Denver’s “Church of the Homeless” at Risk of Closing

Christ’s Body Ministries is known among Denver’s homeless for the quality of its cafeteria, but the registered nonprofit thinks of itself as more of a church, according to Steve Smith, the organization’s finance director.

“We’re kind of a ‘Church of the Homeless,'” Smith says. “Inasmuch as there is no official ‘Church of the Homeless,’ that’s how we see ourselves. We’re a church first, and what we do is built around that.”

Every weekday morning from 7 to 9 a.m. at 850 Lincoln Street, Christ’s Body Ministries hosts a food kitchen and a daily communion, the Christian practice of worship by consuming bread and wine as a symbol of Jesus Christ’s body. Smith not only leads the church’s finances but the communion as well, constantly reminding those in attendance that the ritual honors the idea of sacrifice and giving up what you have for others.

For nearly forty years, Christ’s Body Ministries has served a rotating menu of hot breakfasts in Capitol Hill. They include steak and eggs on Monday, French toast on Tuesday and huevos rancheros on Wednesday. According to Christ’s Body Ministries, it serves more than 80,000 meals a year. About 150 people eat at Christ’s Body Ministries every morning, “and for many, that’s their only meal of the day,” Smith says.

The faith-based nonprofit prides itself on offering an array of services for homeless residents. People can sign up for a fifteen-minute shower or queue up for a private restroom, which isn’t always easy to find around Denver. Christ’s Body Ministries gives away more than 16,000 pounds of clothes to homeless residents a year as well, according to Smith.

“We have people who come in here before heading to a job interview,” he says. “They can shower, and we’ll find the right clothes for them. We’ve had someone tell us he’s coming in for a meal twenty minutes before a job interview. He took a shower, we gave him the clothes, and he came back with a job.”

But many of these services are now at risk, even after a community-driven donation drive. According to Jim Copeland, the executive director of Christ’s Body Ministries, the organization is facing a severe financial shortfall and needs about $100,000 in order to continue operations.

A friend of a Christ’s Body Ministries worker took to Reddit last week, asking for small donations to lift the nonprofit out of a “massive financial crunch.” The post generated an empathetic response while raising around $4,000.. Although that still leaves a major monetary gap, Christ’s Body Ministries staffers were uplifted by the support.

The response was “surprising,” Copeland says. “We didn’t know anybody had posted anything until we saw the donations.”

Smith didn’t know about the Reddit post until donations started rolling in. “Usually, I’ll come in and see that we only had four or five credit cards listed,” Smith says of the standard daily donations. “I came in, and I was seeing fifty credit cards. I was thinking, ‘What’s going on?'”

The nonprofit goes through “ups and downs,” he adds, and is “usually on the edge” of overspending its annual budget of just under $1 million. However, an extended period of tough times has made it hard for the nonprofit to keep up with operational costs, paying vendors and keeping up its Cap Hill building, which is nearly sixty years old.

“Maintenance is what you would expect in a building as old and big as this,” Smith says. “We have residents. We’ve got to keep this place functioning and safe. We have a certified, commercial kitchen that we have to keep running and sanitary.”

Christ’s Body Ministries runs two transitional housing programs out of the building, which has about a dozen rooms. The programs help both homeless residents and former convicts exiting the Colorado Department of Corrections, the state penal system.

The organization is also known for its mobile services, according to Smith. On weekends, Christ’s Body Ministries equips a van with clothes, food and hot water for showers, and travels to busy homeless shelters like the Salvation Army Crossroads Center in Five Points, the Denver Rescue Mission’s 48th Avenue Center in northeast Park Hill, and the Denver Dream Center in the Ballpark District.

Workers have noticed a greater need in the homeless community since 2020, says Tiffany Beckford, chief of staff at Christ’s Body Ministries, adding that needs have increased as donations have declined.

“Around COVID, we saw the need really increase, but the support increased right with it. We saw a lot of donations come in. People at that time were more willing to give away food, clothes, whatever they could,” Beckford explains. “Later, we saw the need was still high, but people weren’t supporting us the way they had. People get tired of donating.”

The City of Denver has invested heavily in solving homelessness under Mayor Mike Johnston, who claims to be halfway toward his goal of solving the issue in the city. According to the annual Point in Time count, a federal estimate of local homeless populations, Denver has seen an increase in homelessness during Johnston’s almost three years in office. In 2023, more than 5,800 people were homeless, compared to 7,300 people in 2025, according to PIT counts. However, the number of people sleeping in the streets has decreased during that time, from more than 1,400 people to fewer than 800.

“These people deserve dignified care,” Copeland says, “and that means dignified meals, not just what we have or what’s left over or something out of a can.”

Chick-fil-A, Olive Garden and Eddie V’s Prime Seafood donate ingredients and food for meals at Christ’s Body Ministries, including chicken, biscuits and steak, and the nonprofit keeps a chef on staff to cook the meals, Copeland says.

“We rely on volunteers a lot,” Copeland notes. “But we have a chef to make sure that the meals people are eating are the same quality, if not better than what you or I eat every day.”

As a result, Smith notes, Christ’s Body Ministries has a positive reputation among homeless individuals, who often remember their daily meal rotation by memory “and recite it back to us on the street.”

Although the $4,000 raised on March 13 is a drop in the bucket for what the organization needs, Smith says it creates breathing room.

“It’s enough to pay the bills and get us to the end of the month. It’ll get us through April,” he concludes. “I was messaging people we couldn’t pay back, saying, ‘We have the money! We can pay this!'”