Denver city officials will strive to put 2,000 people in permanent housing this year as the city moves more people out of temporary shelters — a figure thatap double their original goal for 2025.
The decision to boost the target came after internal conversations within the city government over the last month, said Cole Chandler, the deputy director of Mayor Mike Johnston’s city’s homeless initiative.
“The reality is, we’ve always set big, audacious goals — not necessarily about what we think we can do, but what our community needs,” Chandler said in an interview. “We’re going to give that our best effort in 2025.”
The plan is part of Johnston’s signature homeless initiative, called All in Mile High, which began when he declared a state of emergency on his second day in office in July 2023. That year, the city moved 1,000 people off the streets and into temporary housing, including tiny homes and hotel rooms.
Last year, the total moved inside reached more than 2,000 people. As of December, more than a third of those people had then moved into more permanent housing.
This year, the city plans to bring 2,000 people off the street and into city-operated temporary housing and another 2,000 into more permanent housing, Chandler said in a presentation to the Denver City Council’s Safety, Housing, Education & Homelessness Committee Wednesday. A portion of that second group could come from the temporary shelters.
Some on council were skeptical about the new goal.
“I would just love to understand how you’re going to accomplish this,” said Councilmember Stacie Gilmore. “I would just question if it can really happen.”
Councilman Kevin Flynn questioned if the city’s stated overall goal of “ending street homelessness” was even possible.
“Itap cyclical,” he said. “Every day, unfortunately, someone may end up on the streets.”
Chandler responded by saying he does believe it’s possible.
“What it means to do that is to design a system that can respond to the needs of individuals — that we are able to get more people off the streets than are falling back into homelessness on a given day,” he said.
As part of its effort to get more people into permanent housing, the city will also, one of its temporary shelters, at the end of March. That will allow the city to shift the $10 million used for the annual lease to additional permanent housing initiatives in the city.
The people staying there now will be connected with more permanent housing options.
Housekeys Action Network Denver, an advocacy group for homeless people, recently surveyed 175 residents at four of the city’s temporary hotel shelter sites. It found that many residents didn’t have permanent housing lined up after their 90-day stay there.
About a quarter of those surveyed reported not being in contact with a case manager. Some said they didn’t have access to water or a bathroom at the sites, and others complained of unsatisfactory food options.
Chandler said the survey was consistent with problems the city had already identified and was working to address.
“We didn’t see anything that surprised us,” Chandler said of the survey.
In 2024, the homeless initiative was estimated to have cost the city more than $150 million. This year, with fewer large start-up costs expected, officials have said expenses are estimated to reach $57.5 million.
