Denver will have two more safe parking sites by summer of 2024. That's on top of the two sites already in operation, which provide a safe place to park along with wraparound services for people experiencing homelessness.
City Council approved the $600,000 expansion with the Colorado Safe Parking Initiative Tuesday. It's a major addition to the program, whose original contract amounted to $150,000. The expansion is made possible by a recent Council bill that made programs like the safe parking sites and safe campsites permanent.
Originally a pilot program during the start of the pandemic, Council codified the programs as an interim solution to people living on the streets while the city simultaneously works to increase its long-term housing stock.
The expansion will allow the program to grow from serving 30 households to 300 households in the next three and a half years.
Safe parking sites served around 260 people in the metro Denver area, but only 30 people in Denver proper, from June to December of 2022, according to Midori Higa, Director of Homeless Resolution Programs with the Department of Housing Stability. Of those served, 45% moved into permanent housing.
The average stay at the safe parking sites was around 90 days.
The current sites are located at First Universalist Church at Hampden Avenue and South Colorado Boulevard, and at First Baptist Church on Grant Street.
Each site currently allows eight vehicles to park overnight. They provide basic services like bathrooms, access to water and a few others along with weekly case management. Like with the safe campsites, the parking sites aim to help people who might not be able to get into other forms of shelter or housing due to accessibility issues, living with a pet or partner or other barriers.
With the expansion, the third site will open at the end of 2023 and the third by August 2024, though locations for those sites have not yet been determined.
The Council bill making the program a permanent part of Denver's approach to homelessness also allows the safe parking sites to operate in one location for up to four years, as opposed to just a few months under the initial pandemic-pilot program.
Currently, the sites only serve passenger vehicles, but adopted program guidelines allow for campers, vans and RVs.
Terrell Curtis, Colorado Safe Parking Initiative Executive Director, said accommodating vehicles like RVs is more complicated because the program is currently set up for cars to solely stay overnight at the sites, whereas RVs would stay put during the day.
Curtis said there's a large need for accommodating larger vehicles. It's something that might grow even more, after City Council passed a controversial parking bill in May that restricted where RVs and trucks can park on city streets. Homeless advocates and the American Civil Liberties Union said the bill would unfairly target people living in their cars, while Councilmembers said the bill fixes necessary loopholes in Denver's parking laws.
"We're working towards that," Curtis said about providing sites for RVs and larger vehicles.
But what the program will look like past the latest contract expansion remains up in the air. The expansion is funded through the American Rescue Plan Act, a form of federal pandemic funds that need to be allocated by the end of 2024. Higa said future funding will be up to City Council and the Mayor's office to decide what is and isn't funded in future budgets. Mayor-elect Mike Johnston has expressed support for housing solutions like safe camping sites.
