After weeks of community outreach, the Denver Department of Finance released its results Thursday on how the public wants to spend over $700 million in COVID-19 relief funds that will be invested in Denver over the next decade.

Through a series of telephone town hall meetings and the launch of a survey and discussion website, the department determined the community wants to invest in housing, workforce and transportation.

“It is crucial for us to have residents at the table when we’re deciding how we should prioritize investments and specific resources that are going to make the most impact for people that were hit the hardest during the pandemic,” said Kiki Turner with the Denver Department of Finance.

Around 6,200 people participated in the community outreach online or over the phone, including 2,300 people who submitted 9,800 survey responses, ranking the importance of investing possibilities in three categories: community, business and infrastructure.

Community

Regarding community support, 40% of respondents chose housing and support for homeless residents as their top priority. That was followed by mental health with 17% and transportation with 12%.

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Increasing Denver’s affordable housing stock was rated as the most helpful solution, chosen by 47% of respondents. Creating a wider variety of housing options in neighborhoods was chosen as most helpful by 29% of respondents.

When discussing community support, the need for affordability was a common theme, with other survey questions revealing respondents’ desires for free or affordable childcare, mental health services, health insurance and internet access.

Business

In the business category, 29% of respondents chose workforce/jobseeker support as the most important, followed by local business support and neighborhood support, each with 23%.

Respondents listed lack of jobs in their field (25%), low pay (18%) and no access to child/elder care (17%) as their biggest barriers to employment. For business owners, cost of locations (32%), lack of workers (20%) and employee and customer health (19%) were the top barriers.

To address workforce issues, top solutions rated by respondents included providing residents with training for new career paths, expanding grants for small businesses, providing more housing support and making licensing and permitting processes easier.

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Infrastructure

For infrastructure, respondents prioritized building safe and accessible streets, bike lanes and transportation systems the most with 32% of votes. That was followed by improving community and cultural buildings with 25% and improving spaces for homeless residents with 21%.

To choose infrastructure projects, 46% of respondents said the city should pick projects that offer the most job opportunities. Opportunities for small, minority- and women-owned businesses was most important to 26% of respondents and 17% prioritized projects that provide increased access to technology.

A whopping 90% of respondents said infrastructure projects should focus on fixing or improving things that already exist instead of building something new. However, respondents were split on whether projects should focus on neighborhood improvements (53%) or regional improvements (47%).

The city’s stimulus investment advisory committee will now work to review this community feedback to create an investment strategy for the relief funds.

“There’s a lot going on simultaneously,” said Chief Financial Officer Brendan Hanlon. “What the funds are eligible to be used for, the agency ideas we’ve leveraged, the historical ideas we’ve leveraged from 2020, council priorities, community priorities – and trying to bring them all together.”

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Denver’s estimated $700 million in COVID-19 relief funding is expected to come from the federal government and local tax revenues.

City officials are planning to propose a $400-million general obligation bond program that Denver voters would see on the ballot in November. If passed by voters, those funds would be available through 2031.

Denver is also receiving $308 million of federal funding from the American Rescue Plan. Half of the money will be given to the city this month and the other half will be distributed in approximately one year. All of the funding must be spent by the end of 2024.

In the coming weeks, the Denver City Council is set to vote on a plan that would allocate 30% of the $308 million to the restoration and supplementation of city services cut during the COVID-19 pandemic. This plan will need to be approved by the full council before implementation.

COVID-19 relief funds can be used for public health expenditures, addressing negative economic impacts from the pandemic, replacing lost public sector revenue, paying essential workers and investing in water, sewer and broadband infrastructure.