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KSJD Newscast - October 21st, 2015

  • Bridge Emergency Shelter in Cortez already serving 30 guests, hopes for improved services for families.
  • Unemployment rate in Montezuma County falls, but is still one of the highest in Colorado.

After a little more than one week in operation this season, the Bridge Emergency Shelter in Cortez is already hosting about 30 clients a night. That’s according to executive director Laurie Knutson, who expects that number to rise to about 48 people a night when winter sets in. The shelter, which since 2006 has provided overnight housing and meals for the indigent, has made several changes this year. It has moved the day labor office into the shelter with the intention of encouraging more of its guests to participate. The shelter is also offering two “transitional” rooms for working people, who pay $100 a month rent while saving up for a place of their own. Knutson said she wants to rehouse people as quickly as possible, because “acclimating people to homelessness isn’t good for anybody.” But Knutson says the shelter still cannot accept families with children and there is a dire need regionally for more places that can. She says, “There are families living in parking lots sending kids to school from their cars.” One looming concern is whether the shelter itself will have a home in the future. Officials with the city of Cortez and Montezuma County are expected to address the issue of the aging Justice Building where the shelter is housed at a joint meeting in November.  

The unemployment rate in Montezuma County is falling but remains one of the highest in Colorado. That’s according to September data recently released by the state Department of Labor and Employment. In much of the state, unemployment levels are plummeting to pre-recession lows. Denver’s rate is now at 3.2 percent and the statewide figure is 4 percent. But Montezuma County is at 4.6 percent, down just one-tenth of a percentage point from September of 2014. In comparison, Dolores County has a rate of 1.6 percent and La Plata County is at 2.9 percent.

Gail Binkly is a career journalist who has worked for the Colorado Springs Gazette and Cortez Journal, and was the editor of the Four Corners Free Press, based in Cortez.
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