City crews moved more than 100 people out of a homeless encampment near the post office at 20th and Curtis streets downtown Thursday and into an east Denver hotel that has been converted into a shelter, officials confirmed.
It was the fourth and, so far, the largest action at an encampment yet as part of Mayor Mike Johnston’s House 1,000 homelessness initiative. With another mass relocation planned in the coming days at an encampment near East 48th Avenue and Colorado Boulevard, administration officials say the city is on track to shelter more than 500 people by the middle of next week as part of the effort that has been Johnston’s primary focus since he was sworn in in July.
“After we bring people indoors from these two encampments, we will be more than halfway to the mayor’s stated goal,” Johnston spokesman Jose Salas said.
The online dashboard tracking the administration’s progress showed that 317 people had been moved off the streets and into shelter or housing as of Thursday afternoon. That will be updated in the days ahead once the relocation work is complete, Salas said.
The Johnston administration previously carried out an encampment closure in the area of 20th and Curtis streets, relocating 61 people in that effort, which concluded Nov. 1, according to a new release at that time. Thursday’s action area was much larger, covering rights of way on both sides of 20th from Stout Street to Curtis and both sides of Curtis from 20th to Broadway. A map included as part of a legal notice providing residents with seven days’ warning of the action also showed 21st Street between Champa and Curtis as part of the cleanup area.
The city is still working on a final tally of how many people living in tents and other makeshift shelters in the area were relocated Thursday. Derek Woodbury, a spokesman with Denver’s Department of Housing Stability, said three bus trips were required to move everyone who accepted the shelter offer.
“Outreach staff worked in this area over the past several days. During this time, we identified well over 100 individuals for the move, and staff visited the encampment daily to provide housing-focused services as well as behavioral health, substance misuse, harm reduction and emergency medical services,” Woodbury said in an email.
The residents were moved to a former DoubleTree Hotel at 404 Quebec St. in Councilwoman Shontel Lewis’ District 8. Lewis appeared alongside Johnston Thursday morning at a news conference
Lewis repeatedly has highlighted that her district is carrying a heavy share of the load of the House 1,000 effort, with multiple hotel properties being used as noncongregate shelters and a forthcoming micro-community in the parking lot of one of those hotels.
Next week, the administration will relocate people living on the streets in her district when buses pull up to the encampment near 48th Avenue and Colorado Boulevard. Lewis said she personally informed some of the people there they were going to be given shelter and said some shed tears of joy.
“You know, there are folks who have been living unsheltered in that particular encampment for months or even a year in some cases,” she said. “There’s a person in the encampment who has cancer. There is an individual within the encampment who is a veteran, who served this country.”
Lewis said temporary shelter is an important step, but she is looking forward to the city taking on new approaches to developing more housing next year including via a study of social housing that will be funded through the 2024 budget.
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