Homelessness in Denver

By: Adrian Brown, Chair, INC Homelessness Working Group
The people of Denver care about the City and we care about our neighbors. Inter Neighborhood Cooperation is the organization that bands our neighborhoods together to express that care. And because we are a caring community, INC neighborhoods do not stand by and let neighbors endure the downward spiral, the rigors, the disruption, the dislocation, and the danger of homelessness.
There are an estimated 10,000 people who are currently homeless in the City and County of Denver. About 5,000 of them are people – mostly men – who have come to Denver without housing or a job, and have not been able to find either here. The other 5,000 people experiencing homelessness – half of them single, the other half with dependents – are our neighbors who have lost their housing because of one or a combination of challenges: economic (40%), health (25%), mental health (20%), and addiction (15%).
Approximately half of the people experiencing homelessness have been homeless for less than a year, a third have been homeless for 1 to 3 years, and a sixth are chronically homeless – that is have been on the street for more than three years. These proportions stay the same over time, so it is clear that there is an unabated throughput of individuals and families experiencing homelessness. We all know this, because we have friends, relatives, or colleagues who have been through or have come perilously close to being homeless.
Denver is on a mission to end homelessness, with increasing emphasis and expenditure over the last 15 years. The current approach is mostly to provide temporary shelter, food, and services in centralized facilities located in a few inner-city neighborhoods. While most of the homeless are being fed and sheltered, we have been ineffective in reducing the number of homeless – indeed the number has been rising. This is because we oblige those experiencing homelessness to live a mostly vagrant lifestyle, sheltered and fed at night, but forced to leave those shelters during the day, generally taking their possessions with them. This makes return into the ranks of the employed and the housed far more difficult than it would be if those individuals and families had permanent housing in the neighborhoods which they formerly called home, as a base for living, storing their belongings, and proving for their dependents while they get back on their feet.
It is axiomatic that the solution to homelessness is housing. Many cities, including Denver, have long and unsuccessful experience in providing housing, frequently ending up creating unlivable and unwelcome “projects” rather than providing successful long-term housing. A new approach – “Housing First” – has been developed in a number of cities, including San Francisco, New York, Portland, and Salt Lake City, to successfully provide permanent housing for the homeless as the first step, not the last. This approach provides immediate, permanent, managed, distributed, supported housing to those who become homeless, and also provides in that housing the full range of services which address the economic, health, mental, and addiction issues that caused the homelessness in the first place. This approach has been very successful in reducing homelessness, and – importantly – has created professionally managed housing that is largely indistinguishable from other high quality apartment or condominium developments, and which integrates easily into neighborhoods.
Creating the needed housing stock to fully implement Housing First in Denver would currently require on the order of 3,000 housing units. This would cost in the order of $500 million in capital, and would require a further annual expenditure in the order of $20 million to operate and support. The funds to achieve this transformative housing can be generated from government grants, charitable foundations, new taxation, and through social impact bonds supported by the substantial cost savings achieved by reducing the dependence of those experiencing homelessness on our public health, public safety, and mental health institutions.
So why should INC take action on homelessness? First, because it is our neighbors and neighborhoods that are affected, and we exist to support our neighbors in building a better Denver. Second, because our neighborhoods can uniquely create the welcoming environment across the city for the distributed permanent housing that is critical to get our neighbors out of homelessness, and the absence of which has prevented effective action in the past. Third, because we represent a large number of citizens who can help our elected officials seek and obtain the funding necessary to move “Housing First” forward. And fourth, by taking action we can – we must – demand to be involved in the implementation of the Housing First program, giving all neighborhoods needed and appropriate control over the distribution, siting, quality, and operation of the facilities that we have created, ensuring that all our neighbors truly have a permanent “road home”.