DENVER — Denver's mayor has a goal of housing 1,000 people by the end of the year, and he plans to do it again next year too.
The city is moving people from homeless encampments to hotels by the hundreds. Rooms at hotels are filling up and Denver will need to start securing more sites to meet next year's goal.
Mayor Mike Johnston said Thursday he's not worried about running out of space.
Tucked between a Stay Inn and Peoria Street in northeast Denver sits a tiny home village at 12033 E. 38th Ave. About 50 people living on the streets will ring in the new year with a roof over their heads.
"We have two cleanups this weekend and those will be the last of our encampment closures," Johnston said. "They will go to one of our hotel sites or this new micro-community site."
Johnston said the city's first micro-community site will open Sunday. The roughly 50 pallet shelters are part of his plan to house 1,000 people as space at hotels fills up.
"We will in 2024 get back to work on bringing on more units," he said.
As of Thursday afternoon, 611 people are in a House1000 unit. After two encampment cleanups this weekend, the city expects that number to go up to about 800 people. Right now, Denver has secured just over 1,000 units through hotels and three micro-community sites.
"We started with 2,000 sites we were looking at when this began," he said. "Even though we are at 11 or 15 we were working on the last couple of months we are still sourcing new sites."
Johnston said two more micro-community sites will open in January or February. Those are located at 1375 N. Elati S. and 2301 S. Santa Fe Dr.
He plans to house 1,000 more people in 2024, so the city will need to secure more sites.
"We are still working to find sites in every district," he said. "We think we can get there in some capacity."
Six out of 11 districts don't have a site right now. The tiny home village on 38th Avenue is the third site to open in District 8.
Johnston said they don't have a hard deadline on when someone needs to find permanent housing after moving into a hotel or micro-community. They are targeting for 90 days, but the city expects it could take six months for someone to move into permanent housing.
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