After a string of sub-zero temperatures, Denver is turning up the heat on how to handle and house the influx of migrants to the city, which is approaching 38,000 people since December 2022.
While many of the migrants have moved on, thousands have stayed even as winter moved in. The city took more than 300 migrants off the streets during the first two weeks of January, sweeping two migrant encampments and opening congregate shelters to make room for their displaced residents before temperatures dropped. Over the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend, the number of migrants in shelters reached almost 5,000 as the city moved individuals and families to places like the McNichols Building at 144 West Colfax Avenue.
By the early morning hours of January 16, temperatures had plummeted to as low as negative-19 degrees.
Hours later, Denver City Council was slated to consider a proposal that would stop city agencies like the Department of Transportation & Infrastructure and the Denver Police Department from moving tents and encampments when the temperature drops below 32 degrees. But during a rally before that meeting, Councilmember Sarah Parady, who has been pushing the proposal since November, said that the vote would be delayed until January 29, to give proponents time to shore up their support on council.
The January 16 rally in front of the Denver City & County Building was hosted by the Housekeys Action Network Denver, or HAND, which has dubbed the proposed ordinance the "No Freezing Sweeps" bill. In addition to homelessness advocates, it attracted a half-dozen migrants who weren't as concerned about the "No Freezing Sweeps" proposal as they were with the treatment they said they'd received at temporary shelters.
Clevis Mujica, a Venezuelan migrant who came to Denver a month and a half ago, was at the rally "supporting the cause," he said. But Mujica also wanted people to know that he and other migrants were unhappy with the situation at the McNichols Building, where they were offered only two meals a day, breakfast and dinner.
"I'm not going to say it's all bad, but there is something that gives pause," Mujica said. "They started to become stricter; everyone acts like an authority."
The policy at the McNichols Building is to "ensure that two meals are provided to adults per day," the city responds in a statement. "Because we are operating with limited resources, we have openly welcomed the community to assist us in providing additional meals. Also, guests are allowed to bring single meals into the shelter."
While Mujica disputes whether the shelter allows people to bring in food, both he and the city agree that no food storage is allowed inside — and that policy holds at both congregate and non-congregate shelters like hotels.
Mujica has a bigger worry, though: "In another week, they're going to take us out of the shelter, throw us back out onto the streets."
And the day after the rally, on January 17, the city announced that it will restore the limits on how long migrants can stay in shelters and "resume discharging migrant families with children from city-run facilities." In mid-November, Denver had lifted the 37-day limit on family stays altogether; on February 5, a deadline will again be in effect, but it will be raised to 42 days.
Migrants without children had only been allowed to stay in Denver shelters for fourteen days, but the city lifted that ban during the cold. Now it will again be enforced starting February 5.
After arriving in Denver from Venezuela in September, friends Jose Parejo and Oscar Carcamo spent most nights sleeping on the streets until finally they were approached by city staffers during a sweep, who told them they could sleep in a congregate shelter. Parejo says he's "grateful" for the shelter the city has given him; he and Carcamo both wear neon green wristbands to show they're registered at the McNichols Building. But they, too, are concerned about inadequate food supplies.
The pair attended Tuesday's rally to get a bowl of fusilli cooked with chopped vegetables and tomato sauce. "In our tent, we had access to our stuff, water, we could eat what we wanted to eat whenever we wanted, we could sleep at whatever hour," Parejo said, adding that at the McNichols Building, "they turn off the lights at 10:30. It's a lot of things, even if it's a lot of things that don't concern us too much as Venezuelan migrants, but in the meantime we're looking for solutions, we're looking for apartments."
The cold-weather shelters that were activated last week will remain open through Saturday, January 20, but will only be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Parady would like to see cold-weather shelter hours permanently extended to 24 hours, but for now, her focus remains on the sweeps. "I've been to a lot of encampment sweeps, and they really are brutal," she says. "I'm glad we're doing a lot less of that, but I think that should be enshrined in ordinance."
In a letter to councilmembers, Mayor Mike Johnston made it clear that he opposes the "No Freezing Sweeps" bill for "myriad but mostly logistical" reasons, Parady says.
"At the end of the day, the mayor and the agencies would prefer to retain the final decision-making power and discretion over when they do enforcements," Parady adds. "The feeling among myself and many of my colleagues is that just in this narrow circumstance, that discretion should be taken away."
"Mayor Mike Johnston, his administration and the City and County of Denver are committed to the health, safety and well-being of all Denverites, including those living on the streets and experiencing homelessness," according to a statement from the mayor's office. "Cold temperatures pose a serious danger to those living outdoors. If it’s below 32 degrees and we have a place indoors for folks living in an encampment to move into, we know that’s a better, safer option."
Johnston is in Washington, D.C., this week for a mayor's conference. Before heading there, he said he would appeal for federal funds to help deal with the migrant crisis in Denver, as well as ways to make it easier for migrants to get jobs; as non-citizens, they don't have permission to work.
Many members of Colorado's congressional delegation will join Johnston at a press conference today, January 18, to call on Congress to take action to support communities that are receiving migrants.
According to Johnston, the city has spent more than $38 million responding to the migrant crisis, and he's asked Denver departments to start considering cuts of between 10 and 15 percent to deal with the hit to the budget.