Denver residents urge more family shelter capacity and accountability for providers during council public comment

Denver residents and homelessness advocates used the council's public comment period to press city leaders for faster, safer housing and clearer pathways to work for families living on the street.

Anna Miller of House Keys Action Network Denver told the council that families and children are being placed in hotels she described as unsafe and that some 200 people remain on a waiting list for family shelter. "We do not need a stadium," Miller said. "We need to put children inside" safe housing before pursuing large projects.

Vee Reese, also with House Keys Action Network Denver, said the group has about 60 parent-members and presented a five-category priorities list developed from weekly meetings. The list calls for more quality shelter and shorter wait times, employment and immigration-documentation supports, remedies for discrimination and inconsistent rule enforcement at transitional hotels and shelter sites, more affordable housing, and employment supports for parents escaping domestic violence. "People have been waiting 4, 5, 6 months to get into a family shelter," Reese said.

Multiple individual commenters described immediate needs. Lamar C. said he and his children are in a hotel paid for by community donations but that the funds run out Thursday: "we will have nowhere to go," he told the council, asking for help. An unnamed Spanish-language commenter described Venezuelan families sleeping in cardboard boxes and said fear of ICE prevents people from seeking work.

Several speakers also linked the housing crisis to immigration enforcement. Andrew Oakes, a Denver Public Schools social studies teacher, urged the council to pursue city and state measures to safeguard constitutional protections and to limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. Oakes referenced a bill he said was submitted in 2018 (read in the comment as "House bill 18 1 4 1 7") that he described as having been postponed indefinitely and urged lawmakers to "partner with the general assembly" on stronger protections, including the right to film immigration enforcement.

Speakers repeatedly criticized how contracted shelter providers have run transitional hotel programs and the connection center, saying people are removed from waiting lists or poorly housed. Anna Miller singled out the Salvation Army's management of hotel shelters as a failure in the city's current approach.

The public comment period lasted the city's allotted time and the clerk closed the session, noting sign-up for the next session begins Thursday, Jan. 22, with the next public-comment opportunity scheduled for Monday, Jan. 26.

The speakers requested specific follow-up from council and staff, including meetings with advocates to review the five-point priorities list and faster pathways into family shelter; the transcript records no council response during the session.