Sweep of Homeless Encampment in Ballpark District Gets 145 People Off the Streets in One Day

Before boarding a bus that would take her from the Ballpark District to a converted hotel where she will now be living, encampment resident Ryan Huff told Westword she hoped she would never have to do this again.

"I've been homeless my entire life," the eighteen-year-old said. "It'll be nice to just not have to go back to it."

On Thursday, December 7, the City of Denver moved Huff and nearly 150 others off the street and into city-provided housing after cleaning up the encampment where they lived at 951 20th Street, near the U.S. Post Office.

Mayor Mike Johnston said at a press conference before the sweep that another 100 would be moved in next week, with that group including people who didn't get signed up from the Ballpark District encampment and residents from another one at 48th Avenue and Colorado Boulevard in the Elyria-Swansea neighborhood.

The efforts are part of Johnston's House1000 initiative to get 1,000 homeless individuals into housing by the end of 2023. He needs to shelter over 650 people (as of December 6) to meet his goal, which his administration still hopes to accomplish. 

The city is moving more than 200 homeless residents from the Ballpark District and Elyria-Swansea encampments into the DoubleTree hotel at 4040 Quebec Street over the next two weeks, according to Johnston. Each resident will work with case managers to figure out how long they need to stay in the hotel, which has been converted into transitional housing, before being able to find a leased unit, per Derek Woodbury, spokesperson for the Department of Housing Stability.

Two buses showed up at the Ballpark District encampment on Thursday to take residents to the hotel. They were allowed to bring two bags each and a bike or scooter, if needed. Extra belongings will be stored at a separate facility for at least sixty days, with an option to extend that if necessary.

Thursday's sweep and the one coming in Elyria-Swansea next week "will allow us to close two of the largest encampments in the city," Johnston said. "Over the next two weeks, the move into [the DoubleTree] will put us over 500, so we'll be past the halfway point," he told reporters.

"We have a number of other sites set to open over the next two to three weeks," he added, including micro-communities that are expected to be up and running by the end of December.

For Denver's homeless, the housing can't come soon enough.

"I really can't stand being out here like this," said Ballpark District encampment resident Xavior Leme, as he packed up his life into some city-provided yellow garbage bags. "I've been very happy that this was a thing, because I needed it so badly."
Dozens of outreach workers took part in the sweep on Thursday and helped pack people's belongings. City officials weren't exactly sure how many they had on hand; some were "redeployed" from other departments, as Johnston poached about thirty employees last month and shifted them into outreach roles to help meet his House1000 goal.

"We always knew there would be a lot of movement in December because we were planning to open a large number of sites in a short amount of time," Johnston said Thursday. "Even our unhoused neighbors are prepared for that. I was talking to folks about that this weekend at encampments we have yet to close. They know there's a big push coming in the next three weeks."

In the Ballpark District, homeless residents welcomed the push with open arms. "These guys showed up and instantly said, 'You're allowed in,'" recalled Huff. "They've been really nice, staff are extremely nice. They offer a lot of help."

But as with previous sweeps where housing was offered (and people missed out), not everybody at the encampment was smiling. "We got here and they missed us," said homeless resident Paul Lopez. "They set up a list, they got the people to go to their new homes, and we're still not on the list. They're supposed to start another list, and they haven't done it yet."

Lopez had been at the Ballpark encampment for two weeks and has been homeless for three years. He has yet to get into housing, citing bad luck and not being around when outreach workers come by.

His plan: continue camping on Champa Street, across from the post office, until he catches one of them.

"We'll just have to take a chance," he said.

The Ballpark District encampment has now been swept twice, with the first cleanup happening on November 1. The first sweep only cleared out a portion of the block, as the city was only able to offer housing to 61 people because of the limited number of units available. Folks caught in that sweep were sent to an undisclosed hotel, according to the city.

For months, the Ballpark encampment has surrounded the post office and nearby businesses like the Carioca Cafe (aka Bar Bar). The mailboxes outside the post office had to be removed after they were vandalized.

The residents who are staying on the opposite side of Champa Street, away from the post office, were skipped over Thursday, as the city only has about 500 units ready to house people in and is expecting to hit that capacity with these sweeps today and next week at Elyria-Swansea.

Kelsang Virya, an activist who founded Mutual Aid Monday to give homeless residents free food, supplies and services, was handing out cigarettes and talking to some of those homeless residents who missed their chance at housing on Thursday. She said that while it's unfortunate that the Johnston administration missed them, you "just have to be happy for the ones getting in" at this time.

"It's been joyful and not so joyful with the mayor," Virya says. "But some people are getting in, so that's worth something."