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Week of October 20, 2022
DENVER, COLORADO
A publication of
VOLUME 95 | ISSUE 48
Swallow Hill Music starting to buzz again Homelessness on rise in Denver area Survey shows numbers increased by nearly 13% since 2020 BY AMANDA HORVATH ROCKY MOUNTAIN PBS
Jean Excell, a participant of Swallow Hill’s Women of Folk, has been a Swallow Hill student for four years, taking classes in guitar, COURTESY PHOTO bass and harmonica.
Aengus Finnan assumes role as president and CEO of the nonprofit BY BRUCE GOLDBERG SPECIAL TO COLORADO COMMUNITY MEDIA
Aengus Finnan planned to relax for a while after eight years of serving as executive director of the Folk Alliance International, an organization based in Kansas City, Mo. He was planning to take some time off for travel and to work on a book he has in mind.
Then along came Denver’s Swallow Hill Music, a nonprofit music organization founded in 1979 that hosts a variety of programs, including a music school, live music concerts and community outreach such as music therapy, enrichment and early childhood education. “I was not planning to apply for anything after leaving Folk Alliance,” said Finnan, 50. But, “the mission of Swallow Hill, its legacy, its programs in place, and the passion and resilience of the staff - all of that - and the aspirations of the board, it really dovetailed with what I’m passionate about.” Swallow Hill Music, 71 E. Yale
Ave., recently hired Finnan to serve as president and CEO after a lengthy search to replace Paul Lhevine, who left in fall 2021. Born in Ireland, Finnan arrives as Swallow Hill aims to make a big push forward — not just in the Denver metro area, but also beyond the city’s limits — hoping to attract more people to concerts, classes, etc. As with other institutions, the pandemic hit hard, with membership dropping from about 2,000 down to about 900 today. Swallow Hill intends to try to win back many of those members.
Nearly 800 more people in the Denver-metro area were experiencing homelessness on a single night than that same night two years ago. The Metro Denver Homeless Initiative (MDHI) has recently released its full data of its annual Point-inTime count. The organization creates an annual effort in January to count the number of those experiencing homelessness to understand the scope and demographics of the homeless population. This year’s count took place on Jan. 24 and included people in shelters and living outdoors in seven counties— Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Broomfield, Denver, Douglas and Jefferson. The count found 6,884 people were experiencing homelessness on that night. The year before, the PIT didn’t include those living outdoors because of COVID-19 concerns. In 2020, the count found 6,104 people living unhoused. That’s a 12.8% increase over two years. “While this count can help us understand homelessness on a single night, getting to a place where we have comprehensive, real-time data regionally is the ultimate goal,” said Jamie Rife, the director of MDHI. Each year when this count takes place, trained volunteers and staff are dispatched around the metro
SEE BUZZ, P3
SEE HOMELESS, P2
INSIDE: VOICES: PAGE 12 | LIFE: PAGE 14 | CALENDAR: PAGE 11
CULTIVATING HOME
Farm program helping Afghan refugees P14