He poached thirty employees from other departments to help with the House1000 project. He scheduled seven sweeps for the last two weeks of December. And he pushed a handful of contracts through Denver City Council on Monday, December 18, in order to lease hotels to house the individuals and hire organizations to service them.
At that meeting, council passed four contracts to buy or staff three hotels in the Central Park, Globeville and Hampden neighborhoods. Despite the tight time frame, Johnston was able to slip in the informational community meetings required by zoning code to let residents know that nearby hotels were becoming shelters.
But some residents have voiced frustration about getting a meeting with the mayor only a few days after that council vote that will allow shelters in their neighborhood.
"They didn't let us know about it until it was already done," John Milne, a Globeville resident, says about plans to convert the Radisson Hotel at 4849 Bannock Street into a 200-unit shelter. "They do deals, and we don't know about it until it's already done."
"The deal is done already," adds Joe Herrera, another Globeville resident. "They do this in such a small, short time. They want to be able to say that they talked to us, but they're really just blowing smoke up our asses."
Herrera and Milne both attended a community information meeting on December 21 to hear the mayor's plan for the Radisson Hotel, which previously housed migrants. The meeting was "all smoke and mirrors," Herrera says.
According to the city's Homelessness Resolution Operations Center, residents were given 21 days' notice of the meetings, but it admits that Denver officials were in a rush.
"We are in a state of emergency and need to move as quickly as possible to help those experiencing homelessness," according to the HROC statement. "As of [December 22], Mayor Johnston has held 60 town halls, community information meetings, RNO meetings, and business leader conversations as part of the House1000 initiative."
When he took office in July, Johnston said he would host town halls in all 78 of Denver's neighborhoods to discuss his plan for resolving the homelessness crisis. He fell more than a dozen meetings short, according to the HROC.
When he took office in July, Johnston said he would host town halls in all 78 of Denver's neighborhoods to discuss his plan for resolving the homelessness crisis. He fell more than a dozen meetings short, according to the HROC.
On December 16, Johnston had met with Hampden neighborhood residents two days before council approved a $31 million contract to buy the Embassy Suites at 7525 East Hampden Avenue. The hotel will be converted into the Tamarac Family Shelter, which will house children and their parents coming off the streets.
Rose Guilmette, a resident of Hampden, attended the meeting; she felt like it was held just "to check all the boxes," she says.
"It was already preordained prior to the meeting," she adds. "No one is against helping families. It's the way the city did it, and the community had no say in it."
Speaking during the meeting, another neighbor said that it felt like plans for the shelter were being "shoved down my throat."
The city wanted to buy the Embassy Suites because its 200 units include spacious suites with kitchens, Johnston told residents. They would be good for families, he added, and he wanted to get the facility up and running in time for parents to register kids for school during Christmas break. As many as ninety children are expected to live at the hotel.
Initially, Johnston had made new micro-communities a key to House1000. But with more than half of those plans canceled and all but one micro-community delayed to next year, he'll be housing most of the people who come off the streets this year in six former hotels, most of them in northeast Denver.
The 289-unit former DoubleTree at 4040 Quebec Street — now dubbed the Denver Navigation Center — is now housing hundreds of formerly homeless. Johnston expects more to soon move into Central Park's Stay Inn at 12033 East 38th Avenue, with 95 units. The only micro-community that the mayor expects to open this year will be nearby.
The Best Western at 4595 Quebec Street is now housing formerly homeless individuals in its 190 units. On December 18, council approved a $3.1 million contract to buy the Comfort Inn at 4685 Quebec Street; it has 136 units, and the St. Francis Center will staff and operate the site.
The Colorado Coalition for the Homeless owns the Clarion Inn on West 48th Avenue and the La Quinta Inn at 3500 Park Avenue West; the city has contracted to hire hundreds more formerly homeless individuals there.
That puts a large concentration of shelters in Globeville, says Joseph Henry, who complained about that in a December 15 letter to his councilman, Darrell Watson.
"There will be over 600 hotel rooms dedicated to the homeless," Henry wrote. "To put this in perspective, there are only 1,134 households in all of Globeville! The last thing Globeville wants or needs is another homeless community. We have done our share."
That puts a large concentration of shelters in Globeville, says Joseph Henry, who complained about that in a December 15 letter to his councilman, Darrell Watson.
"There will be over 600 hotel rooms dedicated to the homeless," Henry wrote. "To put this in perspective, there are only 1,134 households in all of Globeville! The last thing Globeville wants or needs is another homeless community. We have done our share."
At the December 21 meeting, Johnston told Globeville residents that he would hold quarterly meetings to hear feedback on the shelters in their community. He didn't mention any similar plans to Hampden neighbors, and Guilmette worries that Johnston will forget about the Tamarac Family Shelter once he reaches his House1000 goal.
"This was all to push his promises, and what I'm afraid of is, is he going to abandon this and move onto another hotel?" Guilmette asks. "It was bulldozed on us, no input. I'm going to make it my job to make sure he meant what he said."
