Mayor Mike Johnston told Denver City Council on Friday morning that despite objections, the city would open an emergency winter homeless shelter in the ballrooms at 4040 Quebec Street, a former DoubleTree hotel, on Friday.
“This isn’t a decision we came to lightly, but it is the one that makes the most sense,” said the mayor’s spokesperson Jon Ewing. “We’ve spent the last several weeks looking for other options — and activated four other locations ahead of this one — but 4040 Quebec is clearly the site that does the most good for the most people in this bitter cold.”
The move defied district Councilmember Shontel Lewis’ pleas for Johnston to quit concentrating poverty in her district and spread the shelters citywide.
Last month, council members voted to reject a contract between the city and Bayaud Enterprises that would have allowed the city to open the cold-weather shelter with 250 beds at the hotel.
Now Bayaud will be managing the shelter, although at a lower capacity than what was proposed.
The mayor’s office said the city still has the power to open the site, despite the council’s vote against a similar proposal.
“The city already has a signed and Council approved service agreement in place with the service provider,” Ewing wrote. “This allows us to open the site for short-term emergencies.”
The former DoubleTree hotel already serves as a long-term non-congregate homeless shelter. Initially, the mayor said he would not use it for cold-weather shelter and instead use the ballrooms as a navigation center where people living in the hotel shelters on the border of Northeast Park Hill and Central Park could get help.
So far, the full array of promised resources has not been delivered and the ballrooms have been underused.
Lewis is concerned that an emergency shelter will lead long-term shelter residents, many of whom are on the path to housing, to interact too much with people living on the street who often have acute mental health and addiction issues.
She also worries about Urban Alchemy, the California-based company contracted to oversee The Aspen, the long-term non-congregate shelter in the former hotel. She fears bringing in cold-weather shelter could make Urban Alchemy’s work more difficult.
But with temperatures dropping into single digits, the situation is a crisis and demands immediate action, the mayor’s office said.
The space has already been used for cold-weather shelter this season and throughout the mayor’s first term. The mayor’s office tried to negotiate with council in recent weeks to open the facility. Beds and mats are already in the ballroom and portable toilets are stationed outside. But those negotiations stalled.
A rift with the council
Lewis initially welcomed multiple shelters in her district, while other council members failed to find space in their communities.
Quebec Street had plenty of underused hotels that were once part of the Stapleton Airport complex. Moving shelters there proved easy for the Johnston administration, who had initially pledged to build shelters in every district throughout the city.
Lewis, who once worked for the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, has spent the past three years asking the mayor’s office to keep his promise to spread the solution citywide and has become an increasingly vocal critic of the mayor’s homelessness strategy.
On Thursday night, mutual-aid activists set up tents outside the former DoubleTree and handed out sleeping bags and food.
Lewis spoke with advocates and supporters — some of whom were demanding the 4040 Quebec shelter be opened now and others who blamed the situation entirely on the mayor.
Meanwhile, people lined the street, huddling up from the blistering cold, while others took vans from 4040 Quebec Street to cold-weather shelters across the city.
Lewis was not immediately available for an interview Friday morning.
“We recognize that some members of Council have reservations around this space,” Ewing wrote. “As a result, we have committed to reducing available capacity and focusing on serving people already experiencing homelessness in Northeast Denver. We will also not use the site for cold weather shelter beyond this season.”
Lewis maintains Johnston had three years to plan for this and there shouldn’t be an emergency scramble for cold weather shelter.
At the Thursday night protest, Housekeys Action Network Denver advocate Ana Miller said her priority was helping people get inside from the cold and that it was time to put political egos aside and open the shelter.
“We look forward to continuing our conversations with Council, but right now time is of the essence and we must do what we can to bring people inside and out of the elements,” Ewing wrote.
