A pair of 100-unit apartment complexes could become the cornerstone of Denver’s long-range plan to end homelessness, according to city officials and advocates for the homeless.
If adopted and then approved by voters as part of a multimillion-dollar bond issue – a plan that is also on the city drawing board – the apartments could aid in the plan to trim the homeless population by 75 percent in five years, people familiar with the discussions said.
“There isn’t a lot of detail just yet; it’s more conceptual for the moment,” said John Parvensky, director of the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless.
No one knows what the complexes would cost or where they would be located, but Parvensky said similar projects in other cities could provide some insight.
“Some of the models we’ve seen include housing for families in one complex and for single individuals in another,” he said. “And for more garden- style apartments. High-rise approaches are not that successful.”
Mayor John Hickenlooper’s 10-year plan to end homelessness, known as Denver’s Road Home, is a public-private partnership working to diminish the number of people living on the city’s streets and parks.
“The 10-year plan won’t live or die on the complexes, but it will make a pretty good move in accomplishing it,” said Patrick Coyle, Road Home’s housing coordinator who studied the idea’s viability.
The apartment units are talking points at community meetings hosted by a mayoral task force that began last week.
The task force’s job is to select project proposals. Its work is slated for completion in January.
The idea that Denver can help end its homeless problem by becoming landlords has made it far enough that officials are beginning a cost analysis of the project.
The city may eventually turn to voters to approve one megaplan for a single multimillion- dollar bond issuance – perhaps as large as $300 million – to fund several projects and upgrade and maintain city facilities.
“This is a whole look at the entire process of financing infrastructure in the city,” said Diane Barrett, a mayoral aide overseeing Hickenlooper’s Infrastructure Priority Task Force.
“Instead of in the past, which was every 10 years to go to voters when the roofs were falling in, we may need to go in a different way by looking at solutions rather than fixes,” she said.
Staff writer David Migoya can be reached at 303-954-1506 or dmigoya@denverpost.com.
Public meetings
Open house meetings by Denver’s Infrastructure Priority Task Force will be held from 7 to 8:30 p.m.:
Wednesday: Centro San Juan Diego, 2830 Lawrence St.
Thursday: Eisenhower Recreation Center, 4300 E. Dartmouth Ave.
