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Denver’s growth dilemma: More housing, less breathing room
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Approved, Commentary, Top Stories

Denver’s growth dilemma: More housing, less breathing room

Neil Wolkodoff | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice In the past, residents enjoyed Denver for a positive lifestyle and outdoor recreational activities. That was the past; is the push to control housing changing that for the worse? Regrettably, the answer is yes. Let’s start with the overzealous and yet misplaced idea that affordable housing, which increases density, is positive. You are correct: large, four-story apartment complexes now occupy nearly every large, vacant lot or former grocery store. The first issue is that adding density to a climate with limited airflow because of being in a basin is bad for health. More people, increased density and personal greenhouse gases, heat and waste increase. Has this made a difference? The health issue is that air quality affec...
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Colorado Safe2Tell system sees record growth: But outcomes stay hidden
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Colorado Safe2Tell system sees record growth: But outcomes stay hidden

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice February marked the first time this school year that monthly Safe2Tell totals outpaced the same period during the previous year. Three thousand and eight reports. Eighteen percent higher than January. And still, the question that the data doesn't answer: what actually happens once a report is filed? That gap, between the volume of concerns being submitted and the public record of what follows, sits at the center of a system that now handles tens of thousands of tips each year from Colorado students, parents, and community members. The Colorado Attorney General's Office released the February figures earlier this month, along with a press release citing interventions in student safety and welfare concerns.  Attor...
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Denver Audit Questions Spending On Alcohol And Meals For Taxpayer Supported Nonprofit
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kdvr.com, Approved, Local

Denver Audit Questions Spending On Alcohol And Meals For Taxpayer Supported Nonprofit

By Shaul Turner | KDVR FOX31 DENVER (KDVR) —  A Denver addiction and mental health foundation spent thousands of taxpayers’ money on alcohol and food, according to a city audit. The city and county of Denver tells FOX31 the nonprofit Caring For Denver Foundation issued funds to organizations that submitted falsified and misleading information. The foundation refutes the claims but is now making some changes. Created in 2018, the Caring For Denver Foundation has awarded more than $185 million in grants to 270 different organizations.  Executive Director Lorez Meinhold issued a statement to FOX31 saying the Foundation “has helped make a meaningful difference in the lives of hundreds of thousands of Denverites suffering from addiction and ment...
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Colorado Homelessness Linked More to Drugs Than Housing Costs Report Finds
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DENVER7, Approved, State

Colorado Homelessness Linked More to Drugs Than Housing Costs Report Finds

By: Shannon Ogden | Denver7 New study from CSI shows governments must take "treatment first" approach instead of "housing first." DENVER — A new report from Common Sense Institute (CSI) finds that Colorado ranks among the highest states in the country for homelessness and that it's not housing affordability that's driving it, it's illicit drug use, crime rates, and policing levels. The report examines 2024 homelessness data across all 50 states and the nation’s largest metro areas. The CSI reports finds that Colorado ranks: 9th nationally in total homelessness rate 7th in chronic homelessness 10th in unsheltered homelessness 7th in homelessness involving severe mental illness 7th in homelessness involving chronic substance abuse Amo...
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New Colorado Laws Take Effect Jan. 1 With Sweeping Changes for Health Care Housing and Gun Shows
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Colorado Politics, Approved, State

New Colorado Laws Take Effect Jan. 1 With Sweeping Changes for Health Care Housing and Gun Shows

By Marissa Ventrelli | Colorado Politics A new year means new laws in Colorado, covering everything from health insurance and gun shows to “junk fees” and protections for wild bison. Here’s a list of laws passed during the 2025 legislative session that will go into effect on Jan. 1. House Bill 1002: Medical necessity determination insurance coverage This law codifies and clarifies mental health parity requirements for insurers, ensuring that individuals receive the same coverage for mental health and behavioral services as they do for physical care. House Bill 1030: Accessibility standards in building codes This law requires new local building codes to meet or exceed international accessibility standards. It prohibits them from providing less protection than ...
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Inside the story Colorado rarely hears: Trauma, transition and the path back to truth
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Inside the story Colorado rarely hears: Trauma, transition and the path back to truth

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice “It took me almost two decades to realize the error,” Antoinette De La Cruz told a Fort Collins audience on November 20. “Transitioning didn’t fix anything. It delayed the inevitable. Healing.” It was the first time many Coloradans had heard a detransitioner describe her path into transition, what it cost her and what brought her back. Read RMV’s reporting on the event here. Here she shared the fuller account of her story. Where it began De La Cruz said her transition began long before hormones or surgery. “I learned very young as a little girl that I was not valued as a woman, and I definitely was not safe as one,” she said. When she was seventeen she met someone who told her she could become a man. “I had no idea you could even do ...
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How to Help Parents Through the Unimaginable Pain of Losing a Child
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Complete Colorado, Approved, Commentary, National

How to Help Parents Through the Unimaginable Pain of Losing a Child

By Jon Caldara | Commentary, Complete Colorado Had my daughter lived she would’ve just celebrated her 25th birthday. She died of a vicious form of cancer just days before her first birthday. She was our only child at the time. Twenty-four years later, I still have no way to express what it is like to be a parent one day and then not the next. I had no idea what terror was before that day. Her death is the seminal event of my life. The world changed, never to shift back. If you’ve lost a child, you get it. If not, I envy you. I am forever indebted to those who pulled me through. Many had lost children themselves. I have tried to pay them back by being there myself for grieving parents, particularly men. We men have been conditioned to bottle up our pain (we are rarely rewarde...
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The devil’s roadmap to destroy the next generation, revealed in a stark AI response
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The Free Press, Approved, Commentary, National

The devil’s roadmap to destroy the next generation, revealed in a stark AI response

By Jonathan Haidt | Commentary, The Free Press I asked ChatGPT how it would destroy America’s youth. Its answers were unsettling—and all too familiar. Earlier this year, someone started a viral trend of asking ChatGPT this question: If you were the devil, how would you destroy the next generation, without them even knowing it? Chat’s responses were profound and unsettling: “I wouldn’t come with violence. I’d come with convenience.” “I’d keep them busy. Always distracted.” “I’d watch their minds rot slowly, sweetly, silently. And the best part is, they’d never know it was me. They’d call it freedom.” As a social psychologist who has been trying since 2015 to figure out what on earth was happening to Gen Z, I was stunned. Why? Because what the AI proposed doing is pretty m...
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Marijuana Addiction Rising, But Demand for Treatment Declining
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AP News, Approved, National

Marijuana Addiction Rising, But Demand for Treatment Declining

By Laura Ungar | AP News Megan Feller smoked pot several times a day and couldn’t eat, sleep or function without it. But at the time, she didn’t see the need to reach out for help. “I didn’t think cannabis was a big deal,” the 24-year-old said. “It was really socially accepted.” This attitude is common. As more states legalize marijuana, use has become more normalized and products have become more potent. But fewer of those who are addicted seek help for it. Pot use among young adults reached historic levels in recent years, according to a federally supported survey. Daily use even outpaced daily drinking, with nearly 18 million Americans reporting in 2022 that they use marijuana every day or nearly every day, up from less than 1 million three deca...
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Trying to move the needle in Mesa County’s mental health crisis as leaders call the moment “historic”
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Local, Top Stories

Trying to move the needle in Mesa County’s mental health crisis as leaders call the moment “historic”

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice “This is historic. This is transformational. This is a game changer.” Suicide now claims about 50 lives a year in Mesa County, a rate of roughly 31 deaths per 100,000 people. That’s about one and a half times Colorado’s rate and more than double the national average. At the same time, nearly 13 percent of residents who needed mental-health care last year weren’t able to get it. Those realities form the backdrop for a local effort that has taken shape inside Canyon View Vineyard Church. The program is called BeWell, and it began with a simple question: what a Jesus-centered mental health approach could look like in a county where access is limited. How the idea took shape Sondrol said the idea started forming as he watched Compassion...
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