10 JUNE 19-25, 2025 westword.com WESTWORD | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | Home Stretch IS DENVER REALLY HALFWAY TO SOLVING HOMELESSNESS? BY BENNITO L. KELT Y Mayor Mike Johnston claims Denver is half- way to reaching his goal of solving unsheltered homelessness after the release of the latest Point in Time data, an annual count of home- less residents in shelters and on the streets. “At the halfway point in the administra- tion, we’re halfway towards the goal,” says Cole Chandler, the mayor’s senior advisor on homelessness resolution. “The mayor set a bold goal to end street homelessness in his fi rst term, and so we feel great that at the halfway point, we’re halfway there.” Released June 9, the PIT count is feder- ally funded and conducted during one night in January each year. Counties take charge of tallying their homeless populations, often by deploying volunteers to count people who appear to be living on the streets, but the numbers also rely on residents self-reporting that they’re homeless. On the campaign trail, Johnston promised to make homelessness his top priority. When he took offi ce in July 2023, the fi rst thing he did was declare Denver’s homelessness an emergency; more than 1,400 people were liv- ing on the streets and another 4,600 in shelters at the time, according to the 2023 PIT count. The emergency declaration allowed Johnston to rush contracts through Denver City Council that helped his administration buy properties and hotels to turn into shel- ters and micro-communities, where people live in shed-like units while looking for stable housing. In the summer of 2024, the administration launched a “street-to-lease” program in which the city connects homeless people with units that accept housing vouch- ers, enabling people to skip transitional hotel shelters or micro-communities. Initially, Johnston called his audacious goal of bringing 1,000 people off Denver’s streets House1000, with a timeline of just six months. He has since renamed it All In Mile High (AIMH). According to a city dashboard, the initiative has put nearly 6,000 people into housing in nearly two years, with more than 1,300 coming in through the street-to-lease program. While the city’s AIMH fi gures paint an impressive picture, the PIT count for 2025 shows that homelessness in the seven-county metro area — Denver, Adams, Broomfi eld, Jefferson, Boulder, Douglas and Arapahoe counties — is now at nearly 11,000 people, up from 9,000 in 2023. For Denver alone, the homeless population is now at more than 7,300 people, up from 6,500 people in 2024 and 5,800 in 2023, according to PIT. Johnston believes the PIT count shows that his strategy is working, but he’s focusing on the unsheltered homeless count, which refers only to people living outside, typically in tents or cars. In 2023, that population was slightly more than 1,400 people; in 2024, it dropped to just under 1,300. The latest PIT count says that only 785 individuals are living on the streets, which is roughly a 45 percent decrease from when Johnston took offi ce. “Denver is proving that homelessness is solvable so long as we are willing to put in the work to solve it,” Johnston said in a statement when the PIT count was released. “In less than two years, we have gone from a city that swept people from block to block to one that treats people with dignity and delivers real results. This policy is not only morally just but effective.” Chandler highlights a few other break- throughs, notably “the largest multi-year reduction in the history of the PIT count in terms of unsheltered homelessness.” He also cites a 30 percent reduction during the last two years in “newly homeless households,” or individuals and families who reported being homeless for the fi rst time. However, other groups involved in home- lessness in Colorado aren’t as easily con- vinced that Johnston’s on the right path. The federal government relies on the PIT count to decide how to allocate funding for hous- ing and homelessness, but nonprofi ts and advocates worry that Johnston is going to pin his reputation on the count without solv- ing deeper issues that surveys don’t reveal. Count Me Out: PIT Blindspots According to the nonprofi t Colorado Co- alition for the Homeless, the actual number of homeless residents in Denver is two or three times higher than the PIT count. That count is “a good snapshot” of homelessness, “but it doesn’t tell you the whole picture,” says Cathy Alderman, CCH spokesperson. “It doesn’t tell you how long it’s taking people to fi nd housing once they’ve entered the cycle of homelessness, it doesn’t tell you what types of services people need to be rehoused, it doesn’t tell you anything about family size or what housing is available,” she says. “It’s dependent on being able to fi nd people. Some people can’t be located or are sleeping in their cars or staying in a motel. We’ve always known that the Point in Time is an undercount...there are many, many more people throughout the year experiencing homelessness, needing services, than there are on a single night in January.” Still, Alderman says it’s “encouraging” to see the PIT count report more people in shelters instead of on the streets “because it’s much safer, especially in January, when it’s cold.” She also notes that CCH does “ap- plaud the mayor’s initiative” and believes “it will save lives.” But Alderman is concerned about the lack of affordable housing in Denver: In- creases in homelessness have to do with rising rents and eviction rates, she says, and Denver needs to invest in affordable housing to get people out of shelters and “the cycle of homelessness.” Chronic homelessness, when people aren’t able to fi nd permanent housing, is on the rise in Colorado, accord- ing to Alderman, who blames the lack of affordable housing. “There aren’t enough affordable housing resources for people to move out of shelter and move into a long-term solution,” she says. “Until we address that problem, I’m afraid that this is going to continue to happen year over year,” The Common Sense Institute, a Colo- rado-based research organization, argues that Denver is only putting people into shel- ters, not getting them out of homelessness. CSI published a report in April that argued Denver’s housing-fi rst approach of sweep- ing people out of encampments and into temporary housing doesn’t work as well as requiring them to get work to stay in publicly funded housing, an approach that more conservative Aurora is taking. “CSI acknowledges that the mayor’s approach has been successful in reduc- ing the number of NEWS continued on page 12 KEEP UP ON DENVER NEWS AT WESTWORD.COM/NEWS Randall McAda and Michael Dixon sit in their tent in the La Alma neighborhood in April 2024, shortly before the encampment was swept. A Denver police offi cer tells a homeless man that he has to move his tent out of an encampment in Capitol Hill. BENNITO L. KELT Y BENNITO L. KELT Y
