"We have been talking about this, our path towards getting not only 1,000 people off the streets and into housing, but also how we support those people in long-term access to permanent housing," Johnston said at a press conference on Wednesday, November 8.
According to the mayor, the city has found its solution: a partnership with Housing Connector, a nonprofit tech company from Seattle whose online platform is similar to apps like Zillow or Apartments.com, but geared toward previously homeless residents in transitional housing who need to get back on their feet.
The company, which launched in Denver in November 2021, will work specifically "to help people that are moving from some of our micro-community sites or hotel sites to exit those transitional units and into permanent housing," Johnston said.
The partnership will help pad things on the back end of the mayor's House1000 plan, as the city is now able to use housing vouchers from the state and the Denver Housing Authority to move at least 500 people into apartments, which Johnston sees as the final step toward permanent housing.
"That is 500 stable, permanent housing exits that we have for people," Johnston said. "We're not just making sure they get on that first step on the ladder to housing, but onto a much more long-term, stable step."
Nearly 200 housing vouchers are slated to come from the state, with another 100 from DHA.
Meanwhile, the Salvation Army is offering rapid re-housing assistance to help pay for 200 units.
Housing Connector will match people with the housing vouchers to units that accept them. It's meant to save previously homeless residents the useless exercise of shuffling through spots in Denver that may cost, on average, upwards of $2,800 a month.
"The actual capacity for someone living unsheltered in the street — you don't have a phone, you don't have a physical address. You can imagine how hard it is for any of us to try to hunt for a unit to rent in this city," Johnston said. "Try doing it without the infrastructure and support you need for you to get there."
The process of finding places that accept housing vouchers would have been "very cost-intensive" for the city to take on itself, according to Johnston. Housing Connector says it's already put more than 5,600 people in stable housing through its platform.
The company will "identify and source those units all around the city," per Johnston, "so we're identifying available units, we're identifying apartments, agreements we can create on the front end. We can help put dollars down to save and preserve those units, and then we can be able to immediately connect someone with the voucher," the mayor explained.
"Before Housing Connector, we were trying to call each landlord at a time to try to find individual sites and try to create different management structures for each of those sites," Johnston added. "I found the most efficient and effective way to do that is have one partner where all providers can come, whether they are apartment owners or landlords."
The city expects homeless residents to start using Housing Connector to find their new homes by the end of the year. It will also "push to bring these [500] leased units" by 2024 as well, Johnston said, referring to the permanent units made available for homeless residents through vouchers and rapid re-housing assistance.
The pipeline that the mayor envisioned for his House1000 plan was one where the city sweeps encampments around Denver, puts residents from those encampments into transitional housing — like converted hotels or micro-communities — and from there helps them find permanent housing.
The city has housed about 140 people via sweeps so far, but about eighty more have also been connected to shelters through sweeps and are counted toward the House1000 goal, according to the city's online data dashboard.
Johnston has housed 221 people previously living on the streets, per the dashboard. That's more than a fifth of the way to his House1000 goal, with a month and a half left to meet the mark. Speaking to Westword this week, Johnston remained confident.
"Yeah, we still believe we're on a path to be able to get there by the end of the year. We know there's a lot of moving to do between now and December 31, but we also knew that was part of the process," Johnston said. "We have a real urgency to bring 1,000 people inside by the end of the year."
The contract with Housing Connector is worth $400,000 and runs through the next six months, though Johnston says, "We envision this being a long-term partnership, because we think the need is going to be ongoing."
