Dozens of Colorado Coalition for the Homeless frontline workers and members of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 105 rallied Thursday outside of a downtown CCH office building on north Broadway, calling on the nonprofit to address low wages and poor working conditions.

The rally also comes on the heels of the city’s recent consideration of a $6 million contract with CCH to provide housing stabilization, supportive housing, and health services citywide.

CCH is one of the largest providers of housing, health care, and other supportive services for the homeless, including street outreach.

Workers are calling on leadership to bargain respectfully and commit to solutions that strengthen the workforce and improve care outcomes, including trauma and grief support, adequate staffing, improved training, workplace safety, and fair wages that allow workers to remain in their jobs.

Union representatives said efforts to negotiate a “fair first union contract” to address staffing shortages, improve training, and provide basic trauma and mental health support have been met with a lukewarm response.

Cathy Alderman, CCH chief communications and policy officer, confirmed that the organization is currently engaged in collective bargaining with the union and its unionized staff.

“I know we’ve had some difficulties getting some regularly scheduled meetings with them, both because of their availability and ours,” Alderman told the Denver Gazette. “So I think, all in all, maybe we’re a little surprised by the protest activity because we felt like we were negotiating in good faith.”

But workers said CCH leadership has yet to “meaningfully engage” or respond to their proposals for retention, workload, and service quality.

Along with pay, workers said the emotional toll of their job is compounded by the “absence of meaningful systems to help staff process grief and trauma, even as they are expected to continue delivering high-stakes care.”

CCH Care Specialist Robert Johnson spends his time helping clients with substance abuse and mental health issues, and said that the job is becoming increasingly difficult.

He said low wages create a high turnover among staff. That turnover can be upsetting to clients who have built trust with their case managers.

“Our clients have already been through unimaginable trauma, and the biggest complaint we hear from them is that the people supporting them keep disappearing,” said CCH case manager Todd Kaanta, a union organizer. “When workers are overworked, underpaid, and unsupported, turnover is inevitable, and that instability hurts the very people this organization exists to serve.”

“One of the things that we are trying diligently to do in the contracting process with both the city, the state, and even the federal government, when we can, is to build in some compensation increases, because traditionally, those public funding sources don’t often allow for things like cost-of-living adjustments,” Alderman said. “We’re trying to be a little bit more thoughtful about asking our government partners to, you know, help us with some of the compensation issues as well.”

Union reps also said that, on the job, workers routinely must cope with the emotional toll of losing clients due to conditions beyond their control such as substance overdose or violence.

Workers, according to union reps, argue that CCH leadership has failed to adequately support staff by maintaining fair staffing levels, providing proper training, and offering trauma relief.

Johnson said that CCH does offer an Employee Assistance Program for those struggling with trauma or loss, but he would like to see more.

“Maybe like somebody to just come in and talk, like therapy sessions,” he said. “But we have clinicians on the team, and so they offer mental health, but they might need mental health themselves.”

Kaanta said that while he hopes bargaining efforts will prove more productive in the future, he said if they don’t, the union will continue to “apply pressure.”

In December, CCH announced the purchase of the Downtown YMCA building for an undisclosed price. The deal is expected to close in early January and allow CCH, which already owns the units above the YMCA, to convert the 120-year-old building into expanded affordable housing.

The YMCA will close its downtown fitness operations.