La Alma sits south of West Colfax Avenue across from the Auraria Campus and the Golden Triangle, just under the nose of Denver's Central Business District and Civic Center neighborhoods. It's also just west of Speer Boulevard and east of Interstate 25, with light rail stops nearby on West Colfax Avenue.
Just a bit west of La Alma, the West Colfax neighborhood and green areas like Paco Sanchez Park and the Lakewood Gulch Trail have had similar concerns with increased homelessness. District 3 Councilwoman Jamie Torres represents both areas, and since May has said that spikes in reported crime and homelessness are the result of Mayor Johnston's House1000 plan, which displaced downtown homeless encampments.
"A lot of it just made its way down the light rail line," she told Westword in May. "Everywhere along the light-rail line has been pop-ups and tear-downs of camps."
In 2023, Johnston set about trying to solve homelessness in Denver by rushing to move 1,000 homeless residents indoors, a plan dubbed House1000. After declaring victory, the mayor promised to move another 1,000 indoors as part of his All In Mile High plan, all part of a larger goal of solving Denver's homelessness issue in his first term.
Councilman Kevin Flynn similarly believes that homeless residents followed light rail lines away from downtown and settled in neighborhoods in his district, such as Harvey Park and Bear Valley, with residents in late May complaining about more homelessness around vacant buildings and people living out of their RVs or cars.
In April, the La Alma neighborhood was dealing with an encampment of about 150 people that had collected around the Eighth Avenue bridge and its underpass on Navajo Street. At the time, Johnston had filled the hotels and micro-communities that he's been using to shelter people for House1000 and All In Mile High, which have cost the city more than $130 million to buy or lease during the last two years.
Residents at the La Alma encampment in April told Westword that they were there after being swept out of downtown encampments.
With no room at city-owned inns, Johnston had to sweep the La Alma encampment, wait for vacancies at the All In Mile High sites and hope that city workers would bump into the encampment's displaced residents at another encampment to offer them housing.
For some, Johnston's plan worked. Most of the people swept out of La Alma in April ended up at a nearby encampment of about sixty people off East 14th Avenue and Kalamath Street in the Baker neighborhood, according to the Department of Housing Stability (HOST). That Baker encampment was swept in late April, and its residents ended up being moved into the La Paz micro-community in the Overland neighborhood.
But Johnston has admitted to being disappointed with how he resolved the La Alma encampment.
"As I said to our team, our goal is that never happens again," Johnston told Westword in July. "We want to make sure we have enough units that are always available to move people, and we want to make sure we don't let them grow so large that we're not able to house them."
However, since the large sweep in April, homelessness has been a lingering problem in La Alma, one that Councilwoman Torres considers "a serious priority," according to Angelina Gurule, a spokesperson for her office.
La Alma's Current Homeless Issues
Councilwoman Torres is now working with the mayor's office, Denver Police District 1, the Department of Safety and Denver Parks & Recreation to handle the rise in reported crime and homeless encampments, according to Gurule.David Griggs, a boardmember of the La Alma Lincoln Park neighborhood association, says that "the feeling about homelessness in the neighborhood is about the same right now" as it was in April, when residents were dealing with the West Eighth Avenue and Navajo Street encampment.
"The problem is still here, and it appears to pop up in different locations periodically," he says. "Now some of that population has migrated north and set up near Colfax between Osage and Kalamath. Yes, La Alma neighbors are still as concerned about homelessness, and the neighborhood association hears about it when it gets close to these neighbors."
Data shows that fewer people reported homeless encampments to 311, the city's complaint and service request hotline, this year compared to the past two years, which Johnston's administration points to as a sign of success. However, that success is trending the opposite direction for La Alma's streets.
The number of calls made to 311 to complain about encampments on Osage Street was 39 in 2022 and 49 in 2023; this year that number is up to 79 as of October 28, according to data from the Denver Technology Services Department. On Mariposa Street, the number of 311 calls about homeless encampments was 46 calls in 2022, and that has more than tripled to 155 in 2024.
Osage and Mariposa streets run along the west and east sides of La Alma-Lincoln Park, the historic park at the center of the neighborhood. Although the two streets dip less than a mile into the Baker neighborhood to the south, they're mostly in the La Alma neighborhood and have seen significant spikes in 311 reports for homeless encampments.
Similarly, on West Colfax Avenue, which passes through a handful of Denver neighborhoods, 311 calls for homeless encampments jumped from fewer than fifty in 2022 to nearly 300 in 2024. Even without counting calls about encampments on East Colfax Avenue, the street with the most 311 calls about homeless encampments in Denver in 2024 has been West Colfax Avenue.
Downtown streets have seen significant drops in 311 reports for encampments during the same time frame, especially where Johnston focused his House1000 efforts. The biggest sweep of House1000 took place around the U.S. Post Office in the Ballpark District near the intersection of 21st and Curtis streets; the mayor's office said it cleared nearly 200 people off that block with several sweeps last November and December.
The number of homeless encampments reported to 311 on Curtis Street went from 37 calls in 2022 to 144 calls in 2023, but in 2024 that has dropped to just seventeen calls as of October 28. On 21st Street, the number of 311 calls went from 513 in 2022 to 490 in 2023, then dropped dramatically to just twenty in 2024.
On 22nd Street, where businesses like Woods Boss Brewing and the Mercury Cafe complained about large encampments hurting business, the number of encampment reports to 311 dropped from 220 in 2022 to just 21 in 2024.
Based on 311 data alone, House1000 looks to have benefited some Denver streets while hurting others. Griggs admits, however, that even though more homeless residents have moved into the neighborhood, La Alma is still not as bad as it was when the 150-person encampment around West Eighth Avenue was there in April.
"My experience is that I haven’t seen the density of homeless in the neighborhood since the encampment under the Eighth Avenue viaduct was swept," Griggs says. "The problem isn’t as bad in that part of the neighborhood now, but I would guess that most of those people moved north to Colfax and south into the west part of the Baker neighborhood."
Torres has also made headway into securing help for La Alma. In late August, Denver Parks and Recreation (DPR) fenced off portions of the park and closed it due to concerns with drugs, vandalism and violent crime, according to the DPR.
HOST swept thirty people out of an encampment near West Colfax Avenue and Mariposa Street on September 13, which moved thirty people into All In Mile High sites.
In early October, the National Park Service awarded an $8.4 million grant to Denver Parks and Recreation for upgrades at La Alma-Lincoln Park, including expanding the skate park and playground, adding a roller skate loop, a pollinator garden and more trees, restoring the amphitheater and making safety upgrades like installing more lighting, according to the DPR.
Mayor Mike Johnston talks to La Alma residents about a 150-person homeless encampment in their neighborhood during an April 9 town hall at the Denver Inner City Parish with Councilwoman Jamie Torres.
Bennito L. Kelty
On October 21, Johnston declared victory on his All In Mile High goal for 2024 when he announced that the city brought 2,000 people indoors months ahead of schedule. The city says it's still working hard to address the issues in La Alma, though.
"The city is continuing to work diligently to quickly respond to encampments and bring people experiencing homelessness inside," says Katherine Wembly, a spokesperson for HOST. "DPD is also active in that area, responding to 911/311 calls, and teams from Roads to Recovery are working alongside nonprofits to ensure folks have access to substance abuse support as well as transportation."
Roads to Recovery is a program out of the mayor's office designed for homeless residents dealing with addiction or low-level criminal records like trespassing or drug possession. Jon Ewing, a spokesperson for that office, says that the statement by HOST "sums up our administration’s action."
Homeless resident Dustin Fitzpatrick came to La Alma six months ago after being swept from encampments in Globeville, Commerce City and south Denver. He chose La Alma because "I have a lot of family and friends in this area," he says.
During his six months in La Alma, Fitzpatrick has seen "a lot of police activity, a lot of movement" of tents and gatherings. He doesn't blame the police for moving him around so much as he does the households in La Alma, which he suspects keep reporting him and other nearby homeless residents to law enforcement.
"If we had more help from the community themselves, people wouldn't be such outsiders in a way," he says. "We would have more resources, but the community looks like we're dangerous or vile, filthy people. We've got to do what we've got to do to survive out here."
Thick snowfall that started falling on Tuesday, November 5, has "made it harder to sleep outside," Fitzpatrick says. Even though the city activated emergency shelters to bring people off the streets and into the warmth, he doesn't know how to get to those shelters but would prefer to stay close to La Alma, where he already has friends and areas where he knows he can sleep undisturbed.
Other homeless residents have gone indoors. According to Fitzpatrick, this makes it harder for him and others who choose to stay outside "to mingle around and get certain supplies to stay warm."
Fitzpatrick says he'd be happy to leave La Alma for one of Johnston's All In Mile High sites, but he just hasn't had the luck of making his way into one. Getting swept into one of the mayor's sites "would be great," he says, but he twice missed his chance after encampments where he was staying were swept while he was gone, including once while he was in jail, he says.
"I've been trying to get into housing for six years now," Fitzpatrick says. "I'm hoping someone helps me out with a hotel or a tiny home or something."
