The board of an influential advocacy group, All In Denver, is calling on Mayor Michael Hancock to end homeless sweeps and provide a report accounting for all associated costs of breaking up encampments as they compare to the costs of providing temporary housing. 

“We can think of no issue that holds greater urgency than the inhumane and life-threatening treatment of our neighbors experiencing homelessness during a severe economic (crisis) and pandemic – and now during the holiday season,” the group wrote to Hancock this week.

Sweeping encampments “simply moves people from street to street,” the group wrote. “It does not solve the problem of homelessness, nor does it address community members’ concerns about encampments in neighborhoods.”

AID Homeless Sweeps Media Release December 2020 FINAL.pdf

The letter also requests the “reallocation of city funding and new sales tax revenues to support safe outdoor spaces, tiny home villages, and other safe, accessible alternatives to exposure, while providing our unhoused community members with the dignity of choice in their housing options.”

When asked for a response to the letter, Hancock’s office did not agree to the board’s demands. 

“We have a responsibility to protect the public health and safety of people living in and near encampments. When the risks and hazards posed by encampments become significant, we have an obligation to clean and close them,” Hancock’s spokesman Mike Strott said in an email. 

“With a half-dozen different outreach teams on the streets, the city is working tirelessly to connect our unhoused neighbors to services, shelter, housing, relatives, treatment, and mental health and medical care,” he added. “With two tiny home villages and two managed campsites now up and running, we are committed to finding even more alternatives to living unsheltered on the streets.”

Hancock’s office also said that while it is “deeply appreciative” of All In Denver’s partnership in addressing affordable housing and homelessness, it also must recognize the “vast majority of Denver voters who strongly support the city’s prohibition on urban camping.” 

Since the start of Hancock’s first administration, he has been a vocal critic of homeless encampments and, in 2012, signed the urban camping ban into law.

Since then, the controversial legislation has faced legal challenges right and left. The most recent lawsuit was filed by the advocacy group Denver Homeless Out Loud and ten homeless plaintiffs over homeless encampment sweeps during the pandemic, arguing that breaking up encampments contradicts guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That hearing is scheduled to continue into early 2021.

The most recent Point-in-Time count of homelessness conducted by the Metro Denver Homeless Initiative found there were at least 4,171 individuals experiencing homelessness in Denver in late January. Nearly a thousand of them were living unsheltered, and more than 500 were fleeing domestic violence.