Migrant response may cost Denver another $16.6 million

Photo byBarbara ZandovalonUnsplash

The Safety, Housing, Education and Homelessness Committee of the Denver City Council will consider Wednesday approving $16.6 million in contracts to provide housing, food and personal items to migrants enrolled in the city’s asylum seeker program.

If approved by the committee and later the full City Council, Haven of Hope will receive $5.8 million to administer the program, its waitlist and provide food and personal items to the migrants. ViVe Wellness will get $7.9 million and Papagayo will receive $2.9 million to provide housing and utility assistance.

ViVe will find housing for 230 households, according to the contract. They will help the tenants maintain their apartments, the contract states. “The goal of these services is to help newcomers with navigating unfamiliar housing and rental norms and a new economic system as well as language barriers or other barriers they may experience as they seek stability in the United States,” according to the contract.

From December 2022 to July 1, 42,392 immigrants, mostly from Venezuela, have passed through the mile-high city or made Denver their home, according to city officials. The city has spent $72 million on the welcome wagon, according to a news release.

Migrant influx slows to a trickle

Now, however, far fewer migrants are arriving than when busloads were coming from Texas. Only 14 migrants arrived Tuesday, according to the city’s online migrant dashboard. Currently none are in short-term shelter, the dashboard shows.

In April, Denver Mayor Mike Johnston announced that Denver would enroll 1,000 new immigrants already in Denver in the asylum seeker program. The program offers asylum seekers help filling out immigration paperwork, job training and six months free rent for an apartment.

The move, expected to cost $90 million this year, is half as much as Johnston feared the city might have to spend in 2024. At the height of the migrant influx, Denver was sheltering as many as 5,000 people, mostly in hotels and motels. The city also fed the migrants three times daily.