Editorial partners.
Reporters and editors choose the stories they want to pursue, verify evidence and decide what to publish. Shared discussion supports their inquiry without determining its conclusions.
Current phaseBuilding newsroom and community partnerships
What can journalism do about homelessness?
SOLACE brings Boulder journalists, people with lived experience of homelessness and Boulder-area civic partners together to report on how housing pressures, the cost of living, public systems and policy decisions shape homelessness.
About SOLACE
One newsroom cannot tell Boulder’s whole story. Together, we can see more.
SOLACE brings Boulder journalists, people with lived experience of homelessness and civic partners into a sustained local collaboration—connecting experiences of homelessness with housing pressures, living costs, public systems and policy decisions over time.
Homelessness is not an isolated issue. It is connected to whether people can afford housing, meet essential expenses and access support before a crisis becomes the loss of a home.
The problemCoverage is often episodic, even when homelessness is continuous.
One crisis, personal story or policy announcement can attract attention while the conditions, responses and consequences connecting those moments remain difficult to see.
Why this mattersDaily reporting necessarily responds to immediate events. But when stories remain isolated, audiences may encounter suffering without seeing how housing, income, institutions and public decisions distribute risk over time.
SOLACE connects individual stories to sustained reporting on the policies, institutions and conditions that shape homelessness—while treating people with lived experience as contributors to the inquiry, not simply as examples of a wider problem.
The questionWhat becomes possible when coverage is connected across newsrooms, knowledge and time?
Can collaboration deepen context, widen the questions journalism asks and keep attention on responses and public commitments after the initial story?
What collaboration changesPeople with lived experience can identify overlooked questions and interpret how systems work in practice. Civic partners can explain policies, services and constraints. Journalists retain the authority and responsibility to investigate, verify and decide what to publish.
Collaboration expands the inquiry; it does not require a shared conclusion.
The answerThree connected reporting waves create a longer public conversation.
The collaboration first examines the conditions producing homelessness, then follows responses in practice and finally returns to promises, outcomes and unresolved questions.
How it worksEach wave begins with facilitated dialogue, continues through independent reporting and ends by bringing evidence and unanswered questions back to the group. What one newsroom learns can inform the wider inquiry without determining another newsroom’s coverage.
The result is not one campaign or coordinated editorial line, but a structure for more continuous, contextual and accountable journalism.
How SOLACE works
A shared inquiry.
Independent journalism.
Coverage that continues.
SOLACE is a Boulder-wide collaboration for reporting on homelessness over time. Journalists, people with lived experience and civic partners bring different knowledge to a shared inquiry, while newsrooms retain full editorial independence.
The work moves through three connected waves. Each begins with a facilitated session, continues through independent reporting and returns evidence, contradictions and unanswered questions to the group. The next wave starts from what the previous one made visible.
Essential knowledge.
Contributors identify overlooked questions and explain how policies and services work in everyday life. They may also create their own work through participatory workshops; becoming a public source is optional.
Systems in practice.
Organizations explain services, policies and gaps. Their claims and responses remain open to independent scrutiny.
A civic conversation.
Residents encounter the reporting as part of a wider public conversation. A separate panel study follows public understanding and engagement over time.
Three reporting waves · 2027
Understand conditions.
Follow responses.
Hold power accountable.
The forces shaping homelessness cross traditional reporting beats. Across 2027, the three waves connect what journalists covering housing, health, labor, local government and public services see from different vantage points—without prescribing stories or conclusions.
First wave · Experiences and pathwaysUnderstand the conditions.How do housing affordability, income insecurity, living costs and access to support interact with people’s lives?
The first wave connects lived experiences of homelessness with housing affordability, income insecurity, essential living costs and access to support. It examines how these conditions interact with job loss, illness, violence, relationship breakdown, disability and other events—without turning complex pathways into individual blame.
The focus
Housing costs and supply; work, income and benefits; health and disability; violence and relationship loss; substance use; discrimination; discharge from institutions; access to services; public-space rules; and the timing and interaction of these factors.
The goal
Show how different pathways into and through homelessness emerge from the interaction between personal circumstances and unequal structural conditions—while keeping decision-making power, available resources and institutional responsibility visible.
Why it matters No single factor explains homelessness. Individual circumstances matter, but they do not operate outside housing markets, income, relationships, health systems, policy and unequal access to support. Good reporting examines how these levels interact rather than choosing between personal and structural explanations.
First-wave reporting briefWhat to report, ask and carry forward
Report through
Treat homelessness as a trajectory rather than a single transition. Ask what happened, what accumulated over time, what resources were available and how housing, income, health, relationships and institutional decisions interacted.
Build the source mix
Include people at different stages of homelessness, housing and labor expertise, frontline workers, public officials and the documents or data behind institutional claims.
Ask in every story
What decision, rule or resource shaped this outcome? Who carries the risk? Who is missing from the data or from the definition of the problem?
Possible directions
A pathway into homelessness; a policy x-ray; the rent–income threshold; a service-entry barrier; or a gap between the official count and lived reality.
Hand to the second wave
End with named actors, available levers, contested claims and unanswered questions about which responses could change the conditions you identified.
Second wave · Responses and possibilitiesFollow responses in practice.What is being tried, who can reach it and what changes as a result?
The second wave examines what communities are trying, who can access these responses and whether they address immediate needs, housing stability or both. It follows responses from intention to implementation and asks where capacity, eligibility or institutional design limits their reach.
The focus
Prevention, outreach, shelter, housing pathways, health and legal responses, community initiatives and cooperation—together with capacity, eligibility, cost, evidence and exclusions.
The goal
Build a grounded account of what responses can achieve, for whom and under which conditions—while showing where resources, responsibility and decision-making authority sit.
Why it matters Empathy can create concern for another person. Solidarity connects that concern to shared conditions, practical responsibility and the question of what a community is prepared to sustain.
Second-wave reporting briefExamine the response, not only the intention
Report through
Examine capacity, eligibility, wait times, funding, evidence of outcomes and unintended effects. Compare the scale of a response with the scale of the need.
Build the source mix
Speak with participants and people unable to access the response, implementers, critics, funders, frontline staff and officials responsible for continuation or expansion.
Ask in every story
What counts as success? Who qualifies, who is turned away and who decides? What must be true for the response to work beyond one compelling case?
Possible directions
Follow a route through the response system; examine a promising program; investigate a coordination gap; compare capacity with need; or document community-led action.
Hand to the third wave
Record the promise, responsible actor, budget or resource, baseline, expected outcome and timeframe. These become the accountability questions for the final wave.
Third wave · Follow-through and accountabilityReturn to promises. Hold power accountable.Were commitments kept—and did they produce durable change?
The third wave returns to public commitments and examines what has changed in housing access, services, policy and people’s everyday lives. It asks officials, institutions and funded organizations to account for what they delivered, what they did not and what they will sustain beyond the project.
The focus
Named commitments, responsible decision-makers, budgets, implementation, policy decisions, measurable outcomes and the experiences of people reached—or excluded—by earlier responses.
The goal
Create a public record of promises kept, delayed or abandoned; establish who remains responsible; and document specific commitments that can be checked after the formal project ends.
Why it matters Institutions often receive attention when a policy is announced, not when its effects can be judged. Returning makes decision-makers answerable for implementation and keeps long-term commitments visible after the original news cycle has ended.
Third-wave reporting briefReturn to the evidence and the people
Report through
Compare promises with budgets, rules, implementation and outcomes. Separate activity, such as meetings or placements, from lasting changes in housing stability and access.
Build the source mix
Return to earlier contributors where appropriate, and include decision-makers, independent evaluators, frontline workers and people the response did not reach or may have harmed.
Ask in every story
What changed, for whom and according to whose evidence? What stalled? What was learned? Which commitment still lacks an owner, resource or deadline?
Possible directions
A public promise tracker; a before-and-after investigation; a return to an earlier system pathway; an accountability profile; or a story about what must continue.
Leave behind
A transparent record of commitments, evidence and unresolved questions—and an editorial agenda for coverage that continues after the formal project ends.
Reporting practice
A collaborative reporting initiativeReport with people,
Report with people,
not only about them.
You do not need to cover homelessness as a dedicated beat to contribute. If you report on housing, local government, health, labor, education or public services, your perspective can help connect parts of Boulder’s cost-of-living story that are usually covered separately. Your newsroom keeps editorial control. Participation does not require publication.
Local reporters, editors and student journalists interested in sustained homelessness coverage.
Three reporting waves across 2027, each beginning with a facilitated session. Preparation and optional check-ins are agreed with participating newsrooms.
Shared context, lived-experience knowledge and practical tools for ethical, structurally informed reporting.
Your assignments, sources, verification, conclusions, timing and final publication decisions.
People
People behind SOLACE.
SOLACE is led across CU Boulder and Masaryk University. Boulder journalists, people with lived experience of homelessness, civic organizations and other Boulder-area partners will be added here as the collaboration develops.
Vojtěch Dvořák
SOLACE lead · Masaryk University and CU BoulderHis work connects journalism, homelessness and democratic participation. Before academia, he led a low-threshold day centre; his research builds on long-term participatory work with people experiencing homelessness.
Patrick Ferrucci
CU Boulder supervisor · Department of JournalismProfessor and chair of Journalism at CU Boulder. His research examines how newsroom organizations, institutions and market structures shape journalistic practice.
Jakub Macek
Masaryk University supervisor · Department of Media Studies and JournalismHe is an associate professor at Masaryk University. His research examines media audiences, media trust, political participation and the role of digital media in everyday life. He supervises SOLACE’s return phase at Masaryk University.
Contact · Get involved
Start with the conversation that fits you.
Asking about SOLACE does not commit you or your organization.