The city of Denver on Thursday launched the North Denver Resource Center to make city services readily available for residents in and around Globeville and Elyria-Swansea.
The center will be housed in the Valdez-Perry Branch Library and, according to the city’s official release, will connect the North Denver community to “vital economic mobility services, including housing support, financial coaching, resources for citizenship and small business assistance.”
This effort falls under the economic mobility pilot initiative that the North Denver Cornerstone Collaborative (NDCC) is launching this year.
These services have been lacking in the area for quite some time, and according to NDCC Director of Mobility Will Chan, “A lot of different services were being requested — food resources, housing resources, immigration resources, basic navigation services — and there were barriers to these services like going downtown, going to the Webb building... so we asked as a city how can we do better to meet them where they are?”
Not only have city services been inaccessible in North Denver for a while, the area has seen a lot of displacement as its housing market has undergone significant changes.
Staff are prepared to tackle problems as they come but the center is not necessarily tied to one specific issue.
“I do not think our goal is to be a direct solution to every foreseeable problem. Our goal is to provide as many services as we can, as directly as we can,” Chan said. “We’re taking a holistic look at the upward mobility of an individual, a family and a community.”
The center will house a variety of services that rotate by the day to help residents access vital resources on a weekly basis. For instance, food and health services will be present on Mondays, and Wednesdays will incorporate business training for job seekers and business owners.
According to NDCC Director of Communications Leesly León, the center has already had its first visit, just hours after opening.
