Media Contact:

Craig Arfsten

President & Co-Founder

Phone: (720) 448-0084

Email address: safeandcleandenver@gmail.com

DENVER, COLORADO, AUGUST 25^TH, 2023 - Five weeks ago on his first full day in office, Denver Mayor Mike Johnston declared a state of emergency on homelessness. Yesterday, Johnston and his Homelessness Resolution Team, led by Cole Chandler formerly of the Colorado Village Collaborative, announced 11 sites for short-term housing, including 9 micro-communities, 1 hotel, and 1 hybrid location.

The Mayor has promised he will relocate 1000 people from the streets by year’s end. This goal is not dissimilar in scale from the near 600 people the Hancock administration housed during a 100-day stretch in 2022, and yet Denver has more homeless – both sheltered and unsheltered – than ever before. Even if Johnston is successful in reaching his goal, we cannot house our way out of this crisis because, well-intentioned as he may be, he’s fighting the wrong battle.

The Mayor has not yet meaningfully acknowledged the primary role that addiction and mental health play in creating unsheltered homelessness. Until these facts are recognized and addressed, Denver's crisis will only grow. We are tolerating and destigmatizing public drug consumption while enabling lives to be lost to addiction. Paired with the wide availability of dirt-cheap synthetic drugs, we have ensured that new generations of addicts will follow the current one. In 2022, the DEA intercepted 10 metric tons of Fentanyl coming into the US. That is only what they managed to catch. It is finding its way into our inner cities, our suburbs, and our quiet cul-de-sacs.

Tom Wolf is a recovered addict and national figure who spent time on the streets in San Francisco in service of his addiction. “Johnston is going to be scratching his head as to why homelessness isn’t gone in four years,” Wolf said at a town hall last Tuesday hosted by The Denver Gazette and Colorado Politics. “There is an addiction crisis amongst the homeless community," Wolf said. "I like Mayor Johnston. I think he has an opportunity to pivot because he’s new.”

It's estimated that approximately 80% of Denver’s unsheltered homeless populations – those typically living in illegal encampments on our streets and public spaces – are in the throes of addiction to fentanyl, methamphetamine, alcohol, or dangerous combinations of these. These individuals do not have agency over their lives in this state. It’s likely that many of Denver’s unsheltered homeless will not choose to move to the Mayor’s new sites in order to stay close to their drug supply and the dealers who prey on them, just as tent dwellers reject shelter and services during every encampment clean-up. What is the Mayor’s plan then?

As Denver residents and small business owners, we are gravely concerned about illegal encampments, public drug consumption, and associated crime that plagues our once thriving city. If Harm Reduction and Housing First policy were the right approach, we could look to the West Coast for examples of success. We cannot idly watch Denver repeat the failures of San Francisco, Portland, or Vancouver, when data is available to suggest there are more prudent paths.

We sincerely want the Mayor to succeed, but Denver does not have the luxury of time to conduct an experiment of this scale, knowing other cities have already tried this approach and failed. We should instead look to the successes of European cities like Amsterdam, or closer examples like Alberta, Canada, where “recovery first” models, with housing earned through good behavior, are providing real success and relief - and at a fraction of the cost. 



More information about these models can be found at our website, www.safeandcleandenver.com, and at our affiliate organization’s website, www.NorthAmericaRecovers.org.

Denver stands at a crossroads. We have begun a backward slide, but citizens and businesses are not yet fleeing our city. To prevent a potentially irreversible downward spiral, it is urgent that Denver enacts these changes:

Response & enforcement

●       Reinvigorate our public servants -- our police officers, our firefighters, our EMTs, our park rangers, our librarians -- by showing we will not ignore the immense toll that the crisis has heaped upon their shoulders. We must not increase that toll by allowing the same set of individuals to repeatedly exhaust their professionalism and dedication.

●       Mandate that the Street Enforcement Team (SET) enforce the urban camping ban. SET should issue citations for urban camping and once an individual has received three tickets, there should be mandatory jail time.

●       Empower the Denver Police Department (DPD) to enforce our current laws. We have de facto legalized crime. We allow public abuse of drugs, auto and property thefts, public urination and defecation, trespassing, menacing, and public intoxication without any consequences. Enforcement of laws would give addicts a sober pause to reevaluate their lives and behaviors.

●       Remove illegal encampments and illegally parked vehicles as soon as possible when citizens report them. Illegal encampments pose a significant health and safety hazard to residents and neighboring businesses. It is imperative encampments are quickly removed and are not tolerated. Expand funding for DOTI and EHS as needed to achieve this goal.

Recovery support

●       Expand funding for on-demand, in-patient addiction treatment facilities.

●       Move low-barrier shelter & housing options for people who use drugs outside of the city core to a homeless services campus where they will be less disruptive to Denver's 700,000 law-abiding citizens.

●       Relocate homeless service providers, like Stout Street Clinic, Harm Reduction Action Center, etc. to the homeless services campus.

●       Reduce funding for Harm Reduction programs like HRAC that destigmatize, facilitate and celebrate the use of deadly, addictive drugs and reallocate funding to recovery-oriented programs, such as STEP Denver, which has a proven addiction recovery rate at nearly 2.5 times national averages.

●       Demand HOST stop building free apartments and Safe Outdoor Spaces for active drug users without requiring addiction treatment. Addicts die at high rates in such private spaces, as shown recently in San Francisco, and the rapid destruction of these buildings is proving unsustainable. Additionally, it is unfair to the non-criminal, non-addicted tenants to try to live in such a facility.

Criminal justice

●       Demand that prosecutors hold criminals accountable. Currently, violent criminals and accused drug dealers are released on Personal recognizance (PR) bonds. People flock to Denver for our criminal legal leniency. Meanwhile Denver's police officers are demoralized by our revolving door justice system and blamed for these policy failures.

●       Work with the City Attorney to strengthen Involuntary Commitment Laws. Severely drug addicted and/or mentally ill individuals do not have the capacity to make sound decisions for themselves or to care for their own basic needs. It is Denver's responsibility to help these individuals who are suffering on our streets. We must mandate treatment where it is appropriate.

Legislation

●       Work with Governor Polis and the Colorado General Assembly to re-felonize meth and fentanyl while working to make Colorado the "Recovery State."

●       Demand the Colorado General Assembly pass legislation to prevent District Attorneys and judges from releasing dangerous criminals on PR bonds.

●       Demand the Colorado General Assembly reinstate qualified immunity for police officers and other law enforcement professionals to stanch the departures and improve recruitment and morale.

Accountability

●       Work with the Denver Auditor's Office to ensure proper accountability for the large sums expended on the crisis. All agencies working on this crisis must properly document and categorize expenditures.

●       Develop success metrics to which all non-profits receiving city funding must be held accountable. These metrics should emphasize recovery, employment, and self-sufficiency.

●       Work with Coalition for the Homeless, Denver Rescue Mission, Saint Francis, HOST, STAR, and other service providers receiving city, state, or federal funding to create a “By-Name Database” of each homeless person receiving services in Denver so we can track the effectiveness of outreach services and to prevent costly duplicative services.

We believe in subsidizing recovery and not enabling addiction. There is no compassion in permitting people to abuse dangerous drugs, playing Russian roulette several times daily, until they overdose and die on the streets.

Every life deserves compassion and every life in distress calls for support. We need to make sure psychiatric and addiction treatment is available for all, including mandatory treatment for those who present a danger to themselves or others, or can no longer care for themselves. The city must shut down all open-air drug markets while enforcing existing laws prohibiting public drug use.

We must provide emergency shelter for all who need it, with more comfortable and private housing available as a reward for those who achieve treatment objectives like sobriety, taking medications and participating in job training.

Shelter first. Treatment first. Housing earned.

More information about best-practices being proven effective in other cities can be found at our affiliate coalition, North America Recovers.

Visit our website and read the petition with links:

Citizens for a Safe and Clean Denver is a grassroots, non-partisan organization founded by a diverse group of Denverites who advocate for safe and clean public spaces for people who live, play and work in Denver.