Randi Alfrey used to know how to survive outside in Denver. She arrived eight years ago from Indiana and has been homeless for much of that time.
Lately, life outside has been more difficult for the 36-year-old.
“It's just more violent out here,” she told us while waiting for a hot meal at the weekly Mutual Aid Monday event outside City Hall. “People aren't really getting sleep, have no place to sleep safely … I see where people lose their minds.”
She blamed the unrest on the City of Denver’s crackdown on street camping. It wasn’t long ago that she could find a place to set up a tent and sleep in the center of town, at least for a few days. Now, it doesn’t take long for officials to show up and make her move along.
These days, "maybe you could stay at a place for a few hours without being harassed, kicked out,” she said. “You have to always keep moving.”
Denver has gotten tougher on people who sleep rough, she said, as officials work to carry out Mayor Mike Johnston’s ambitious plans to curb homelessness.
The mayor recently celebrated a major goal, moving 2,000 people from encampments into city-owned tiny home villages and hotels. The project — originally named House1000 and now called All In Mile High — pursues two goals: helping people move on from homelessness and eliminating the encampments that once encompassed some city blocks.
The drive to keep those blocks clear of tents, Alfrey and others told us, has resulted in more intense enforcement by police and others. Meanwhile, neighborhoods outside of the city’s core are feeling the side effects of the new policy, as people displaced from downtown sidewalks and alleys move farther out instead.
These issues are coming to a head as the Denver City Council decides whether to approve the mayor’s budget for 2025.
The debate is focused on Denver’s controversial Street Enforcement Team (SET), a civilian unit that is charged with keeping sidewalks clear. Johnston says that breaking up camps is part of maintaining public health and safety, and could encourage people to accept housing offers. But to his critics, SET has become a symbol of the harsher side of Denver’s housing program.
Johnston’s sheltering project has changed the shape of homelessness in Denver.
Councilmember Jamie Torres has heard new concerns about homelessness from residents of the Westside this year. People who once slept downtown are instead showing up in La Alma-Lincoln and Paco Sanchez parks, and her constituents have taken notice. This summer, things boiled over to such a degree that the city fenced off parts of La Alma-Lincoln Park’s lawn.
“There's a frustration point in La Alma-Lincoln Park,” she told us during a recent interview, “about what kind of homelessness we're experiencing, particularly in that neighborhood.”
Eight of the city’s last eleven sweeps of large encampments were in her district, she said. It’s a sign that downtown’s issues have shifted toward the city’s edges.
“It's on the periphery of downtown,” Torres said. “La Alma-Lincoln Park is not the only neighborhood that has seen what the push out of downtown has looked like.”
Amy Beck, an advocate who works with people living outside in south Denver, said she’s also seen that displacement.
“It's pushed people to the outskirts of the city. No one's allowed to set up tents. So we have people who are just hanging out, sleeping in the middle of the sidewalk, sleeping wherever. They just become exhausted and drop,” she told us. “They have teams that are on a schedule now, enforcing on the unhoused, moving people from block to block.”
Mayor Johnston’s plan always aimed to keep downtown blocks clear of tents, closing camps and moving their residents into hotels and “micro communities.” Law enforcement has increasingly threatened to cite people for violating Denver’s urban camping ban, more so than under Mayor Michael Hancock, in order to enforce those closures.
Jon Ewing, speaking on behalf of the mayor’s office, said Johnston and his team are proud of where things are headed, despite complaints that street homelessness is intensifying outside of downtown.
“We’ve now brought more than 2,000 people inside, are seeing positive trends in helping people move into permanent housing, and 311 calls to encampments are down nearly 50% since last year,” he wrote in an email to Denverite.
The same strategies will work in neighborhoods around the city, the Johnston administration argues.
“We focused our initial efforts on downtown because it was the greatest area of need,” Ewing added. “As we continue to focus on reducing street homelessness, connecting people to services, and expanding permanent affordable housing options, we’re confident we’re well on our way to making an even greater impact on homelessness in Denver.”
Denver police records show changes in the geography of homelessness.
The city’s Central Business District and Civic Center neighborhoods, in the heart of Denver, have seen fewer drug- and alcohol-related citations and charges in the last year.
At the same time, the La Alma-Lincoln Park neighborhood, on the Westside, has seen a sharp increase in those reports, which are correlated with homelessness.
In 2023, the neighborhood averaged only four substance crimes per month. This September, there were 29.
Other neighborhoods near downtown experienced similar changes. Capitol Hill, East Colfax, and Five Points saw near threefold increases in these crimes between the time Johnston took office and today.
Police spokesperson Doug Schepman said the department has "more capacity for proactive and complaint-driven enforcement" of these offenses, and "there has not been a directive from the Mayor’s Office to crack down on drug and alcohol crimes."
Schepman also noted that this data does not differentiate between housed and unhoused offenders.
Councilmember Torres said there is heavier public drug use in her district. It’s not something her constituents are used to.
“It is open drug use, it is open drug trade,” she said. “We are seeing that all the time.”
Substance citations began rising citywide before Mayor Johnston’s term began, and the trend has continued under his leadership. September saw the highest number of drug crimes reported citywide in nearly five years.
But some aren’t so sure there are actually more people using drugs in Denver. Lisa Raville, who leads the nonprofit Harm Reduction Action Center, said reports of substance crimes are increasing because police are cracking down on people experiencing homelessness.
“Part of me doesn’t feel like it’s more drug use. It just feels more targeted, because I think [the mayor's homelessness effort] is under such scrutiny,” she told us.
Trespassing charges also spiked this year in several neighborhoods near downtown.
As enforcement has gotten harsher, some say city support has been less reliable.
While she waited in line for dinner on Monday, Charmaine Hudson, 35, said she’s run into stricter rules as she and her husband navigate life on city streets.
“Next thing you know, here comes security. Then security’s calling the cops. And then they're kicking everybody out. It's like, where are we supposed to go?” she told us. “If we're caught sleeping, they'll give us a ticket, throw us in jail, run our names or make us move in the middle of the night. And it's cold.”
Hudson, who is pregnant, said she and her partner have had to travel farther to sleep. They’ve been living on the west side of town lately, but they regularly need to trek back into the city’s center.
“We have to come downtown to shower and eat and survive,” she said.
She was holding a ticket and court summons, issued earlier that day, for trespassing on private property on Colfax Avenue.
Thomas Grunewald, who we also met in the dinner line, said tougher enforcement has hit him hard.
“My mother was part of the equal rights movement that established all the rights for Hispanics and stuff like that in these communities. Now we can't even sit on the grass in our own goddamn parks,” he lamented. “It just hurts so much.”
All three said they’ve been offered little help. Hudson said “the city hasn't done anything to help.” Alfrey said that outreach is usually just a “little pamphlet.”
“Maybe one out of 10 times, they may recommend a place to stay for the night where they won't be harassing [us]. It's not very helpful,” Alfrey said.
Service providers say downtown’s closure actually has slowed outreach.
The city’s lockdown on downtown has made it harder, in one way, for social workers to do their job.
As people experiencing homelessness have spread out, finding them, and helping them, has gotten slower and less efficient.
“Because there are fewer large encampments, downtown outreach workers are going and finding people in further out places,” said Cathy Alderman, spokesperson for the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless. “When we were doing outreach at large encampments, we could talk to more people at one time.”
CCH organizes the Denver Street Outreach Collaborative, an alliance of local nonprofits that deploys social workers to connect people with housing.
Alderman did report one big change for the better: There are now more places to send people for housing, if they’re ready to accept the help.
Mayor Johnston’s hotel shelters were initially only open to people who were forced to move out of big encampments, but the collaborative’s workers can now refer any individuals to open rooms — when and if they’re available.
The city’s civilian enforcement team is drawing criticism.
In 2021, Denver established a Street Enforcement Team, better known as SET. It’s part of Denver’s Department of Safety, which also oversees the police.
The program is at the heart of a debate about how Johnston is executing his approach to homelessness.
SET was created to send unarmed civilians, not police, to deal with sidewalk encampments. Its officers are allowed to write some citations, but they haven’t issued any, ever, since the program launched in 2021.
It’s supervised by Jeff Holliday, a clinically trained social worker and the chief of staff for the safety department. He says that SET is meant to deal with the public health and safety issues created by encampments — but not to punish the people living there.
“I could give you 100 tickets, and nothing about those 100 tickets changes your behavior tomorrow. That's not what does it,” Holliday said in a recent interview at DPD’s headquarters on Cherokee Street. “There are some times when we have to involve law enforcement if there's a safety concern or something of that nature. But for the most part, it really is about trying to meet a person where they're at.”
SET officers are supposed to let people know if their camps, or their behavior, are illegal — while also developing relationships, gaining trust and guiding them toward help.
But at a recent city council meeting, that framing was called into question.
“[SET is] not connecting our unhoused neighbors with the resources, which was the very first thing that we asked for,” said Robert Davis, head of the Denver Task Force to Reimagine Policing and Public Safety,during a public comment session. “There is, what has been reported by several of our citizens, an intimidation and harassment that has been taking place.”
According to daily activity log, SET officers offered help to people during about 50% of their 3,700 stops between June of 2022 and April of 2024. Davis and others say that's not frequent enough.
Councilmember Sarah Parady thinks SET, and enforcement, must change.
This week, city council will consider an amendment to Mayor Johnston’s 2025 budget. If approved, the change would move SET out of the Department of Safety and instead place it in the Department of Housing Stability, or HOST.
HOST manages things like city shelter programs, affordable development and eviction prevention programs. They’re the department that ultimately helps people, Parady said.
SET “has regular contact with unhoused people and yet isn't within the city agencies that know where resources live,” she told us. It's the second time Parady has brought this amendment to a vote.
Some activists have called to “defund” the street team altogether. But Parady stressed her proposal is a clean “transfer,” without reducing its funding.
“The SET team is symptomatic of a desire to gloss over the extent of the problem that still exists, and the focus on downtown enforcement in particular,” she said. “That piece, unlike so much else of what we're doing, feels like it's about optics. And I don't think we should put our resources towards optics.”
These issues will continue to be pressing, she added: "That's to be expected when you're evicting 15,000 households a year."
Other solutions are coming, but they’ll take time.
Denverites have both celebrated and criticized Mayor Johnston’s homelessness project since he took office, even as it was just getting started.
Alderman, with the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, emphasized that more attainable housing is the only thing that will make a true, lasting impact on these issues. That won't happen overnight, she said.
Ewing, speaking for the mayor’s office, noted the city is ramping up other initiatives in the meantime, namely Road to Recovery, a program meant to specifically address addiction.
That kind of support has become more relevant, he added, since “often, those still on the streets are individuals with greater needs in terms of addiction or mental health challenges.”
In other words, many people have moved into other shelter through Johnston's initiative — but those remaining outside may face especially difficult challenges.
Parady said Road to Recovery is “making really promising steps," despite her concerns about other parts of the mayor's program.
In the meantime, neighborhoods like La Alma-Lincoln Park will continue to wrestle with the fallout from tougher enforcement downtown. And people like Randi Alfrey will keep trying to avoid authorities as they look for places to sleep.
She was placed in a hotel by the homelessness initiative — at least for a little while, before problems with her roommate forced her back outside.
“It was just all bad,” she told us. “They said the only way for me to fix the situation is that one of us would have to leave and then come back. Well, I left and I just didn't come back.”
