Denver is “making progress” in addressing public health and safety concerns at Union Station, a coalition of officials told members of the City Council on Wednesday morning, and millions of dollars in infrastructure changes are planned going forward.

But the heightened response to Union Station over the past several months, which has included more than 1,100 arrests and an increased police presence, has simply moved unhoused Denverites to other parts of the city, those same officials said.

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Though city health authorities said they’d stepped up outreach and support at Union Station, two council members expressed concern about the availability of services in the city to address the underlying needs of the people sheltering there.

“We are making progress at Denver Union Station,” Evan Dreyer, the deputy chief of staff to Denver Mayor Michael Hancock, told council members. “We’re not finished, we’re not going to stop, and we know that there are challenges in other parts of downtown as well.”

A number of agencies, including the Denver departments of housing stability and public health and the Regional Transportation District, came together to address substance use and homelessness in and around Union Station earlier this year. The situation has drawn intense media and public attention, with businesses and some travelers expressing alarm about crime and safety. The result of that focus, officials said, has been a coalition of law enforcement and public health authorities working to offer services to people in need while cracking down on illegal activity.

“We want Denver Union Station to be safe, want it to feel safe, want people to believe it’s safe,” Dreyer said, “Because it is safe, and welcoming to everybody.”

As a partially indoor, public space, Union Station’s bus terminal and concourse have become common spots for unhoused Denverites to stay, eat, sleep and, for some, to use illicit substances. Debra Johnson, the CEO and general manager of RTD, described a response that, in both the short and long term, will attempt to ensure that only travelers and RTD customers will have access to the area.

She said in the short term, RTD has installed pre-recorded announcements about “what is appropriate behavior in the bus concourse.” Directional signage and TVs showing surveillance footage — like you’d see above you when entering an electronics store — have also been implemented, she said. The agency is working to stop people from congregating in certain entrance areas and will install improved lighting.

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Some of the stairwells — like those in the middle of platforms — will be turned into emergency exits, instead of general access points, Johnson said. RTD is planning to install entry and exit gates, along with updating its fare system, in an attempt to limit access to areas of the terminal to travelers. The internal bathrooms will be reopened “for RTD customers by the end of the month,” she said, after extended closures and supply chain issues.

In all, Johnson said these improvements will cost as much as $12 million. The agency already has that money, she said, thanks to a returned deposit from the federal government. She said she hoped the improvements would help deter “scofflaws” from engaging in behavior “that’s not acceptable in society.”

Law enforcement has made 1,186 arrests in and around Union Station so far this year, said Armando Saldate, the executive director of Denver’s Department of Safety. Nearly a quarter of those arrests — 279 — were for possession of drug paraphernalia, a petty offense. Another 136 arrests, representing more than 11% of the total number, were for other drug charges, from misdemeanor possession to felony distribution, Saldate said. Seventeen illegal firearms have been seized in the area so far this year, compared to five for the same period in 2021.

Nearly 230 people have been repeatedly arrested in the area — including one man who Saldate said has been arrested 10 times — and have been temporarily barred from returning.

Council President Jamie Torres asked about interventions and treatment for people, instead of arrests and potential jail time. Bob McDonald, the executive director of Denver’s Department of Public Health and Environment, said preventing a law enforcement response via intervention is “the nature of public health.”

“That is priority 1, to connect them (to treatment and resources),” he said.

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Since April, the city’s health department has sent its Wellness Winnie — a Winnebago outfitted as an outreach van — to Union Station every Wednesday from 9 a.m. to noon. Through that effort, McDonald said, 726 people — some repeats — have engaged with the Winnie team. Some of those are low level, he said, and involve someone just asking what’s up with the van. 

But those are still important moments, McDonald continued, because building trust and relationships can take time. That’s why it’s important for the team to show up consistently on Wednesdays.

One hundred and sixty-five people have accepted case management and connections to resources at the Winnie, McDonald said. Thirteen Narcan kits — used to reverse opioid overdoses — have been distributed, and 13 bus and taxi vouchers have been given to people so they can travel to services elsewhere. Substance-use navigators made 98 contacts between June and January, and the city’s STAR program has been dispatched to Union Station 26 times so far this year. Outreach teams from the city’s housing department have also made progress, enrolling some people into services or signing them up for housing wait lists.

Taking all of those factors together, city officials told council members that the situation at Union Station is improving. But they also warned that cold weather is around the corner, which will make the area more attractive to unhoused Denverites in need of shelter and a safe place to stay.

What’s more, the core problem has not been solved, but moved elsewhere, the latest continuation of the same pattern that caused Union Station to become a hot spot in the first place.

“Now with the attention to Denver Union Station — we can’t let up, in a lot of ways, we have to keep a presence,” Saldate said. “But we have to provide resources to another hot spot, which is happening right here at Colfax and Broadway.”

“We know that when we address with such focus and intensity a problem in one location, it often moves to another,” Dreyer, the mayor’s deputy chief of staff, said. “We saw that with Civic Center Park. We have been seeing it with Union Station. Colfax and Broadway is a classic example now of where the challenges have migrated to.”

Torres and fellow council member Paul Kashmann both asked about availability of mental health and substance use services. McDonald replied that there are plenty of providers, but there may not be enough knowledge among residents about the existence of those providers. He said the city was also working to use federal pandemic relief money to help enroll more providers into Medicaid.

Torres asked him how many beds were available for behavioral health services, and McDonald said it changed on any given day.

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Nearly three dozen providers who spoke to The Denver Gazette earlier this year said that for Coloradans on Medicaid, access to inpatient treatment — a high level of care that’s vital for unhoused people — is extremely limited. Wait lists run anywhere from four to eight weeks at least, experts said, and access to higher levels of care is often based on a person’s ability to pay.

Kashmann echoed those providers’ concerns. He said he’d spent more than two years trying to get a list of mental health and drug treatment beds in the city and state and that “it doesn’t exist.” 

The sense among people in the “12-step community,” he continued, is that “if you’ve got 35 grand,” you can get access to good, private care.

“If you’re an average person with a drug crisis, the consciousness is, there are not beds,” he said. “Services are not readily available. If they are, please let people know. I believe people are maybe dying because they don’t know where to go.”