Denver Cut Unsheltered Homelessness Almost in Half Even as Unhoused Population Grows

Denver has reduced unsheltered homelessness by 45 percent since 2023 — but the total number of unhoused people in the city is growing, writes Carl Smith in Governing. 

According to Smith, “If the city had not found new ways to provide transitional shelter for thousands of the newly unhoused, the unsheltered count could have doubled or tripled.”

During the first part of Mayor Mike Johnson’s administration, the city mobilized funding and resources to streamline permitting and building of new temporary shelter facilities and purchased or leased hotel rooms to add to its emergency shelter stock. “By the end of December [2023], the city had cleared nine major encampments and moved 1,100 people indoors into 1,100 new beds in hotels and ‘micro communities’ of tiny homes.”

The mayor’s approach of bringing together various city agencies to strategize and act on homelessness, dubbed “tiger team,” has set a useful example for other communities. But as housing remains unaffordable for many Denver households, high costs of living are driving more people out of their homes and into the streets. 

Bolstered by a voter-approved homelessness resolution fund and a nonprofit impact investment fund that purchases apartment buildings for affordable and transitional housing, the city hopes it can open 2,500 new permanent housing units in 2026.