The woman was filled with fury when she walked in the Westwood Recreation Center looking for help. For days, she had wandered the streets of the southwest Denver neighborhood, unsure where to sleep or how to get food.

She had recently lost her restaurant job, and then her apartment because she couldn’t pay the rent.

Her anger faded and tears began to flow down her face after Mindy Sandoval, a resource specialist strategically placed near the rec center’s front doors, asked the middle-aged woman how she could help.

“That’s got to be so scary to be older like that … and she’s also not experienced homelessness at all in all of her life, and she’s like, ‘Oh my goodness, what do I do now?’” Sandoval said.

“She was immediately evicted because she was living paycheck to paycheck, and now she’

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