Most elected officials end their workweek by heading home. Aurora, Colorado, Mayor Mike Coffman grabs a sleeping bag and heads to a homeless shelter.
Since late February, the 71-year-old Republican mayor has spent every Friday night sleeping on a cot inside the Aurora Regional Navigation Campus, a 600-bed shelter that serves people experiencing homelessness. On Saturday mornings, he helps serve breakfast before returning to City Hall.
Coffman says the unusual routine isn't a publicity stunt. It's his way of evaluating whether Aurora's new homelessness strategy is actually helping people move from life on the streets to permanent housing.
"The experience has enabled me to better understand their unique and complex challenges," Coffman wrote in a Facebook post announcing the effort. "It has helped me to see them with compassion, as individuals, and not through a lens of condescension or contempt."
The overnight stays have placed Coffman at the center of a national conversation about how cities should address homelessness, an issue that has grown increasingly urgent across Colorado. According to the Common Sense Institute, the state's homeless population increased by roughly 90% between 2020 and 2024, one of the fastest growth rates in the nation.
A hands-on approach
Every Friday afternoon, Coffman leaves his office and checks into the Aurora Regional Navigation Campus, where he sleeps in the men's entry-level dormitory alongside shelter residents. Unlike private rooms offered in later stages of the program, the entry-level shelter consists of rows of cots, communal meals and regular security screenings.
As the weeks have passed, residents have grown more comfortable around him.
"Consistency is important so that they know that I will be there every Friday," Coffman wrote. "As I've become more familiar to them, they have become more relaxed and open about talking to me about their challenges and expectations for their future."
The shelter is operated by Advance Pathways, a nonprofit on whose board Coffman serves. Opened in late 2025, the facility was created to offer more than emergency shelter by providing a structured pathway toward recovery and independence. Residents can move through different levels of the program by participating in addiction treatment, mental health services, job training and employment programs before transitioning into more permanent housing.
A continuation of an earlier experiment
This is not the first time Coffman has immersed himself in the experience of homelessness.
In 2021, while serving as mayor, he spent a week undercover as what he called "Homeless Mike," sleeping outdoors and in shelters across Aurora and neighboring Denver. At the time, he described the experience as "really hard" but "incredibly impactful." The effort generated national attention, but also criticism from some elected officials and homelessness advocates, who argued it oversimplified the realities faced by people living on the streets.
Coffman says his current Friday-night stays are different because they are not about briefly experiencing homelessness. Instead, they are intended to provide a real-time assessment of one of his administration's signature initiatives.
According to CBS, what began as a short-term experiment has continued for months, and the mayor says he plans to keep sleeping at the shelter until the program becomes "a model for Colorado and a model for the country."
Praise and criticism
Coffman's decision has drawn praise from supporters who say few elected officials spend meaningful time alongside the people affected by the policies they create.
Others remain skeptical.
Critics argue that spending one night a week in a shelter cannot replicate the uncertainty, trauma and financial hardship experienced by people who have nowhere else to go. They also point out that Coffman returns to his home every Saturday, a reality that separates his experience from that of the shelter's residents.
Coffman acknowledges the distinction but says the weekly visits have provided valuable insight into how residents view the program and the obstacles preventing them from rebuilding their lives.
For now, his Friday routine remains unchanged.
While most mayors leave City Hall for the weekend, Coffman heads instead to a shelter cot, hoping that listening to the people who sleep there every night will help shape Aurora's response to one of its most persistent challenges.
