After spending half a year and $45 million in tax dollars, freshman Denver Mayor Mike Johnston surprised no one this week when he declared he’d met his goal of moving some 1,000 of Denver’s diehard street dwellers indoors by year’s end.

He seemed bound and determined to fulfill that much-publicized pledge – made last July when he took office – even if he had to book every available hotel room in Denver. Indeed, his administration spent tens of millions of dollars in record time to acquire hotels, buy “tiny” shelters and set up “micro-communities” to accommodate the city’s urban “campers.”

To Johnston, his New Year’s Eve announcement no doubt represented some sort of victory.

Rank-and-file residents of the city, however, are left to wonder: a victory over what?

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Sure, the effort did get some people off the streets for however long that lasts. Authorities dismantled some of the wretched shantytowns that have sprouted up around the city in disregard of the law. It’s short-term relief for beleaguered homeowners and embattled small businesses that endured the stench, noise, rowdy behavior, panhandling, petty crime and blight.

Yet, the mayor’s approach is unlikely to achieve any lasting success because it is fundamentally flawed. Simply housing people temporarily as an end in itself is, in fact, a dead end. It’s a costly one, too, at about $45,000 per person housed.

Denver’s drifters are by and large addicted to drugs or alcohol. For many, that also has led to declining mental and physical health. Their addictions – not Denver’s high rents or some broader economic injustice – are what has kept most of them on the streets.

The premise of the Johnston administration’s plan is “housing first,” i.e., finding indoor space for habitual street denizens – to continue the very lifestyle that landed them on the streets in the first place. That ignores the cumulative, extensive damage they have done to themselves through substance abuse. It politely sidesteps their need to mend their ways.

They are “homeless” and, for the most part, jobless only because they have left themselves incapable of holding a job or affording a place to stay.

That’s why it’s a sure bet most of those “housed” in the mayor’s six-month blitz will be back on the streets sooner or later – reportedly, some already are – still dependent on drugs or alcohol. Until then, they’ll be dependent on the kindness of taxpayers. All the while, few will make the return to a more productive life or even get back on their feet.

As we noted here recently, data so far on the mayor’s efforts to relocate and corral those on the streets suggests very few will sign up for rehab or other services that the program merely offers – but doesn’t require. As of Tuesday, only one out of more than 1,000 had entered inpatient rehab.

None of the participants is getting the help they truly need – a compassionate, helping hand up. Not a handout. No one is charting a path for their rehabilitation as functional members of the community.

Of course, the mayor will be able to check a box – “promise kept” – on his political agenda. So, there’s that.

Johnston crowed to The Gazette: “It’s both inspiring for the lives that are being transformed and, I think, for the city to have a sense that we think these hard problems are solved again – if we really put our shoulder to the wheel, big things are possible.”

In reality, the mayor’s effort has “solved” nothing – beyond reshuffling some of Denver’s endless procession of street dwellers.

Denver Gazette Editorial Board