UPON MY RETURN TO DENVER IN LATE 2003, following a 20year hiatus that included running a direct services program for the unhoused and co-authoring a book on homelessness, I immediately became immersed in the local homelessness scene, joining the Metro Denver Homelessness Initiative Board and getting to know some of the important players. Within 18 months, I was asked by Mayor John Hickenlooper to join the advisory board of his major new homelessness initiative, Denver’s Road Home (DRH). These are the roots of my involvement in addressing homelessness in Denver. Jerry Burton leading a march protesting Denver’s camping ban on March 14, 2022. Photo by Andrew Fraieli ADDRESSING HOMELESSNESS DURING THE EARLY 2000S As I worked with Dana Scott, who was a contractor working on Denver’s Road Home, Roxane White, the executive director of the Denver Department of Human Services at the time, and others on the production of the 10-year Plan to End Homelessness in Denver, several key issues struck me. First, the plan included continued attention to shelters and services, but the real focus was on housing. There was an underlying fantasy that we would not need shelters during the coming years as housing the unhoused very quickly would eliminate the need for shelters. Also, I was surprised by the lack of focus on raising the funds needed to build housing, but maybe it was because I wasn’t specifically involved in that aspect of the effort. Given my background in research and evaluation, it also occurred to me that more attention needed to be paid to evaluating the impact of the 10-year Plan. As personnel at DRH changed and moved into new jobs, that aspect of the initiative seemed to have been reduced to simply counting the number of people who entered housing. DRH’s involvement with Housing First was a major step forward as the 10-year Plan evolved. Emerging from Sam Tsemberis’ work in New York as a clinical psychologist was the Housing First approach he founded. Housing First was both a basic philosophy — do not make housing contingent upon becoming “housing ready” — and a program model that included housing, services and support. However, in the original program model, tenants from shelters or the streets were encouraged to use available supportive services but were not required to do so. DRH incorporated both the philosophy and the program model into the plan before Housing First became nationally mandated in the Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing program of 2009. Despite the many efforts to implement DRH, the overall numbers of unhoused people did not decline substantially. In fact, there was a gradual increase between 2005 and the late 2010s that mirrored what the country was experiencing. Some people were able to move off the streets into housing; others left shelter spaces to move into housing. In most of these cases, housing was made possible with federally funded housing vouchers. And yet, even as DRH was somewhat successful, the cost of living led more people to become unhoused in Denver. Unfortunately, homelessness prevention had not entered elected officials’ public lexicon. THE CITY TURNS TO CAMPING BANS IN 2012 As efforts to end homelessness failed to live up to expectations, Mayor Michael Hancock, with support from City Council Member Albus Brooks and others, enacted Denver’s 2012 “camping ban.” Critics viewed it as a veiled attempt to remove unhoused people from the streets and restore these busy avenues to a supposed pre-homelessness “pristine condition.” Supporters of the ban emphasized the unsightly campsites along major Denver thoroughfares, while those opposing the ban argued strongly for people’s right for a place to sleep. The ban became a major obstacle to the city’s efforts to address homelessness. I vividly recall a conversation about the ban I had with a high-ranking official who, like me, was against the measure. I said, “It’s as though nobody had ever heard of a porta-potty. Why can’t we install those at the campsites? Why can’t we provide washing stations, shower trucks, laundry trucks, trash receptacles and regular trash pickup at the campsites?” The answer was profoundly disturbing: “If you do that, more people will want to go to those campsites and we’ll just have more people unsheltered.” What this official was saying was, “We must get these unsightly people off the streets.” My response: “Both the critics of those experiencing homelessness and the advocates of those on the streets have the same goal, namely, to get people off the streets, though for fundamentally different reasons. Why can’t both sides agree to sit down and work together to achieve the goal, namely get people off the streets and into housing?” I got no answer. Between 2012 and 2019, Denver’s Homeless Out Loud made three attempts to repeal the camping ban. None were successful. Later, other advocacy groups, like Housekeys Action Network Denver, have attempted to counter the camping ban, arguing — as have many national advocacy organizations — that camping bans criminalized homelessness. The argument took on added weight with the Supreme Court’s ruling in 2024 in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson that local jurisdictions could outlaw camps, even if no shelter space was available. In 2019, advocacy organizations gained momentum with Initiative 300, which, among other things, sought to repeal the camping ban. Unfortunately, people seemed to see the initiative as loaded with too many broad goals such as a right to housing and a right to rest in public places. Voters defeated the initiative 81 to 19 percent. Had advocates focused on repealing the camping ban, it may have passed. Implementation of the camping ban over the years has and the arrival of COVID-19 complicated been uneven, enforcement. For example, the federal response to COVID included a one-year moratorium on housing evictions for failure to pay rent, throwing off local efforts to enforce nonpayment penalties. Then, under Mayor Mike Johnston, the elimination of camps, specifically permitted under the camping ban, led to a different approach. THE CITY EMBARKS ON A NEW POLICY A critical element in creating more affordable housing is the needed capital to support construction of new housing. Even during the halcyon years of the DRH and the 10-Year Plan, when optimism ran high about major improvements in addressing homelessness, there was not enough financial capital to create the housing. To his credit, Mayor Hancock worked with Denver City Council to enact a sales tax increase in 2017 to address this shortfall. This, in turn, started a series of sales tax increases during the next eight years that aimed to put enough money in the coffers to create the desired amount of housing. An even bolder idea was Hancock’s push in 2020 for a .25 percent increase in sales taxes that promised to increase the affordable housing budget by $40 to $50 million. Despite this funding, city zoning ordinances, the cost of construction, parking requirements and other barriers prevented large-scale construction of affordable housing. In its place was an expansion of a series of smaller transitional and permanent housing projects across the city. Starting with the Colorado Village Collaborative tiny home village, followed by a series of Safe Outdoor Spaces in neighborhoods around the city, and increases in permissible Accessory Dwelling Units, people needing help transitioning from the streets to long-term permanent housing saw increased opportunities. This transition was aided by a significant error in judgment by Mayor Johnston. In his second day in office in 2023, Johnston publicly promised to get 1,000 people off the streets and into housing by the end of his first six months. His staff, realizing the impossibility of such a pledge, immediately walked back the promise and reframed it as getting 1,000 people off the streets. With the assistance of several social service providers, , the city reached that goal by the end of the year. In addition, Johnston used the camping ban’s strategic framework to close encampments even though he campaigned against the ban. Instead of simply closing a camp and moving it to another location — the whack-a-mole approach to “ending homelessness” — Johnston and his Department of Housing Stability intentionally placed formerly unsheltered people in shelters, mostly motels. By focusing on getting people off the streets, Johnston closed most of the camps and sheltered the camp dwellers. This significantly reduced the number of unsheltered people by about 45 percent between the 2023 PIT and the 2025 PIT and was touted nationally as a huge success. However, during the same period, the overall number of people experiencing homelessness increased by 26 percent. A final footnote on funding: In 2024, Mayor Johnston proposed a .5 percent increase in the sales tax – around $100 million – to support efforts to address homelessness. However, unlike many other efforts in the city during the last two decades to raise money to address homelessness, this initiative failed. WHERE ARE WE NOW? MIXED RESULTS The history of Denver’s efforts to address homelessness has been mixed, at best. There have been major successes, including Denver’s Road Home, that brought the city together in its focus on ending homelessness and the city’s adoption of a Housing First approach in its fight against this tragedy. There were also several successful campaigns to raise additional funds to develop new affordable housing that were approved by Denver voters. In the negative column is the city’s persistence in maintaining and enforcing the camping ban. We have now had more than two decades of serious efforts to address homelessness. Yes, we’ve made some progress. However, the failure of the major initiative to increase funding for homelessness in a city well known for its willingness to provide funding for noble causes gives me pause. Is the ballot defeat a sign of compassion fatigue? Are our voters saying: “You guys have had 20 years to solve this problem, and it isn’t going away. In fact, it may be worse.” If that’s the case and voters are tired of supporting more funding initiatives, watch out because the numbers of our neighbors who find themselves homelessness will soar. Hopefully, this doesn’t occur, but it’s certainly possible, especially considering the failure of the federal government to provide its large portion of needed funding. DENVER VOICE NOVEMBER 2026 7
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