DENVER — Denver City leaders have plans for a new 20-family homeless shelter in the Elyria-Swansea neighborhood along near Columbine St. and 43rd Ave.
The location is a former halfway house that the city bought last year, telling Denver7 they planned to use it for their Roads to Recovery Program.
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In a community meeting required during the zoning process, leaders shared their plans for a 20-family shelter with the community.
“Really for the last year we've been hearing from families that are living on the streets that are in need of safe space,” said Cole Chandler, the Executive Director for Denver’s Department of Housing Stability. “What our system needs is a place where we can bring people in, triage them and help get them connected to longer term shelter and housing opportunities. So for us this represents a great step forward.”
Neighbors—both in person and calling in—told Denver7 they feel like there hasn’t been enough communication and their concerns aren’t being heard.
“I understand that we need this kind of shelter in our city,” said life-long Swansea resident Candi CdeBaca. “I’m frustrated that the city has not equitably dispersed this type of solution across city council districts. It is still District 8 and District 9 that are bearing the brunt of this solution as far as shelters are concerned.”
See the system access points on the Metro Denver Homeless Initiative website.
CdeBaca—who was once a Denver councilwoman— says she feels like her neighborhood has become a “dumping ground” for large industries like concrete, data centers and a Denver Water facility. That—combined with what she says are dangerous conditions— makes this neighborhood the wrong choice for a family shelter.
“I don't think the people who are coming are going to endanger our neighborhood,” said CdeBaca. “There's a lack of grocery stores, child care, green space, all of those things in our neighborhood. That's where we're saying is the right place to place the most vulnerable people.”
Neighbors were also apprehensive about this shelter being so close to another proposed 400-bed cold weather shelter, about a mile away on Monroe St. There’s a separate community meeting for that shelter October 8.
Hearing concerns from neighbors is why the city holds these meetings, according to Chandler.
“What we wanted to do tonight was to hear what are some of those concerns so that we could work to address them as we move our plan forward,” he said. “I think we heard a lot of really reasonable things about what life looks like on the block, what life looks like in this neighborhood, and things that we should consider as we talk with our service provider.”
Denver7 has reached out to the city to see if or how the shelter plan could be changed to address community concern.
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