Randle Loeb, a 71-year-old longtime homeless activist, was working his day job at the Environmental Protection Agency when he heard the news: The Aloft hotel, where he had been living through much of the pandemic, would be closing to residents in April.
The 130-some homeless residents temporarily living there will be forced to find new housing -- which was just what residents of downtown condo and apartment buildings rallied for before City Council last May.
News that the Aloft contract was ending surprised both staff and Loeb's fellow residents.
The residents are some of the most vulnerable in Denver to COVID-19 and other respiratory illnesses. In May of 2020, the city arranged the rooms to keep these residents safe during the pandemic. Denver hired the Salvation Army to run the facility.
The plan was never to make hotels like Aloft long-term solutions. Much of the funding for such hotels came from federal COVID-19 emergency grants.
"Our Protective Action hotels were never intended to be permanent facilities, but rather, serve as part of our pandemic emergency response," said Department of Housing Stability communications and engagement director Sabrina Allie in an email. "As emergency shelter sites have closed throughout the pandemic, partners operating these sites have given advanced notice to guests and connected people to available housing and alternative shelter options."
Residents had been told from the beginning that the housing would not be a permanent solution, said Kristen Baluyot, Denver metro social services director for the Salvation Army. But residents had not been given a timeline about when the hotel would close.
Even a week after City Council renewed the seventh and final contract between Denver and JBK Hotels, which owns Aloft, neither residents nor staff had been informed the end was coming.
Why the delay?
The nonprofit's human resources department was busy reviewing a letter to notify staff days after the decision was made.
"Unfortunately, our timeline was slower than City Council's timeline," Baluyot said Tuesday of this week. "So therefore, my own staff found out yesterday, much to their surprise, as well as some clients of ours. So it's unfortunate the way that things have been communicated."
The Salvation Army planned to pass out notices to residents on Tuesday night, but Loeb said neither he nor others in the building have received notice as of Wednesday morning.
So what's next for the residents?
Loeb fears people will be forced back to the street.
He has just recovered enough from a knee surgery to ride his bike around town. The idea of moving his belongings on his own is inconceivable, and he imagines he will have to throw his things away.
"With the immigration issues that are going on right now, there'll be no place for people who are severely disabled to go," he said. In recent weeks, migrants and asylum seekers have arrived in Denver from the U.S. border. Their arrivals strained existing city resources at the end of the year, but the number staying in city shelters has fallen this week.
Because many of the people at the Aloft live with disabilities, they require accommodations that will be hard to find.
And housing, in general, is in short supply. When homeless residents were forced to leave the Quality Inn in last September, some had vouchers for housing but were unable to find a place to use them.
"It's a much more universal problem that the whole geography does not have any options for anyone," Loeb said.
The city does have plans to buy hotels to help house people experiencing homelessness on a path to permanent housing. But some of those projects won't open until 2024, Loeb said.
"We recognize that this transition is a difficult one - and transition always needed to occur at some time," Allie of HOST said. "Fortunately, we do have several months to work with our partners at the Salvation Army to ensure as many guests as possible are able to transition to a housing outcome."
The Salvation Army hopes to find a place to live for every resident of Aloft, but Baluyot acknowledged that could be a challenge.
"The population that we are working with at Aloft is actually among the more challenging populations to get housed, given that many of the individuals there have significant medical needs, are not able to get employment, so they're living off a very, very limited income. So we consider them the harder-to-house folks," Baluyot said.
So Salvation Army isn't just looking at traditional solutions like rental assistance. The group is trying to connect people with assisted and supported living facilities so the residents have access to things like daily health support and hygiene care, she added.
Four case workers have been assigned to the Aloft residents and their transition.
Since the start of the pandemic, the Salvation Army's Crossroads facility has helped permanently house 350 people experiencing homelessness, Baluyot said.
Here's how the city said it plans to support the Salvation Army's effort.
"We are already meeting with them to ensure they have access to as many resources as possible to find the best housing outcome for each individual in the program, including needs for medical and behavioral health supports," Allie said.
Whether residents find permanent housing or not, Baluyot said there will be possibilities for everybody other than the streets.
"We expect everyone will have the option to exit into shelter, if there's any stragglers," Baluyot said. "But our goal is that nobody exits into shelter and everybody exits into something that's more appropriate than a shelter setting."
Loeb, who is an expert at advocating for himself, has already begun to reach out to City Council members, Salvation Army staff and organizations like the Harm Reduction Action Center for support.
Here's what he wrote DOLA:
The response: "HOST will be your best source for timing and process. Be well and HNY."
