Mike Johnston’s administration is targeting four different types of housing in its efforts to transition 1,000 homeless people off Denver streets by the year’s end and adopting a different approach to enforcing the city’s camping ban from past administrations, the new mayor said on Monday.

Denver city council extends homelessness emergency declaration

Johnston spoke to reporters on Tuesday to provide an update on the city’s homelessness crisis response and yesterday’s launch of Denver’s emergency operations center. At least 50 city employees are now working at the center to move as many people as possible out of “unsheltered” homelessness – those who specifically sleep in public places, such as on the street, in tents or in cars – and into housing with support services, Johnston said. 

His emergency declaration – first issued on July 18 and extended by a vote of the city council until August 21 – and the operations center are needed steps in curbing the growing crisis, he said.

During the campaign, Johnston outlined an ambitious goal to solve Denver’s homelessness crisis within his first term. The city has increasingly poured resources into reducing homelessness, spending $152 million in 2022 and authorizing $254 million to address the problem in 2023. When then-Mayor Michael Hancock took office a dozen years ago, that spending stood at $8 million.

The crisis has worsened in the last two years.  

In Tuesday’s press conference, Johnston noted that Denver this year saw an 8% increase in the number of homeless people who sleep in public places, based on the most recent point-in-time count.

There were 1,423 “unsheltered” people counted and 4,395 “sheltered” individuals, according to the report, which also found that two in five became homeless for the first time, while 1 in 3 were chronically homeless.

All told, the Metro Denver Homeless Initiative counted 9,065 homeless people throughout the seven-county metro area, a nearly 32% increase from 2022.

Decommissioning campsites, matching enforcement with housing option 

The new administration’s approach to enforcing the city’s camping ban is distinctly different from past years when camps were cleared out without ensuring people moved into housing, Johnston said.

“The reason why the previous challenges have not been solved is because we cannot move people off of one block if they have no place to go,” he said.

That strategy, he said, merely results in shuffling people from one block to another.

The city will continue enforcing the camping ban at campsites that have clear public health and safety risks, infringe on right of ways or infringe on property, Johnston said.

“We are continuing to clean up or intervene in those sites,” he said.

For encampments that do not fit those criteria, the main priority will be to prepare people living there to move into housing the city is working to provide. Enforcement of the camping ban should be carried out with housing support, he said.

When housing become available, the city will inform people living in encampments and notify them of when the camp will be decommissioned and where they can move to. 

The city will be laser focused in the coming weeks on building relationships with the homeless in encampments and matching them with housing when it becomes available, he said.

This strategy should also prevent encampments from returning to an area, Johnston said. The policy is based on a Houston model. 

Evidence shows the vast majority – an estimated 90% – of people will accept the city’s offer of housing, Johnston said. Once Denver is able to move the majority of homeless residents into housing, it will deploy “separate strategies of intervention” for the remaining 10%, who he expects will be people with the most acute behavioral health conditions.

The city will also be providing services, such as trash pickup, to improve the condition of some encampments, Johnston said.

The mayor recalled a recent visit to an encampment, where he found a box of 200 individually wrapped egg bites left by a community member or nonprofit. Despite the donation being an apparent attempt at providing people with aid, he said, residents at the camp had no means of cooking the food.

“It looks like trash that is showing up on the street, but, oftentimes, it can be materials that well-intended neighbors or nonprofits have dropped, and they can’t use,” he said.

Denver metro homelessness up 32% in 2023

Private units, not congregate shelter

The administration is striving to amass four types of housing units in order to help homeless residents move off of city streets and into housing. The top priority will be providing people with individual, private units, rather than congregate shelter, he said.

The four categories are as follows.

• Existing units: The administration will be working with landlords to source and lease existing rental units throughout the city.

• Hotel conversions: These are hotels that the city can use or acquire for conversion into housing offer multiple benefits, Johnston said. Some rooms come with kitchenettes, while also offering bathrooms, showers, beds and locked doors. Hotel conversions might require building updates and repairs.

• Micro-communities: Whether through “tiny home” villages or safe outdoor campsites, the administration is looking for sites where it can build micro-communities. Johnston is launching a tour of every city neighborhood starting on Tuesday evening in Council District 9 as part of this effort.

• Larger or commercial buildings: These properties might be used as non-congregate housing, congregate housing or a combination of both, Johnston said. Potential properties could be unused elementary schools, churches or warehouses.

All types of housing will be paired with wraparound services for residents, he said. Johnston met with providers of wraparound services on Tuesday morning to discuss supporting the housing initiatives, he said.

“We do have providers in place now, but we are going to have to add significant capacity for them, so we need new people. We need folks who want to do this work,” he said.

The cost 

How much will the plan cost? He can’t provide a ballpark figure, Johnston said, because that number “varies significantly based on what the combination of units are.”

Rental units, hotels, micro-communities and large buildings all come with different price tags.

During his campaign, he saw estimates that developing projects could require at least $40 million in capital costs, he said, noting that providing services tacks on more expense.

“We are modeling multiple scenarios,” he said.

Denver metro homelessness up 32% in 2023