On Monday morning, on the new plaza outside the gleaming Westin hotel at Denver International Airport, Mayor Michael Hancock will deliver his annual State of the City address. It’s his annual chance to lay out what he sees as his accomplishments and spell out his major goals for the coming year, his sixth in office.
Later in the day, several activist groups will offer a rebuttal of sorts to Hancock’s vision.
The groups participating in the “People’s State of the City” event outside the Denver City and County Building at 3:30 p.m. will include Denver Homeless Out Loud — a of Hancock administration policies — as well as El Centro Humanitario, Colorado Cross-Disability Coalition, People Rising Against Poverty and the Fourth World Center for the Study of Indigenous Law and Politics at the University Colorado Denver.
In the , rapidly city, Hancock has become a target of groups that charge he has failed to stand up for the homeless, for racial justice, for residents being priced out by soaring rents and for others who aren’t sharing in Denver’s long-running upswing.
“Community organizations are holding this counterevent to highlight pressing issues that the mayor’s speech will likely fail to address — indeed, the mayor’s administration is responsible for directing and supporting many of the injustices and harms our communities face,” says a news release announcing the protest event from Terese Howard, Luke Leavitt and Athena Rose. “This People’s State of the City will serve as a platform for the many marginalized voices that the mayor will either deny or repress at his function.”
Speakers will advocate “for a Denver for the people,” the release says, and the event also will include a mock State of the City address to satirize Hancock’s speech.
Hancock’s address at DIA, which begins at 11 a.m., is open to the public. The city’s public-access station, cable Channel 8, will broadcast the speech live.
But unlike in years, when Hancock’s annual addresses have been downtown, Monday’s event won’t be free for many attendees. They will have to pay to take the new University of Colorado A-Line train to DIA, pay for parking in an airport garage or lot, or find some other way of getting there. (A city spokeswoman reached out to say that residents have claimed all 250 free transit passes that the mayor’s office offered through a community newsletter.)
The mayor is likely to touch on several topics that are priorities for the activist groups, including and affordable housing. (The city soon will announce the for its .)
But the groups participating in Monday afternoon’s event have differed with Hancock on the best ways to approach such issues. Here are the challenges highlighted by the event announcement as going unaddressed by city leaders, as written:
Homelessness is rising, and the city only treats homeless people with more brutality and force.
Housing costs have skyrocketed with rent at an all-time high for the city of Denver, making more and more people homeless. But instead of dedicating funds or changing policies to support attainable homes, the city continues to spend far more on the jail system than on low income of affordable housing.
People of color continue to be targeted and killed by cops, who act with impunity, fearing neither indictment nor conviction for their crimes.
Low-income and immigrant workers are still vulnerable to wage theft, racism, and have no, almost no or (inadequate) access to basic services such as medical and mental health and housing.
People with disabilities continue to be blighted with increased homelessness, poverty and the feeling of being left behind. As the economy gets better for some, those with fixed, low or no incomes are left behind. People with disabilities need to survive, but we also need and deserve the tools to thrive.
Our environment is being destroyed. When we as a city do environmental sustainability, we must reject the notion that there is solely a material or technocratic solution to environmental crisis.