DENVER — Denver Mayor Mike Johnston says President Trump’s funding cuts to Colorado are keeping the City of Denver from housing 400 people experiencing homelessness it would otherwise be able to.
According to the Mayor, the Denver Housing Authority lost at least 180 housing vouchers in 2025 after federal funds were pulled back. The city also cut 80 vouchers to deal with its budget shortfall.
All of this comes as several shelters within Denver are closing this winter because of the budget issues.
Johnston said the city is currently spending $8 million less on homelessness than it was when he assumed office in 2023, but it is still finding ways to meet its goals.
“We feel pretty good about finding a base, stable level of homelessness funding that is ongoing, and that's really stabilized for us,” Johnston said. “We've dropped homeless spending significantly over the last couple of years. That is working, and now we're really focused on quality, consistency and speed to get more and more folks up and out. A lot of that is really focusing on job training. We'll have a big focus on job training and work placement this year.”
One of the shelters closing is the Park Avenue Inn. It opened during the pandemic with the end-goal of putting affordable housing on the property, but has since come to serve dozens of people experiencing homelessness in Denver as a non-congregate shelter and unofficial transitional housing.
The Park Avenue Inn is set to close this month before it is demolished and affordable housing is built on the lot.
Of the 36 residents currently staying at Park Avenue Inn, the Colorado Coalition of the Homeless (CCH) tells Denver7 30 have exit plans to other housing. That includes, referrals to Renewal Village, another property owned by CCH. The single-occupancy studio apartments are in a former hotel near W. 48th Ave. and Bannock Street in Denver.
Mayor Johnston says the plan remains to house all 36 so none return to the streets.
“We're in the midst of doing housing placements for those folks,” he said. “I haven't gotten a number update, but our plan is to house all of them, and that's worked in our previous hotel closures. And I would say that was actually more strategically driven than budget driven.”
Denver7 also asked the mayor about the new non-profit, Urban Alchemy, which took over the Quebec shelter after the city chose not to renew its lease with the Salvation Army. The non-profit has faced allegations of data misrepresentation, fraud, and overspending in other cities.
So far, Johnston said he has been happy with the non-profit's performance.
The $30-million contract with Urban Alchemy was structured in a way that the non-profit only gets paid if it meets certain performance benchmarks.
- Watch Denver7's full interview with Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, in the video player below:
One of its first moves was to bring formerly homeless individuals who have had run-ins with the law to work as outreach specialists.
“Almost every city has contracts with partners like this, but it's moving from the idea that we're just warehousing people to the idea that we're really actively managing them to reach success,” Johnston said. “It's a scary thing to say we're going to take responsibility for the success of someone who might not be ready to work hard to succeed, yet it takes real courage on their part, and they stepped up, which we're really grateful.”
