Homelessness in Denver increased by 12% in the past year, but for only the second time in recent history, the number of people living outside has decreased, according to the results of an annual count released Wednesday.
The number of people living in shelters, transitional housing, tents and on the streets of Denver climbed to 6,539 from 5,818 the previous year. In the seven-county metro area, homelessness rose 10% to 9,977 people.
In Denver, the good news is that there are fewer people sleeping in tents and on the streets after a massive effort to move people indoors.
Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, who campaigned on a promise to house 1,000 people by the end of his first year in office, said the drop in unsheltered homelessness in the city was among the largest in the nation, in line with Houston and better than Seattle, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Atlanta.
There were 1,273 people sleeping outside in Denver on the January night volunteers and outreach workers conducted the count, down from 1,423 a year prior.
And as of Wednesday, there are 117 tents in the city, down from 242 when the “point-in-time” count was taken, the mayor’s office said. The city has cleared 17 encampments and closed 350 blocks of downtown to camping under the mayor’s homelessness initiative. Critics have accused the city of offering people temporary shelter instead of more permanent options.
“We have always believed that homelessness is a solvable problem, and now we have the data to prove it,” Johnston said in a triumphant news release. “Denverites should be proud to live in a city that responds to homelessness with compassion.”
Not counted in the survey: the 4,300 new migrants from mainly South America who were sleeping in city-funded shelters on the night of the count.
The Metro Denver Homeless Initiative, which organizes the annual count required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, said that leaving migrants out of the count was the best way to determine “the most accurate information of those experiencing homelessness on a single night.”
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The number of people living in shelters in Denver grew by 20% throughout the year, however.
In the seven-county area, the number of people sleeping outside increased by 5.6%, to 2,919. The number of chronically homeless — people who have not had a home for at least a year — rose by 16% and the number of homeless families grew by nearly 50%, to 3,136 from 2,101.
Volunteers spread across the metro area, throughout Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Broomfield, Denver, Douglas and Jefferson counties, from sundown Jan. 22 to sundown Jan. 23, tallying and interviewing people in shelters and outside.
Johnston said the data shows the city needs to work harder at preventing homelessness in the first place, as well as expanding family shelter and permanent housing options. The Denver City Council is scheduled to vote next week on whether to ask voters to approve a sales tax to generate $100 million annually for affordable housing. The Affordable Denver Fund would pay for 44,000 units of affordable housing over the next 10 years, the mayor said.