DENVER — Denver Mayor Mike Johnston on Monday night delivered his 2025 "State of the City" address.
The mayor celebrated decreases in homelessness and violent crime on the city's streets while acknowledging the work he said still needs to be done with affordable housing and a revitalization of downtown.
Johnston also spoke of a "political crisis" during the second Trump administration and painted Denver as the city that would become the "capital of the new West" through sustainable growth.
- Watch the full address below
RELATED: Denver7 Investigates sat down with Johnston ahead of the address, as he marked two years in office late last week – and we took questions from Denverites straight to the mayor for his response. See that interview here.
Read the full transcript of the mayor's address as distributed by his office:
Welcome to the 2025 State of the City, and thank you for being here tonight.
First, I want to extend a deep thank you to our Denver City Council, who made it to the DCPA in record time tonight after wrapping up their regular Monday night meeting. Thank you for being here, and thank you for your continued partnership.
I also want to extend a heartfelt congratulations to President Sandoval and President Pro-Tem Romero Campbell, who have been incredible partners to me and advocates for our city over the last year, for being re-elected to their leadership positions as President and President Pro-Tem of City Council.
And finally, I want to welcome and thank our local and state elected officials who made the time in their busy days to be here today, especially Governor Polis and Mayor Peña.
From our city’s earliest days, Denver was never a sure thing. In the 1850s, as the country tore itself apart on the road to civil war, we were taking our first steps as a small town with big ambitions at the base of the Rocky Mountains. Local leaders had the audacity to nickname us the Queen City of the Plains. As an early community, we set our sights high… Then we lost big.
The transcontinental railroad, a breathtaking invention of unprecedented ambition, this highway to hope had passed Denver by. When its builders decided to run the railroad through Cheyenne, not Denver, our little upstart Queen City of the Plains risked being relegated to a mere spectator in the great story of American progress.
But Denver refused to take no for an answer. Civic leaders mobilized to get a railroad line built from Cheyenne to Denver connecting us to the rest of the country and the world. Looking back on it now, that moment marked a turning point—absent the right leadership, progress — and history —could have passed us by.
When Denver became the capital of the old west, it was made possible by dreamers and entrepreneurs who saw opportunity where others saw obstacles. Leaders like Barney Ford, who when denied a mining claim because he was Black, instead went on to open restaurants and hotels and became one of Colorado's wealthiest citizens. All the while he advocated for voting rights for all Americans and became the first black man to sit on a grand jury. Immigrants like the Irish, Japanese and Chinese workers who built our railroad, then stayed to build their families and enliven our city. Pioneers like Casimiro Barela, who was born in Mexico and didn’t cross the border – the border crossed him, after the Mexican-American war when the southern half of Colorado that was previously Mexico, became the United States. He embraced his new country, started a ranch, served in the state legislature, helped write our state constitution, and ensured it was published in Spanish and German. These were the founders who helped make Denver the capital of the old west—a hub for innovation, emerging industries, and the arts. And in 1886 we even had a baseball team, the Denvers, that won the national championship, so all things seemed possible.
But the old west wasn't open to all of us. Denver was built on Ute, Arapahoe and Cheyenne land, taken through broken treaties and violence, families were forced to flee to Sand Creek only to be massacred by American soldiers, on Colorado’s deadliest day. Our Chinatown was burned in race-based riots, where 19 year old Look Young was brutally hung. And just 100 years ago, the Mayor who gave this very speech, won reelection for his open embrace of his ties to the Ku Klux Klan. For too long, opportunity was offered to some while many others were excluded, attacked, or driven away.
Yet even in those dark chapters, we see the seeds of a different Denver being planted. We see new opportunities created by women like black activist Elizabeth Ensley, and journalist Ellis Meredith who led the fight to pass women's suffrage at the ballot box. In 1893 an all-male electorate passed it with 55% of the vote. According to historians, it seems to be the last time 55% of men were right on anything. We immediately elected three women to our legislature, including Denver's Clara Cressingham, the first woman to introduce a bill in American history. That tradition of inclusion and bold leadership lives on today with our current, historic council: with 9 women, 6 Latinas, and now two Latina council presidents back to back, with maybe a third on the way.
160 years later, that proud Queen City faces new challenges. How do we drive economic growth while keeping Denver affordable? How do we add housing and transit without losing our connection to the outdoors? How do we ensure our growing city feels as safe as a small town, where kids can bike to the store without parents worrying? How do we build a city that is vibrant, affordable and safe for all of us, so that 150 years from now our grandkids will look back with pride at how our innovation and ingenuity proudly established Denver as the capital of the new west.
Some of what was true in the 1860s is still true today: we can look out from the peaks of these Rocky Mountains onto a country in crisis.
Today, we face a federal administration that is cutting health care for the sick and food for the hungry. Banning books. Pulling people off the streets and sending them to prisons without lawyers or hearings. Threatening to cut funding for roads and bridges if we teach the stories of Look Young and Sand Creek. Withholding money for terrorism prevention and wildfire response because Denver believes—just as we did in the 1860s—that immigrants can help write the next great chapter of this city.
Amid this political chaos, global trade wars are driving up prices for Denverites and threatening to shutter our shops and restaurants. Even the bedrock principles of our democracy—like birthright citizenship—are suddenly back on trial.
But beyond a political crisis of our current President, we face something deeper: a crisis of identity.
Who are we now as a country? The insurgent belief is a refusal to believe in anything but yourself. Don’t believe in your government, or your neighbor, or your family. Tear it all down and look out for yourself. Attack those who try, mock those in need, blame others, not just because of what they’ve done, but because of who they are.
That is not only a recipe to prevent us from getting things done – it is a poison to eradicate our very human instinct to turn to each other when times get tough.
That ideology would not only have failed to get us connected to the transcontinental railroad, it would have convinced us not to try at all.
And it is that ideology—of despair and defeat—that this Queen City of the Plains stands firmly against.
Denver has thrived because, above all, we bet on each other. We believe in each other. And when things get tough, we work—we don’t whine. We lean in and lift each other up, instead of stepping back and placing blame.
So in this moment, Denver can serve not just our city—but our country. By building a city that shines as an example of who we still are: people who dream, who build, who solve. People who don’t abandon our values when they’re tested—but reaffirm them.
In that identity, in that commitment, I believe we can write the story of the new West.
We will carry forward the values that made the West great: optimism, opportunity, a connection to the land and to the world. But when we’re asked again to choose inclusion or exclusion — we will choose inclusion.
We will reject the hatred and division of the old west — and the cynicism and bullying of this dangerous new era. And instead, we will hold tight to the belief that we are stronger together. That we can build something—together.
If we do that, I believe we can make Denver the capital of this new West.
We know Denver is no stranger to challenging times. In our first 50 years, we survived two devastating fires, a flood, and the Spanish flu. Today, we face our own challenges—some fueled by national political instability, others by the ripple effects those decisions have on our local economy and our city budget.
To meet this moment we have to find a way to make government work better, and cost less.
That means staying deeply focused on what matters most to Denverites. And it requires deciding what priorities and programs may be meaningful in times of growth, but are not essential in times of need. That’s the work ahead of us in the coming months.
As we make these hard decisions, we will be guided by the same core principles:
We will minimize impact on Denver residents and protect core city services.
We will remain focused on our city’s top priorities.
We will stay focused on equity to protect those Denverites who are most at risk.
We will minimize impact on our committed and selfless city employees.
Every month I host a pin ceremony where I recognize Denver employees who have served the city for 5 years or more. These are some of our incredible public servants who have steered Denver through good times and bad. Last week I recognized Todd James and Ashley James.
Todd has spent 40 years as a Denver Police Officer, he is the last remaining officer from his class of 1984. His wife Ashley has spent 20 years as a 911 call taker, answering the phone anytime a desperate Denverite is calling for their lives.
Todd was on duty the day of the 1987 stock market crash, when the towers came down on 9/11, rushing to secure city buildings when we didn’t know who might be next. He kept this city safe through a historic Democratic National Convention, three Super Bowl parades, two Stanley Cups, and one NBA championship.
And every day—especially on the hardest days—he and Ashley showed up with a full heart, a big smile, and a selfless willingness to serve.
That is what our 15,000 city employees do—every single day.
So the next time you get a driver’s license, walk into a rec center, watch your trash get picked up, send your child to an after-school program, see a pothole filled or graffiti removed—I want you to know: those city workers are stepping up every day in the rain and snow, even when they’re taking a pay cut to do it. Because they love this city. And they’ve dedicated their lives to serving you and delivering a Denver that is vibrant, affordable, and safe for all of us.
Living up to their example has been my administration’s mission for the last two years, and before we turn to the mountains still left to climb, there is much to celebrate in the progress of the peaks we've already cleared.
On the first day of our administration we declared a state of emergency on homelessness. We did it because we had people dying on the street in record numbers, we had large encampments spread around the city, we had thousands of tents blocking access to post offices and churches and hospitals, strangling businesses and frightening residents.
We started there because it was a humanitarian crisis threatening the lives of people living on the streets, and it was an economic crisis threatening the city’s post-COVID recovery.
So we went to work. In the first 180 days we acquired 1,000 units of safe, dignified transitional housing. We stopped sweeping encampments from one block to the next, and started moving people into housing in record numbers. We decentralized support services so people could access help wherever they lived.
Now, at the halfway point, we have done something historic. In the last two years street homelessness in Denver has dropped by 45% -- the largest multi-year decrease in unsheltered homelessness of any city in American history. We’ve closed every large encampment in the city, and re-opened sidewalks to pedestrians and businesses. We have moved 7000 people off the streets and moved 5000 people into permanent housing. And we became the largest American city ever to end the cycle of street homelessness for veterans.
There’s more work ahead—we’re not slowing down. But today, we say thank you to the thousands of city employees and nonprofit partners working every day to make this possible. They deserve our deepest gratitude.
Our other top priority has been public safety. We focused on putting more officers on the streets and are on-track to hire a total of 300 police officers during 2024 and 2025. We developed a comprehensive, multi-departmental approach to improve our streets and neighborhoods with the highest levels of crime. We have re-opened boarded up buildings, closed predatory businesses, added lighting and after school programming, and deployed more officers in areas where they were needed most.
And it's working. In 2025 Denver dropped our homicide rate by an astonishing 46%. Adjusting for population, our homicide rate this year is the lowest in the last decade. Auto theft is down by over 50% and catalytic converter theft has dropped by over 90%. And in the midst of all that, resident satisfaction with the police is increasing. We have officers out walking beats, building relationships with our neighbors on trust patrols. And in the midst of turbulent political times, our officers have stood up for freedom of speech and kept the peace at more than 200 demonstrations - both large and small over these last two years. For that they deserve our gratitude.
Clearing downtown of encampments was only the first step toward revitalization. In 2024, voters approved the largest downtown investment in Denver’s history—$570 million with no new taxes. The first thing we did with that funding was create a dedicated downtown police unit with horses, bikes, motorcycles, and foot patrols.
Already, momentum is building.
In May, 16th Street reopened with more than 100,000 visitors over opening weekend. We expect 50 new retail businesses by year-end—the highest number in years. Foot traffic is up, leasing requests have soared, and local restaurants report revenue gains from 30% to 100%.And coming soon : catalytic investments to expand parks, convert empty offices into housing, attract local and national companies, and create space for artists, makers, and nonprofits.
But to truly unlock downtown’s potential—and growth citywide—we had to fix one of the biggest bottlenecks: permitting. That’s why we launched the Denver Permitting Office to speed up approvals, lower costs, and make it easier to build homes, open shops, and invest in communities. We took a process that used to take three years and made a promise: your permit will be done in 180 days or we’ll refund up to $10,000 in fees.
Record reductions in homelessness. Record reductions in violent crime. Record investments in downtown. The state of our city is strong—and growing stronger every day.
That is the story of where we’ve been, tonight is a story about where we're going. The successes of the last two years show that these problems are solvable and we are the ones to solve them. And it makes clear our work is not done.
As proud as I am of what we’ve accomplished, I'm even more certain that what we've done is nowhere near enough.
This weekend we had a young man who died of a drug overdose alone in a stairwell. When we can find her, we will call his mother to tell her that her lost son, the one she prays for every morning and every night, that her baby boy is never coming home. And that’s not good enough.
We still have business owners on Broadway who don’t feel safe having staff members close up the shop and walk to their cars after work, and that’s not good enough.
We still have teachers leaving our schools and nurses leaving our hospitals to move back home to the midwest because they can’t afford to live in this city anymore, and that’s not good enough.
We still have 7 million square feet of vacant office space in downtown, which means my wife Courtney and I discovered one of our local favorites, Cap City, will be closing after 20 years because still not enough of their customers have returned post-Covid, and that’s not good enough.
I will promise you this, no one is more obsessively aware of the things that are broken in this city than I am, and no one is more relentlessly committed to fixing them. I notice every piece of trash, every construction project in front of a retail store, every unhoused person still looking for services, every restaurant just too empty for a Friday night.
So the first thing I always ask residents when I see them is: what can we fix? I am not afraid of complaints from people who love this city, I welcome them, because every one of them is a gift that offers us a chance to get better.
But what matters most when taking on impossible problems is to understand the power of momentum and the experience of progress. If you are dropped in the ocean and trying to swim to land, it can feel overwhelming. When you swim furiously for an hour, and look up and see you’ve gone no place, you lose hope. The greatest loss in this is not the wasted energy, it is the nagging fear that no matter what you do it won’t make a difference. That feeling is called learned helplessness. It’s the despair that settles in when you feel like no matter what you try it won’t work, so you just stop trying.
This is why reflecting on our progress is so important. The purpose of marking our progress is not to pat ourselves on the back for what we’ve done, it is to build our energy and our will for the work that still lies ahead. Denver is now creating a different dynamic: we call it learned hopefulness.
When you set a target for where you want to be in an hour and you swim towards it and reach it faster than we hoped, we not only see the progress, we know our strategy is working, we see a path to success, we know we are bigger than the challenge, and we draw new energy and new inspiration to work harder. We draw hope from the clear evidence that when we remain committed to hard things, we can overcome them. Our biggest challenge is never the problem itself, our biggest challenge is believing that we can't solve it.
Armed with that learned hopefulness, with the evidence that our sustained collective efforts can make a difference, a historic difference, on even the most difficult of problems, here are some of the challenges we are gearing up to take on next.
This starts with homelessness, where our progress shows us the path forward and we have plenty of work left to do. Halfway through the term we are proud of our progress on reducing homelessness, but there is still plenty of work left to do. We know the next phase of the work will be different.
The first phase was about closing encampments, removing tents, getting people connected to services, and we’ve seen the impact that has had on our city. But many of those still living on the streets often have the highest needs, struggling with serious mental health or addiction challenges. We know that the best path forward is not an endless cycle of being on the streets, going to the hospital, and landing in jail, but connection to high-quality and long-term support services.
We also know that too many families are laying awake at night in fear that they may end up on the streets because they simply cannot afford to pay the rent in Denver. Nearly half of Denverites can't afford to live in the city they call home, and we know we need to bring on close to 5,000 units of housing every year to meet our long-term needs. If we don’t make progress now, this challenge will be an existential threat to families, to business and to economic growth. That is why we launched our middle class housing program that will make bringing on housing for working families easier and quicker.
In today’s world, housing is the safety net that every family needs to know they have financial protection against whatever storm is coming. It is the most important way people build and pass on wealth. As a city, we cannot lose sight of this challenge, and together, we must find a path to create the housing supply we need.
We have made dramatic progress on homelessness, and on violent crime. But that is not enough, we all share the belief that our city streets need to be safe for all of us. That means an expectation that our residents are following the law and that the law will be enforced. Now that encampments are gone and violent crime is among the lowest this century, we are turning our focus to the quality of life crimes – like theft or public drug use – that impact many of us on a daily basis.
By matching outreach with enforcement, we will address these types of crimes to continue to make Denver a truly vibrant and safe city for all of us. For people struggling with addiction or mental health needs, helping them connect to high-quality treatment will always be the first option, and for those who are willing to accept treatment, we will keep them out of our criminal justice system entirely. We’ve already seen the impact of this strategy through our Roads to Recovery program, which has helped hundreds of people get access to high-quality treatment, and more importantly, stay in treatment long-term.
But for those who refuse services and continue to commit crimes, we will hold them accountable, and work with our partners in the criminal justice system to direct them toward services and treatment as part of their sentence. We believe Denver can be compassionate and safe, and we are prepared to deliver both.
Addressing these urgent issues demands our full attention. But we must also lift our gaze to the horizon—and prepare our city not just for tomorrow, but for the decades ahead. That means remaining focused on how we grow sustainably and confront the climate crisis head-on.
We will continue to aggressively move our city off of fossil fuels and towards clean and renewable electric power. And we’ll do it in a way that is both pro-climate and pro-business. That means electrifying buildings while keeping costs down for home and business owners. It means pushing to electrify our city-owned vehicles and building the charging infrastructure necessary for Denverites to easily transition to electric vehicles in their own daily lives.
And it means taking bold steps towards building both a carbon-free downtown and carbon-neutral airport. We will do this by converting the gas-powered steam loop that powers downtown Denver into a state-of-the-art district energy system that can heat and cool buildings without carbon pollution.
Our commitments matter not just for us but the generations of Denverites yet to come. We need to do more to open up opportunities for our kids and grandkids. That’s why in 2024, we launched the Mayor’s YouthWorks program, giving nearly 1,000 kids the chance to work and develop career skills over their summer break. This summer, we more than doubled that—connecting over 2,500 young people with summer jobs. We know that high-quality out-of-school time is just as critical, and we’re on track to connect nearly 60,000 students with afterschool programs by 2025—helping every kid find their passion, stay safe, and feel supported.
At the same time, early childhood educators and out of school time providers are facing unprecedented demand and funding challenges. But that just means we need to work even harder to make Denver the best place to raise a kid or to be a kid, including:
Expanding our focus on affordable early childhood education from birth all the way up to kindergarten
Expanding high quality after school options for middle school kids so that every child has someplace positive to go that helps nurture their passion and keep them safe after school in the summertime
Expanding more options to put our young people to work knowing that a hard day's work is often the best way to learn skills, grow your self confidence, and prepare for the future
This year we will ask Denver voters to approve critical investments in that future with a new municipal bond.
Some people ask why a city would be making new capital investments in a moment of economic crisis: this is the critical moment to leverage public investment to spur economic growth as these investments create jobs, and deliver critical infrastructure that accelerates more private investment.
Together we are ensuring our story will be one of a city that grows, and grows with prupose–vibrant, affordable, and safe for all. A city where we invest in the communities we have today while building for the generations to come. Where we build housing that people can afford and sustain neighborhoods where every family can thrive. Where we improve walkability and access to public transit to reduce traffic and fight climate change. We can be the city where growth reflects our values, fuels our economy, and repairs decades of disinvestment–while protecting the character and identity of the neighborhoods that define us.
We also must tend to the city’s core infrastructure needs in order to keep growing. That means repairing roads and bridges, parks and playgrounds, libraries and recreation centers. It means ensuring safe crosswalks to get to and from the store or your home in every neighborhood.
And that is why we are excited to work collaboratively with the City Council in an effort to refer to a bond package this year that will help the city improve and repair the core infrastructure that keeps us moving everyday. I want to thank President Sandoval and the executive committee of citizens who helped bring this package together, the more than 7,000 Denverites who raised their voices, and of course the City Council who continues to work for a package they believe is best for Denver.
We also need to follow through on the revival of downtown. That starts with filling 7 million square feet of empty office space. We will take steps to convert about 4 million of that space into housing that is accessible for middle-class Denverites. We will work with businesses to make sure the tenants we have downtown stay downtown, and introduce new incentives for start-ups and small businesses to bring others back. We will launch ambitious efforts with the Downtown Development Authority to make public spaces and parks, child care facilities, and art activations to make them vibrant. Expect more concerts, more festivals, more performances, more local retailers, more wonderful experiences of the best of Denver only in Denver.
We will continue to dream big and deliver big things. and doing so in a way that preserves and protects the identity of those neighborhoods and the people that built them. We will do that through community-led growth, like the creation of the city’s largest park in more than a century, welcoming a women’s soccer franchise and new purpose-built stadium on land that has long been vacant, the investing in the Stock Show triangle in partnership with GES residents, and yes, we will get a long-term deal to keep the Denver Broncos here in Denver.
This is the work that lies ahead in the next two years. We want a city where everyone feels at home, where we grow strong and wiser and more connected because we embrace the difference of our stories, our beliefs, and our histories. That is our dream for Denver. That is our capital of the New West.
I met Violeta Gavrilovich about 3 months ago. She grew up in Belgrade, Serbia. In 2010, she and her husband moved to Lahaina on Maui and opened a small hat store. When tragedy struck and the fires burned the store to the ground, they had to decide how to start over. They decided to take a vacation to figure it out, so they came to Denver to see their fellow countryman, the greatest basketball player in the world, Nikola Jokic, play for the Nuggets. (The Nuggets beat the Jazz by 21 points that night) While they were here they came walking down 16th Street, loved the city, even under construction, found a vacancy sign and decided Denver was the place where they wanted to start over, and dream again.
They moved their two girls to Denver, and prepared to open a business in the middle of a construction site. Just months before the opening, the unthinkable happened. One day before his 50th birthday, Violeta’s husband, Brana, was rushed to the hospital with an infection which would ultimately take his life.
And suddenly the dream seemed broken.
What should she do, move back to Hawaii, or go home to Serbia. Close the store, go back to her original profession in public health .
She could have turned back, the way Barney Ford could have given up when he lost his mining claim. Or Casimiro Barela when he lost his country, or Elizabeth Eckley when she got told men would never support giving women the right to vote.
But they didn’t.
And neither did Violeta.
She pushed forward with the plan to open the store, and 2 months ago, with her daughters hands at either side, and tears still in her eyes, she opened Aloha Hat & Sol. I was there on opening day to watch the store humming with people, too many to fit in the small space, and the girls were smiling and serving cookies. And Denverites who didn’t know her story streamed in and asked questions and bought hats and thanked her.
Violeta persevered because she remembered the dream that brought her here, and she still believed it was possible: The dream of a city that welcomes you, that helps you build your own business on a street that’s safe next to great public transit, that’s next door to the West’s greatest theatre and the world’s greatest basketball player, with a home where you can afford to live that’s a short walk from a beautiful park where you can lay in the grass with your kids, with mountains rising in the background to summon you to the wild, that is the dream she still wanted. It’s the dream we all still want.
Realizing that dream doesn’t mean it won't be hard, it doesn’t mean we won't lose things we love. It doesn’t mean we won't make mistakes and have to try again. Success doesn’t mean a neighbor struggling with addiction won't relapse or a gang member won’t get pulled back into violence or we won't lose a favorite restaurant.
Even with breathtaking success, all of those things will happen. But that is not defeat, that is loss. And loss is part of being human. But the antidote to loss is not victory, it is love.
By showing up in those moments of loss we can not only heal someone, we can do something more important. We can prove that we are not alone. We can prove that we are right to hope. We can prove that our hardest problems are solvable and we are the ones to solve them.
We will never build a city free from human mistakes. But what we can do is build a city that carries you through crises, and a community who sees you and cares for you and supports you.
That is the promise of a government that works and a city that cares.
To make Denver the capital of the new west will require something different than what made us the capital of the old west. It is not a railroad. It is not a new mineral to dig out of the ground. It is a shared belief by a diverse group of people that we can build a city that is vibrant, affordable and safe for all of us, and it is the mutual promise to do whatever it takes to make that dream a reality: a reality that every teacher can afford a home, that every child can walk to a park, that every working parent can access child care, that every person struggling with addiction or homelessness can find help and housing—and that every Denverite feels safe in their own neighborhood.
That is our dream for this precocious queen city of the plains, where we don’t believe in can’t. We don’t believe in impossible. A place where we turn to each other, and not on each other. A place where we believe in working to build something bigger than us, that includes all of us and lasts longer than any of us. A city that can be a haven for those who live here, and an inspiration to those who don’t. That is our dream for the capital of the new west. So now, let’s get to work.