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Feasible or unrealistic? Homeless advocates weigh in on Denver mayor’s ‘ambitious’ goal

As Denver Mayor Mike Johnston launched his most aggressive goal yet this year — get 2,000 homeless people out of the city’s streets and 2,000 into “permanent” housing — some called it “ambitious but doable,” while others said the mayor is living in a different reality.

“I think the world has changed and the voters have voted. They said we want safe streets, that we don’t want homelessness, that we don’t want drug addiction on our streets,” said Craig Arfsten, founder of Citizens for a Safe & Clean Denver. The group has long insisted that the mayor should focus on the root causes of homelessness — mental illness and drug addiction.    

“But the mayor’s living in a different world,” Arfsten said, calling Johnston’s goals “all rhetoric.”

“I mean be serious about addressing issues and create recovery communities,” he said. “Yeah, it’s gonna cost some money, but I tell you that these affordable housing things aren’t cheap, either. And buying hotels isn’t cheap, and maintaining those hotels is not cheap.”

Amy Beck, founder of the advocacy group Together Denver, said Johnston’s homeless goals in 2025 are feasible, but she insists his administration should focus on prevention.

“I am tired of this city handing out service provider contracts for people to manage homelessness. Let’s start preventing it,” she said.

Preventing homelessness, Beck said, means a combination of tackling the causes, while offering vouchers and finding the right housing for people. That, she said, would result in more “cost-effective” solutions and fewer people living in the streets.

“If we were able to get some prevention strategies in place, along with housing people under Johnston’s 2025 goals, what if you combined both of those efforts? It would have a significant impact,” Beck said.

“We need to actually put together a curriculum for folks who want to be successful living indoors again,” Beck said. “Because when people get out on the street for 10 years, they adapt to street life, and they kind of lose those skills that they have from when they were housed at one time.”

Cathy Alderman, a spokesperson for the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, said the mayor’s goals are feasible — with the right elements.

“The mayor’s goals are ambitious but doable with the right amount of collaboration, resource dedication, and political will,” she said. “Denver, with the resources it needs to make a major investment in housing for lower income households and those exiting the cycle of homelessness, I think we could have seen transformational change with that funding.”

Jason Johnson, the director of Metro Denver Homeless Initiative, also expressed optimism in Johnston’s “housing first” framework.

The mayor’s goal, the advocate said, “really came from the fact that he paired that commitment with an increase in affordable housing. Affordable housing, getting people into permanent, non-time limited housing is the only solution to homelessness.”

“We have to get people into housing,” he added.

The mayor’s office insisted that the city, under Johnston, has delivered. 

“Denver delivered the largest single year reduction in street homelessness on record and more than doubled the number of affordable units we created in 2024,” said spokesperson Jordan Fuja. 

“But,” she added, “we also know that work is not done.”

Over 19 months, Johnston’s administration moved 2,223 homeless people into temporary, non-congregate homeless shelters.

The campaign had been expensive. Since taking office in July 2023, the Johnston administration has spent $155 million on the crisis — $65 million more than the mayor said it would cost. During that time, the administration acquired hotels and turned them into shelters and built three “micro-communities.”

The mayor’s “housing first” approach appears to have only dented Denver’s homelessness crisis, which Johnston promised to solve by the end of his first term in 2027.

A Metro Denver Homeless Initiative count, conducted on a single day in January, pegged Denver’s total number of homeless people at 6,539 in 2024, compared to 5,818 in 2023.

Between 2023 and 2024, Denver saw only 150 fewer “unsheltered” people — individuals who sleep in public places, such as parks and in cars — compared to the previous year’s count.

Since Johnston has taken office, 857 people have moved from temporary shelters into permanent housing, according to Denver’s homeless data dashboard. Out of the 2,223 people who moved into temporary housing, 371 have “exited” for permanent housing, the dashboard showed.

Meanwhile, 258 are back out on the streets.

Denver’s housing department, tasked with overseeing the eight shelters, said the city has laid the groundwork to accomplish the mayor’s “ambitious” goal.

There are roughly 1,065 units in the city’s shelter system — sufficient to help to meet the mayor’s goal, the department said.

“Based on the past placement of individuals since the program launched in July 2023, we are optimistic about reaching this ambitious goal in 2025,” said Derek Woodbury, a spokesperson for the department.

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