14/08/2024 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 14/08/2024 18:01
Published on August 14, 2024
Mayor Mike Johnston today announced a dramatic drop in recorded cases of unsheltered homelessness, among the largest in the country, as part of the annual Point-In-Time (PIT) Count. Results of the PIT Count, which is part of a national effort to track sheltered and unsheltered homelessness on a single night in January, were released this week by Metro Denver Homeless Initiative (MDHI).
The 2024 PIT Count shows Denver made significant strides in key populations, including an 83% reduction in unsheltered family homelessness, a 23% reduction in tent and vehicular homelessness, and the total population of unsheltered homeless individuals fell 11%. This is one of the largest year-over-year drops of any major U.S. city and Denver's largest single year reduction in unsheltered homelessness since MDHI began documenting county specific data. Denver's reduction is in line with national leaders on homelessness like Houston, and ahead of peer cities like Seattle, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Atlanta.
MDHI had previously documented an increase in unsheltered homelessness in Denver in every year except one. Additionally, MDHI found that unsheltered homelessness rose across the broader Denver Metro but notably fell in Denver itself.
"We have always believed that homelessness is a solvable problem, and now we have the data to prove it," said Mayor Mike Johnston. "In just six months we were able to achieve transformational reduction in unsheltered homelessness while building an infrastructure that will allow us to attack this issue for years to come. Denverites should be proud to live in a city that responds to homelessness with compassion."
More than seven months after the Point-in-Time count was administered in January, Denver has continued to make significant progress in reducing tent homelessness through the All In Mile High (AIMH) initiative, which has successfully closed 17 encampments and brought 1,673 people safely indoors. As expected, this led to Denver's sheltered population growing by 20%. As of today, there are approximately 117 tents in the city, a 52% reduction from the 242 tents counted in January.
As an additional result of AIMH, more than 350 blocks of Downtown Denver have been permanently closed to camping and, for the first time in several years, there are no large encampments in the downtown area. Denver also anticipates becoming one of the largest U.S. cities to achieve "functional zero" for unsheltered veteran homelessness by the end of the year.
Denver was able to significantly reduce street homelessness despite experiencing the largest per capita influx of newcomers from the southern border of any interior city. On the day of the count, Jan. 23, more than 4,300 newcomers were staying in Denver shelters. Nearly 43,000 newcomers have been supported by the city since Dec. 2022, with more than 12,000 people arriving in just the three months leading up to the PIT Count.
Though the decrease in unsheltered homelessness speaks to the success of the city's efforts, there is much work to be done to ensure lasting change. This means increasing our ability to prevent individuals and families from falling into homelessness in the first place, continued expansion of family sheltering, and accelerating our capacity to move people experiencing homelessness into permanent housing. To help fill the gap in needed housing, Mayor Johnston has proposed the Affordable Denver fund, which if approved by City Council and the voters will provide $100 million annually for affordable housing.