A union drive is underway at a Denver nonprofit that helps the unhoused, the latest of what appears to be a nascent but growing trend across the nonprofit sector there and in other parts of the country.

Colorado Coalition for the Homeless workers say low pay and understaffing are contributing to high turnover, exacerbating what they contend are already difficult working conditions. An organizer told The NonProfit Times they have gathered signatures of support from close to 200 of the slightly more than 600 non-management colleagues, enough to trigger a unionization vote under the National Labor Relations Act’s minimum 30% threshold. The total of management and non-management employees at the nonprofit is about 800.

Leaders in the union drive have not yet requested an election or set a target date for one. They ideally would like to surpass the 50% mark, at which point management could grant them voluntary recognition that would bypass the need for an election. If the effort succeeds, they plan to affiliate with Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 105 as workers at two other social service nonprofits in Denver have done recently.

“We’re hoping to connect with more of our co-workers and bring more people in so everyone’s voice can be heard. And it would be great if they (management) would voluntarily agree to recognize us,” said Zoey Palmer, a registered nurse who works on the nonprofit’s street medicine team and supports the drive.

Leaders of the nonprofit declined to speak directly with The NonProfit Times but said in a statement that they have not yet received a formal union proposal to which they can respond. Still, “the Coalition respects employees’ rights to engage (or not to engage) in union activity,” they said.

Britta Fisher, president and CEO, said in an added statement that she has been aware of many of the issues since leaving a job with the mayor’s office in March 2023 and taking the helm at the Coalition where she previously worked more than a decade ago. She said she is committed to addressing the issues despite flat federal funding and a steady increase in the numbers of those without access to housing or health care. “What brought me back to the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless is our mission and the 800-plus people dedicated to work on this mission,” she said.

Palmer, who experienced food insecurity and homelessness while growing up, said she believes deeply in the mission as well. She said high turnover is traumatizing not only for employees like her, but more importantly for the unhoused individuals they work with. Many have already experienced the trauma of feeling shunted aside and abandoned and depend on those relationships to get the help they need, she said. “To have the people you’ve finally come to trust repeatedly disappear on you is extremely upsetting,” said Palmer.

Low pay is part of the problem in her view. A case manager position requiring a bachelor’s degree has a listed pay range between $20.64 and $25.14 per hour, according to a job opening listed on the nonprofit’s website. That equates to just over $40,000 to $50,000 for a full-time worker. Full-time pay for those with similar job titles in the Denver area seems to vary widely but generally ranges higher than that, from about $50,000 on the low end to as much as $90,000 or $100,000 on the high end, according to various employment websites.

Insufficient staffing and employees’ lack of a voice are adding to the problem in Palmer’s view, especially on frontline medical teams where burnout and stress are already high. In her own case, Palmer said her team recently was reduced from two nurses to one despite evidence-based best practices that she said usually call for a minimum of three nurses. She said her own job also was reduced from full-time to part-time after she began organizing, though she declined to speculate on whether it was retaliatory or not.

The National Labor Relations Board makes clear that employees have a right to unionize and forbids employers from interfering with this right through retaliation or other means. Palmer said the nonprofit has hired an “anti-union consultant” and that managers recently circulated an email to all employees that seemed intended to thwart the union drive.

“It was pretty biased and clearly an effort to scare people, though it seemed to have language in it so they weren’t breaking the law. We hope they will recognize our good intent and not push back anymore and will allow us to make this decision for ourselves without their interference,” Palmer said.

The most recently available federal Form 990 filing with the Internal Revenue Service shows the nonprofit took in $122 million and incurred expenses of $103 million during 2022. According to the form, 14 executives received total compensation of $180,000 or more. Of them, 12 received more than $200,000 and three received more than $300,000. John Parvensky, the former president and CEO, was the highest paid with total compensation of $415,767.

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