The same week some City Council members pulled -- or threatened to pull -- support for Mayor Mike Johnston's homeless state of emergency, he announced Denver has joined several other cities working with President Joe Biden's All INside initiative to address unsheltered homelessness nationwide.
The partnership was formed over the summer with Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, the Phoenix metro area, Seattle and the State of California.
Denver is the first new city to join the program since its founding, said Chad Maisel, the special assistant to the president for housing and urban policy. No other cities are currently under consideration for the program.
The collaboration between Denver and the Biden administration will bring a senior federal-level staffer to the city to create what Johnston called "barrier-busting opportunities" to access federal support.
The program should help the city cut red tape, reduce top-down planning and bring together a cohort of metros dealing with similar struggles with homelessness, said United States Interagency Council on Homelessness Executive Director Jeff Olivet, at a press conference at the City and County Building.
The partnership does not include immediate, much-requested federal dollars for solving the problem.
Olivet praised City Council for dedicating $250 million to resolving homelessness and Mayor Mike Johnston for favoring "housing not handcuffs" in his approach to closing encampments and moving people inside.
"Denver gives me hope," said Olivet. "It gives me hope knowing 1,000 people will be inside by the end of the year."
The news of the partnership between Denver and the Biden administration comes as tensions over Johnston's homeless state of emergency have grown.
On Monday night, councilmembers Flor Alvidrez, Stacie Gilmore and Amanda Sawyer voted against extending the state of emergency over homelessness. Other councilmembers expressed they might be reconsidering.
"I'll be honest with you, you're slowly losing me," said Councilmember Shontel Lewis, who gave the mayor her support during the vote Monday night. "I'm struggling because it's really really important to me that we get this right, but I don't know that we're moving slow enough to get this right."
Lewis echoes some social service providers who argue the mayor is moving so fast toward hitting a self-imposed goal of housing 1,000 people by the end of the year that he's missing the mark when it comes to doing the work thoughtfully and effectively.
The Housekeys Action Network Denver, a homeless advocacy group, has threatened to pull its support for the state of emergency and protested the mayor's handling of homelessness at the City and County Building Monday night.
The group wants the mayor to end the sweeps, hold service providers to account in providing humane shelter and housing options, and prioritize housing the most vulnerable people -- seniors, people with disabilities and from marginalized communities -- rather than the most visible living in tents on the sidewalks.
As Johnston coalition of support at Council pushes back, the additional federal support suggests the mayor is garnering the national resources that could help him reach his goals.
"I think more partners and more resources is a great thing for Denver and for this community," said Britta Fisher, the former director of the Department of Housing Stability and the current director of the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless. "I think the All In partnership with USICH is a really hopeful sign that Denver's urgency is garnering additional resources in how we address homelessness."
Still, the partnership does not guarantee additional funding for Denver's efforts to end homelessness, though the Biden administration is well aware of the need.
Maisel noted the president has made the largest investment in solving homelessness in the country's history, but also acknowledged more needed to be done and pledged to work with Congress to do so.
"This is something that we are going to be pushing on very hard," Maisel said. "We see it in Denver. We see it across the country. There's just incredible need in terms of resources."
Biden plans to ask for funding for homelessness resolution in the upcoming budget.
"We'll see what Congress does," Maisel said.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled Britta Fisher's last name. We regret the error.
