"We want to have conversations with people, hear the direct concerns that you have and the direct feedback you want to give," Johnston told the crowd of about fifty people. "We probably have the most experts on this that we've had during any previous meeting."
Chandler explained that the city wanted to have the meeting ahead of Johnston's micro-community going up at the site in (roughly) the next week, an action the mayor subsequently announced in a press release the next day. The residents had already voiced their opposition to the micro-community — now scheduled to be the first to begin construction — days earlier. The meeting took place in the dusty state-owned field where the city will be setting up shop.
"We're getting ready to break ground on this site next week," Chandler said. "The mayor wanted to show up in person and tell you all in person that was happening rather than you seeing that was happening."
"There will be a fence going up around here, we'll start to see clearing and moving in preparation of this site to be built," he said. "The hope is that it would be operational by the end of the year in order to meet our goal of getting 1,000 people indoors by the end of the year."
Johnston hosted the informational — and somewhat impromptu — gathering at around 1 p.m. Sunday and approached it with a friendly attitude, saying he hoped no one missed the kickoff to the game between the Denver Broncos and the New York Jets.
While some residents claimed they were notified of the meeting via notices that were taped up around the neighborhood, some said they didn't know about it until they saw it happening outside their homes. Community leaders said they were notified by the District 7 city council office, but most didn't know about it until Friday or later.
Flor Alvidrez, who represents District 7 — which includes Overland — on Denver City Council, was in attendance along with Denver Police Chief Ron Thomas and Denver Sheriff Elias Diggins to talk with constituents.
Micro-communities are central to Johnston's House1000 plan to get 1,000 people off the streets and into housing by the end of the year, but ever since the mayor unveiled the location of eleven of the planned sites, communities have been up in arms. When asked if any other groundbreakings are scheduled, the mayor's office told Westword: "We don’t have a timeline currently. We should know more about meaningful construction activities either at the end of this week or early next week."
Some sites will require demolition before they can start, which is said to be the case at 5500 East Yale Avenue. Residents from the area next to the Yale Avenue site were at the Overland gathering on Sunday.
For Overland neighbors, the micro-community is a looming reminder of their history as a Denver Radium Superfund Site after the S.W. Shattuck Chemical Company dumped hazardous material into the land in the 1980s. Businesses once stood at the 2301 South Santa Fe location before it was blighted by the expansion of Santa Fe Drive.
"There's a psychology here that has to do with Shattuck," says Jack Unruh, co-president of the Overland Park Neighborhood Association. "The widening of Santa Fe was catastrophic. We're usually the kind of people who are targeted for this kind of thing. We're low-income."
Still, Unruh sees the micro-community as bringing the possibility of attracting new uses for damaged land that will benefit the surrounding community. "I have high hopes," he says. "This process, as it matures over perhaps four years, will make a lot of developers think about this place. It's a good thing, because this has been a fallow blight for many years."
The meeting was broken up into three groups by Johnston, to give residents a chance to get more specific answers to their questions. Chandler was in charge of answering questions about developing the micro-communities; Thomas handled questions about safety and security, Johnston about policy.
At one point, Chandler gave new details on what the micro-community at the Overland location will look like. He revealed that 120 units will be divided into four neighborhoods, all separated by fencing.
"It will not operate like one large site with 120 units," Chandler said. "It will operate like four smaller sites, four smaller neighborhoods."
During a community meeting on September 28, the mayor said that roughly 155 units and more than 300 occupants would go into the micro-community. And while on Sunday he and Chandler both denied making the claim, Johnston did admit that he had decreased the micro-community's size in response to feedback.
Cole Chandler listened patiently as an Overland resident berated him and the City of Denver for bringing a micro-community to the neighborhood.
Bennito L. Kelty
"We changed the plan on purpose after feedback," Johnston said. "That's why we listen, so it's meant to get better with your feedback."
The entire micro-community will have "a fence all the way around," according to Chandler, and "there's a gate as a point of entry and exit, and 24-hour staffing on site."
City officials passed out fliers on Sunday that show how the homes in the city's new micro-communities, including in Overland, will be shack-like structures — some with a front patio. Several large buildings will also be placed in the Overland site as "community buildings," which will each include "office space...a full kitchen, bathrooms, things like that," Chandler said.
According to the mayor's office, the micro-communities will also offer employment services, support services, laundry and trash pickup.
Each of the four neighborhoods at the Overland site will have at least two security officers on patrol at any given time, so there will always be a minimum of eight people standing guard. Chandler added that even more will be at the site during the day, because that's when case management services will be taking place. He stressed that the way the micro-community runs depends on the "internal policies and procedures" of whoever ends up servicing the community. The city itself won't be running things from the inside; that job will be left up to a third party that bids for the role, according to Chandler.
The city put out a request for proposals about two months ago to find a service provider to run the site, but Chandler said it's still early in that process. "We're in the contacting process for the service provider," he said. "We're in the negotiation phase with the service provider for this site. As soon as they're under contract, we would be introducing them to the neighborhood and helping set up a Good Neighbor Agreement."
Chandler and Johnston emphasized that Good Neighbor Agreements — also known as a Community Benefit Agreement — would play a large role in keeping the area around the micro-community safe.
"One of our intentions here is to establish a Good Neighbor Agreement," Chandler said. "What that intends to do is to make sure there are really clear lines of communication between the neighborhood and the operator and the city around anything that happens at this site. It's not the neighborhood's business to decide how the operator operates their site. It is the neighborhood's business to decide what happens outside of this site. Anything that happens outside of these gates is your business, and we don't want anything happening outside these gates that negatively impacts your neighborhood."
Chandler assured residents that the Overland micro-community will be "managed in a way that keeps everyone inside the site and everyone outside the site safe." He said if the managers "don't meet those requirements, then they will no longer be our operator."
The people living in the micro-community will be those swept out of homeless encampments, though the city hasn't prioritized any encampments in particular.
"We're really targeting people that are in encampments, and we're making selections about where those encampments are that we will target," Chandler told Westword. "We're not actively putting out information that people call and get on a wait list. We don't want this to be a walk-up service site. We want to find folks in encampments and bring them here."
Johnston looked calm and casual during the Sunday meeting, even as one resident yelled from a nearby patio the entire hour and a half that "Johnston is a liar!"
"He lied to me, he'll lie to you," the neighbor yelled.
The man, who didn't want to identify himself to Westword, said that Johnston had visited him during his campaign and promised to solve his concerns about homeless people staying in the Overland area.
"He came here and shook my hand," the man claimed. "He promised me he would solve this problem. Now he's moving all the homeless people in across the street."
His hollering continued throughout the gathering, though the man — who was in a neck brace — changed up his taunts.
"What is the mayor doing now?!" he yelled at one point. "Is he still lying?!"
Both Johnston and Chandler were caught flat-footed when residents asked if they were concerned about the fact that an elementary school bus stop is located across the street from the incoming micro-community.
Chandler, specifically, was berated by locals after he asked "Where is it?" in reference to the bus stop.
"You guys should know that!" shouted resident Lee Ann Montoya. "I'm so blown away by all this! You guys really seem to be clueless with everything."
Chandler responded, "Well, that's why we're here. We're learning, too."
Johnston told residents that his staff would identify the bus stops and he'd talk about it later with them. But not before he and Chandler got a dressing down.
"I just don't feel like you guys are prepared for all this," Montoya charged. "What is the real set plan about everything? It's constantly changing. It went from 310 people were going to be in here to 120."
Chandler fired back, "We never said 310."
"Yes you did," Montoya replied. "The mayor, out of his mouth, said 155 units with two people each. He specifically said that."
Jenn Greiving, co-president of the Overland Park Neighborhood Association, says if there's anything to gather from the confusion, it's that communication with the mayor's office right now is the "biggest concern."
Many of the residents her group represents feel like the city has been "inconsistent and hasn't always answered the questions we have," she says. However, meetings like the one on Sunday are a step in the right direction.
"This meeting, we really appreciate him coming out, and especially with senior staff, because it shows he's willing to listen to the specific concerns we have," Greiving says. "Things are developing very quickly, and the speed at which things are happening makes it difficult for us to keep up."
