The Colorado Bureau of Investigation hopes to attract more law enforcement agencies to apply for funds to assist with locating individuals with mental disabilities who leave their homes and go missing, or wanderers.
On Tuesday, the CBI extended the application deadline for its Wanderer Recovery Program to Nov. 29, 2024. CBI Strategic Communication Director Rob Low said the funds are flexible in helping those efforts.
“We're going to give them the ability to use the money how they see best. So, what fits their parameters,” Low said. “We really want to give away all the money that we can to help communities across Colorado have a way to help recover people when they go missing, when they wander.”
The CBI defines a “person who wanders” as someone who has a mental disability creating the tendency to wander or leave a place of safety. Typical cases involve older people who may have declining cognitive function. Children on the autism spectrum also tend to wander.
One-third of all alerts issued by the CBI this year are for Senior Alerts. In the first eight months of 2024, 47 Senior Alerts were issued on behalf of older people who went missing. That’s more than Medina, Media, and AMBER alerts.
State lawmakers passed a bill in 2022 that provides financial assistance in efforts to find them. The grant for this fiscal year amounts to about $90,000 annually.
Law enforcement agencies can use the funds to purchase equipment, technology, offer training and outreach, and other costs in recovering persons who recover.
In April, six agencies were awarded more than $70,000 from the program. The Aurora Police Department was awarded about $30,000 for purchasing tracking devices. Sheriff’s offices in Otero and Logan counties and the Brush Police Department used the grant to purchase drones. CBI is encouraging more rural agencies to apply.
“I think some of them just may not be familiar or aware of the grant program,” Low said. “And so, we really want to get the word out definitely to our partners in rural Colorado and some of the smaller communities that we have a way to help them.”
The Teller County Sheriff’s Office is a rural agency that has been successful in using the funds to locate persons who wander. Kate Poland, a retired member of the Teller County Sheriff’s Posse, a group of non-commissioned volunteers, said the CBI used them for training purposes.
"Since we are a mostly rural, mountainous region, we faced many challenges with our at-risk community members,” Poland said. “I have to say that we never failed to find a client in less than 30 minutes unless they happened to get in a car and drive to the next county, which resulted in additional training for the caregiver, and a reiteration of basic guidelines.”
Funding decisions and grant agreement issuance are expected to be announced in mid-December. The award period is from Jan. 1 to June 30, 2025.
