Photo Courtesy of Bruce Shaffer

Our Mission

Feet Forward is a peer-led nonprofit built on the foundation of lived experience with homelessness. We provide peer support, navigation services, and barrier-free pathways to stability, including housing. We leverage our community trust to build the relationships necessary to get people engaged in services and to provide the support needed for people to succeed in housing.

Who We Are

We collaborate with local service providers through the coordination of Boulder County Homeless Solutions (BCHS) and our Continuum of Care, Metro Denver Homeless Initiative (MDHI). We have a partnership agreement with the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) and proactively engage individuals experiencing homelessness into the Coordinated Entry system and active housing plans through the appropriate SPDAT housing assessment.

What We Do

Feet Forward provides an umbrella of services and resources for those experiencing homelessness in Boulder, including low-barrier peer support and navigation that often begins at our weekly outreach event and follows them along with their journey out of homelessness. In addition to this critical support, we provide hot meals, weather-appropriate clothing, a portable charging station, and seasonal haircuts.

Every Tuesday, you can find us at Boulder's Central Park directly at the Bandshell from 2:30 to 4:00 pm.

We create a trusting community for those currently experiencing homelessness and those who have exited it. Our lived experience in this community increases our trust and ability to connect with those we serve - from lending a trusted ear to assisting with housing lotteries, we know the system and how to navigate it. We are living examples that change is possible and serve as realistic role models.

Recently, Feet Forward was selected as a recommended practice in exemplary trust-building in a homelessness study by The Common Sense Institute and Colorado University Denver. Our peer-led model "helps build trust quickly and speeds up the path to engagement and furthers the continuity of community by transitioning these individuals out of homelessness with a built-in network of support."

Our 2022 Impact

  • We served 719 unique individuals with an average of 104 individuals experiencing homelessness within an hour.   

  • 77 percent returned at least twice within a month, creating an average of 74 service connections each week ranging from Mental Health Partners, Coordinated Entry, The Boulder Shelter for the Homeless, Focus Reentry, Community Court, The Works Harm Reduction program, and BHAP.

  • 75 percent of the individuals experiencing homelessness who engage with our program travel to us from public spaces.

  • We supported 64 individuals experiencing homelessness into active housing plans, leading to 31 exits from homelessness, of which 24 voluntarily engaged in our ongoing peer support.

  • Served 5923 HOT meals and supplied 116 pets with nutritional needs and provided 26 fur babies with much-needed routine medical care through local partnerships.

  • Distributed 2496 NEW weather-appropriate socks, saving feet from the experience of frostbite.

Boulder Feet Forward, PO Box 17812, Boulder, CO 80308