Colorado Medicaid Homelessness Allegations Need an Audit

The Gazette’s David Migoya reports on what participants call “the program,” an alleged Aurora-based setup where homeless Coloradans were recruited into suburban houses, tied to Medicaid-covered home health services, and given regular $50 “donations” to keep showing up. According to the reporting, the arrangement involved On Going Home Health Care, Medicaid billing, prescriptions, church-linked payments, and people who say they felt trapped, threatened, or used.

If the allegations hold up, this is not compassion. This is the ugly final form of Colorado’s homelessness industrial complex: put a soft-focus label on vulnerable people, move them into nice-looking houses, call it care, and then allegedly turn human misery into billable government revenue. The homeless were not the villains here. They were the inventory.

The Bullet Point Brief

• The Gazette reports that homeless people in the Denver metro area were recruited to live rent-free in suburban Aurora houses, with participants saying they had to be on Medicaid and have prescribed medication to join “the program.” Nothing says “holistic care” like turning desperation into an intake pipeline.
• Participants described receiving $50 payments three times a week, first in cash, then through digital apps, then through gift cards many said they converted to cash. Federal law prohibits giving Medicaid recipients something of value if it influences their provider choice, which is apparently the part where everyone in the room is supposed to pretend to be surprised.
• Medicaid has paid On Going Home Health Care nearly $24 million since it began operating in 2022, according to the Gazette, with weekly Medicaid payments for participants ranging from about $900 to more than $1,500. Colorado cannot fix potholes, affordability, crime, addiction, or homelessness, but by God it can build a paperwork ecosystem where chaos gets monetized faster than a Boulder consultant can say “trauma-informed revenue stream.”
• Several participants said the actual “care” often sounded like basic vitals and pill-counting, while some said they were not taking prescriptions before joining and questioned whether they needed them. That is the scam logic in miniature: promise housing, require meds, bill Medicaid, call it service, cash the check.
• State health officials confirmed an investigation, and participants said state and federal authorities have contacted them. Good. Now keep going. Colorado’s government can regulate your gas stove into a coma, but somehow it takes investigative journalism to notice someone may be cashing big checks off homeless people.

My Bottom Line

This is disgusting. If the Gazette’s reporting is accurate, these operators should not just face sternly worded memos, blue-ribbon panels, and another round of “we take this seriously” bureaucratic incense. They should face real consequences, including prison if prosecutors can prove crimes were committed. And taxpayers should get every recoverable dollar clawed back.

The moral center here is simple: vulnerable Coloradans were allegedly treated like human billing codes. Not neighbors. Not patients. Not people trying to survive. Billing codes. That is what happens when Colorado’s ruling class turns homelessness into a blank-check moral hostage situation. The money spigot opens, oversight naps in the corner, and suddenly the “compassion” machine grows teeth.

This is government-by-bullshit at its worst. Create a crisis. Fund a machine. Call the machine help. Then act shocked when the machine develops a business model. No kidding, Sherlock. You built a buffet and handed out forks.

The victims here are the people being exploited, the taxpayers getting rinsed, and the neighborhoods blindsided by a system nobody voted for and nobody seems eager to police until the press drags it into daylight. Colorado does not need more compassion theater. It needs audits, prosecutions where warranted, clawbacks, licenses reviewed, contracts examined, and every politician who fed this nonprofit-Medicaid-homelessness blob forced to answer one question: where is our money, and who let this happen?

Source: The Gazette