Denver Claims to have Solved it’s Homeless Problems
Radio Austin
RadioAustinTexas.com
We Know How to Fix Homelessness. Look at Denver.
Homelessness, all appearances to the contrary, is a long-solved problem. We know both the causes and the cure. You wouldn’t think that’s the case for think that’s the case from visiting many U.S. cities. Stymied by political and financial hurdles, progressive bastions — including Los Angeles, Seattle and Burlington, Vt. — appear to have given up. They have surrendered public spaces to the homeless and their encampments to the point that it’s difficult to describe these spaces as truly for the public anymore.
Denver shows what happens when a city puts into place proven policies with determination and focus. Not only has it significantly reduced homelessness; it embarrasses every other urban jurisdiction that has failed to deal with its Covid-era surge of homeless encampments. Other cities no longer have an excuse.
Denver has recorded the biggest recent drop in street homelessness among the largest U.S. cities, according to my analysis of local data. The city’s drop was roughly 13 times the national rate in 2025, the most recent year for federal statistics.
Since 2023, Denver’s unsheltered population is down 64 percent.
“What they’re doing is working,” said Samantha Batko, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Urban Institute, which is independently evaluating the city’s progress.
Since Mayor Mike Johnston of Denver took office in 2023, he has focused on getting unsheltered homelessness to zero. He has done so by using some fairly standard ideas. Police officers break up homeless encampments, warning that repeated violations could lead to arrest. With the help of social workers, the city connects those people to services and shelters. Crucially, it has expanded those services to ensure that officers and social workers have something to connect people to.
By successfully combining enforcement and social services, Denver demonstrates that cities don’t need to choose between those binaries. They should do both.
Politically, none of this is easy. On the policing side, progressives remain skeptical of using law enforcement to deal with what they see as largely an economic issue. On the housing side, the constraint is money. Building housing and shelters requires public and private funds that cities often don’t have and aren’t willing to prioritize over other spending and tax cuts.
Speaking from an office stuffed with Colorado memorabilia, Mr. Johnston said he wanted to go further. He laid out a vision to ensure that all people are housed and that public spaces are actually available to the public. “Our fundamental mantra when we started was our belief that all of our problems are solvable and we’re the ones to solve them,” he told me.
Image
Mayor Mike Johnston of Denver outside Elati Village.Credit…Jack Fox for The New York Times
On a Monday afternoon, Mr. Johnston played tour guide. He wanted to show me the city’s new homeless shelters and how they differed from traditional facilities. We walked 10 minutes from City Hall — the mayor stopped to congratulate a wedding party on the way out — to a block of tiny houses known as Elati Village.
Each resident there gets a small house that offers a level of privacy not typical for homeless shelters. Valentino Ortiz, a former Elati Village resident and a transgender man, said privacy was important for his safety. He recalled a previous stay at a more traditional shelter. “The third day, I was already getting sexually assaulted,” he said. At Elati, “you have a beautiful tiny home to call your own. You have hot showers. You can cook your own meals and do laundry.”
As we walked through the building, residents told the mayor they finally had been able to get their lives in order. Staff members at the Aspen and other shelters spend much of their time preparing people to leave. They help residents get the documents they need to find a job and permanent housing. They connect them to training, education programs and additional government aid, including housing vouchers and rent subsidies. Residents don’t face hard limits on how long they can stay, but providers are, under their contracts, evaluated on how many people they help get on the right path.
Source: NY Times
Last Updated: 10/23/2026