Ending veteran homelessness in Denver this year and street team allegations discussed

Photo byBenjamin Faust/Unsplash

Mayor Mike Johnston’s stated goal Monday to end veteran homelessness is something the city of Denver has been promising for at least 10 years. The other homeless news of the day, a report by Housekeys Action Network Denver that they say shows the criminalization of homelessness is at an all-time high, is critical of Johnston's administration.

Representatives of HAND as well as former mayoral candidate Lisa Calderon during public comment period Monday specifically pointed to the alleged harassment of people experiencing homelessness by the Street Enforcement Team, or SET. While originally proposed as a way to connect people experiencing homelessness with resources, the city's SET team regularly sweeps encampments out of downtown and into the suburbs, advocates for people experiencing homelessness said. Members of the SET team essentially are civilian police, homeless advocates say.

“Enforcement that is going on by the SET team is torturing people who are out on the street,” said Amy Beck, who asked the council to disband SET. She said SET even is harassing the housed. She said a friend of hers had a problem with his dog behaving strangely and he stopped on Santa Fe to seek assistance. But he was mistaken by SET as a homeless person loitering, Beck explained, and was run off.

‘Harsher and harsher enforcement'

Beck said SET also is sweeping encampments with children, sometimes twice a day, and not offering the children food or water. According to attorney Andy McNulty, “The (Mayor Mike) Johnston administration has shifted to harsher and harsher enforcement.”

Jerry Burton, a veteran, said he believes people experiencing homelessness need long-term housing, not temporary shelter, which the mayor’s House1000 program has mostly provided. But Johnston said during a press conference Tuesday only 52 homeless veterans remain on the street. He believes the city can house them all by the end of this year. He said the city will achieve a “functional zero” status for veterans, meaning more people are exiting homeless services then entering them. Director of Housing Stability Jamie Rife said 35 of the 52 remaining unhoused veterans already have housing vouchers and are looking for units.

Momentum from Built for Zero

Built for Zero is a collaboration of 90 communities nationwide committed to ending homelessness. On its website, Built for Zero offers a case study of Denver’s effort. “In 2020, metro Denver partners were able to achieve a 22 percent reduction in veteran homelessness,” according to the case study, released in August. “That marked the largest reduction metro Denver has seen since joining Built for Zero in 2015 and totaled 514 veterans housed in the calendar year. Much of this reduction was driven as part of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Metro Denver Homeless Initiative is coordinating the effort to get to zero homeless veterans. “Due to the complexity and diversity of the communities across a geographically expansive continuum of care, the community struggled to achieve data quality, understand what was happening across the vast geography, and subsequently coordinate efforts to drive reductions in veteran homelessness at the local level," according to the case study. "The team found that key elements of a homeless response system — for example, outreach, Homeless Management Information System coverage, access to resources — significantly vary from county to county."

Now, the City and County of Denver has overcome those obstacles, according to Johnston and Rife, and is set to become the largest city in the U.S. to end veteran homelessness.