negative to now having opportunities for positive. And as a result, we've built relationships with these individuals. We know them. I know them by name.
“I see them on the street. I say hello. They say hello. Like we've humanized it. I think that's the big shift: we are humanizing the issue, put a name and a face to these individuals. We have working relationships. They're not always positive because there are decisions and choices made by individuals within our homeless community that are very poor choices and they continue to get negative interactions. But they also get positive interactions when their choices align. When we had that meeting in May and we were talking about, you know, that we see 30 to 60 people through our community at any given time, that hasn't changed.
“Of that group, about 30 of them are ours, they're Delta-connected in one way or another. And of that 30, we used to talk about the 10 becoming the 20 that we weren't sure we'd ever be able to help. We've watched that number shrink. We've watched that number actually go backwards. And I think we're back down to the core, 6 to 10 individuals that have always been problematic. You can look at the court dockets and see those names repeatedly. We get positive interactions with them, maybe, but they are not utilizing the resources available. Those that have chosen to start using the resources available to them, from that 10 to 20 that were so problematic we're seeing shifts happen within that group.
“I've heard different statistics. I like this one because it sounds the best, that it takes up to seven times of rehab. Being sober in jail is one thing, being sober voluntarily is another, and have them go give that a try and realize it wasn't that bad, right? And that they can do it. Now they have to choose to do it. Those are huge wins. But we've watched several of those individuals slide right back into their old habits. So you can't change old habits in the same environment.”
Task Force member and City Council member Janet Rowland ran down some of the preliminary metrics from the Police Department.
“They've seen shoplifting drop 32%, they've seen theft drop 25%, and vandalism has dropped 45% just in one year,” she said. “And so I think for folks who were concerned that by building this resource, more would come and make it worse, actually the opposite has happened. The crimes that were concerning to the business owners downtown and on Main Street are actually being alleviated. There's less of that.”
“I think it's how getting more aggressive and more serious and more focused on addressing the negative behaviors has been a key part of why we're having success, too,” said Casselberry. And I think it's a key part of why Open the Doors and They Will Come did not happen. And that is that we have, and are building a reputation, as being serious about enforcing our laws. You will have our police officers' attention if you don't want it. But we also have compassion, caring, kind people who are here to try to help you if you're wanting help. I think we've struck the balance between those two things.”
“What you're going to pay—just the time of law enforcement and the decrease in those types of calls for the homeless—that's a cost we will have to go back to paying if we have to close. Among the dozen or so if we have to close down Riverbend,” said Rowland.
Among the dozen or so nonprofits that collaborate with the city on homeless issues is the volunteer-run Abraham Connection, a 16 year old organization that shelters and feeds some 25 unhoused people in Delta during the winter. Newer organizations include Pathways LLC, which provides case management within the justice system, and the KBH Center, providing mental health counseling. Both Pathways and KBH employ clinicians who can offer Medicaid-funded services.
Medicaid is currently taking the place of grants that have run out, but with new requirements by the Trump administration, Medicaid and SNAP benefits must be monitored closely. HIPAA is also a concern.
Not all of the City Council believes that Delta can be effective in its mission to do something positive about the unhoused and the larger community at the same time. Mayor Ron White has voiced a number of concerns, mirroring those that came up a year and a half ago at the city's contentious summit.
“Drug addiction is, from my experience and just what I see, is at the root of the biggest part of the problem,” White said. “It's consistent, it's a common threas. Everybody has different circumstances to how they got there and what their history is. But consistently, it looks to me like their history is married with drug use. And it goes to almost every walk of that life. Drug use becomes a component of it.
“So, what's the problem? Is it PTSD or is it the combination of PTSD and drug use? Is it a battered single mom or is it a battered single mom who got addicted to fentanyl? My observation is that there has been a pretty consistent trend with the majority of the population and certainly with the majority of the population that has become a social problem.
“It's absurd and naive to think that we're just dealing with the Delta issue. We're not. We're dealing with Mesa County. We're dealing with Mesa County's issue. We're dealing with Montrose County's issue. We're dealing with Delta County issues. But the city's taken a position to adopt that burden and now adopt the responsibility for following through with it.”
Both Castleberry and Rowland are hopeful that the Riverbend, in close cooperation with the police department, the crisis prevention unit, and the nonprofit agencies, will continue to alleviate the issues of homelessness in Delta. But should the city still be at the helm?
Casselberry responds: “If we don't get grant funding, how do we sustain it remains a critical conversation. I think it's right to be concerned about that because I don't know how we would do this without the grant funding. And you know, when we first started seeking this funding, Proposition 123 funding, a portion of that is supposed to go to homelessness.
“Well, the state's budget's in total crisis, and that is not all shaking out and playing out the way it was expected to. We've got applications pending left and right. So, we need a solution, and we need a local solution. I think we can't continue expecting everybody else to come up with a solution. We have to ultimately come up with a solution.”
“To me,” said Rowland, “ it goes back to what I said before. Whatever government's responsible for, I believe prevention makes sense, whether it's crime prevention, fire prevention, road maintenance, whatever, right? You take care of it, it lasts longer. And so it's a question, it's not a question of do we want to pay, but how much and for what. And when? Yeah, you can pay now or pay later.”
