Denver City Council Community Planning & Housing Committee Meeting - August 26, 2025

The global population might experience further harm or trauma.

We heard from the community that it was important for us to audit city shelters in light of the mayor's new initiatives to address homelessness.

With more than 6,000 people experiencing homelessness in Denver, it is critical for the city programs to serve them effectively.

The Department of Housing Stability oversees a variety of Denver's homeless shelters.

It funds and monitors the providers that operate shelters.

Our audit found risks involving the department's expenses, security, non-discrimination policies, and information protection practices related to shelters.

Housing stability agreed with all but one of our recommendations to address these weaknesses.

Given the size and scope of our audits, it is important to note this audit did not include emergency shelters temporarily serving the influx of migrants arriving in Denver since December 2022.

Our auditors found that housing stability does not adequately ensure safety at shelters.

The city contracted with the Salvation Army to operate a shelter at a former hotel and provided them with a security budget of more than $800,000.

Months later, the Salvation Army had not yet hired a contractor to manage a security presence at the property.

Sadly, two guests were shot and killed.

Another guest was shot weeks later.

These incidents likely traumatized shelter guests and could have affected the engagement and morale of shelter staff.

Our audit also found flaws with reporting expenses.

Housing stability was unable to provide documentation identifying overall shelter-related spending between January 2022 and March 2024.

Based on our review of invoices, we estimated the department spent nearly 150 million dollars in this period.

Also, we found housing stability started a policy to not require shelters to provide meaningful documentation for reimbursement.

In reviewing the new guidance, we found it did not comply with city rules on supporting documentation, such as requiring original receipts or credit card statements to reimburse cost for goods and services.

The department disagreed with our recommendation to end their cost reimbursement policy.

Issuing reimbursements without evidence puts the city at risk of fraud, waste, and abuse.

Sensitive confidential data of housing guests was left unprotected in a shared drive that staff in other city agencies could access.

Separately, our auditors found the Salvation Army's employee handbook conflicts with the contract with the city.

The handbook says the Salvation Army will follow non-discrimination law unless it goes against their religious practice.

We will conduct a follow-up to see if and how housing stability responds to our audit recommendations.

The audit report is available at Denver Auditor.org.

Well, that's it for this episode of Ask the Auditor.

If you have a question, submit it to auditor at Denvergov.org, and maybe your question will be the next question we ask on the next episode of Ask the Auditor.

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Welcome back to this weekly meeting of the community planning and housing committee with Denver City Council.

Your community planning and housing committee starts now.

There is the green line.

All right.

Um good afternoon, everybody.

Today is August 26, 2025, and this is the meeting of your community planning and housing committee.

Which I'm gonna just quickly clarify also covers homelessness.

Um I've noticed a lot of folks in the community have been confused about that because we took it out of the title.

Um but the way we do these committees is per agency, and our entire um housing agency rolls up to this committee, which of course, you know, two of their three pillars, well, really all of their pillars have to do with um homelessness resolution and prevention.

So very much also focused on homelessness along with all kinds of other very fun stuff.

Um, and with that, I am Sarah Parity, I'm your Denver City Council Member at Large, one of the two, and I will start with council member introductions to my right.

Wow.

Today, district high.

Santa Luz, district eight.

Uh Darren Watson, fine, district nine.

All right, I don't think we have anybody online.

I will pause and make sure.

Nope.

So this is all of us.

Um, and we're essentially spending today on a quarter three briefing on all in mile high and sort of associated um programs.

So we have folks from several agencies um crowding up at the front of the table there.

Um I will let you guys all introduce yourselves and uh take it away.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you, committee chair.

Um, I'm Cole Chandler.

I'm the senior advisor on homelessness in the mayor's office and the leader of the all-in-mile high citywide goal.

Past to Pauly.

Hi, I'm Pauly Kyle.

I'm at the Department of Housing Stability.

I'm Ryan Bronson.

I'm in DDPHE as a data analytics specialist.

I'm Erin Attensier, I'm the director of roads to recovery with the mayor's office.

Hi, Justin Sanders, Director of Community Behavioral Health at DDPHE.

Good afternoon, Crystal from the Office of Economic Development and Opportunity.

Awesome.

Thank you guys.

Yeah, of course.

It's quite a crew today.

It is.

And we have folks um in the audience as well that are part of the team and able to answer questions as needed as well.

Um, so uh first I just want to say thanks to all of you who joined us for briefings um last week in the midst of a hectic week at the city.

Grateful to have your time and attention as we talked about this goal and the progress that we've made over the second quarter.

Um the presentation today looks pretty uh pretty similar, but I think we have a little bit more time, so we will try to be a little bit more thorough in our presentation this afternoon.

Um, so our agenda today, we'll look at some of the second quarter updates and highlights.

We'll make sure we're looking at the upcoming procurements and contracts.

Um, we will do a deeper dive on our roads to recovery initiative.

Um, and so we'll zoom in on some of the uh progress and results there, and then we'll do our typical all-in-mile high site services updates for you as well.

Um, so this is a slide that many of you are familiar with from a few weeks ago, um, our end of quarter two update on our progress, and so you can see that we've brought more than 1400 people into shelter so far this year, as of um June 30th, and just over 700 people into housing.

Um, as uh the mayor noted, we have seen a dip in our um housing exits, and that's partly due to the loss of um some state and federal housing resources, and so we lost about 180 resources in the second quarter.

Um, and I'll show you some slides later that show kind of what the impact of that has been.

We have seen a slight uptick in quarter three, um, but we did um we are dealing with that challenge and thinking about ways to strategize around it.

Um in the second quarter, we also um MDHI released their annual point in time count, and so we were really proud to see that over the last two years we've had a 45% reduction in unsheltered homelessness in the city.

And uh when you look at large cities across the country who participated in the 2025 point in time count, we actually have the lowest number of people who are living unsheltered on our streets.

Um, and so uh one other thing that um we talked about in briefings and wanted to highlight as well is that over the last um year and a half, we've also seen a reduction in deaths among people experiencing homelessness, and that's both outdoor deaths as well as um indoor, and so this is people experiencing homelessness broadly, and this is data available from the Office of Medical Examiner.

But wanted to highlight those key results.

I also wanted to just mention today, I think I've talked about it in committee before, but we have a contract with the Urban Institute to do a long-term evaluation of the all in mile high program.

And so that has been underway since 2024.

They just put out an article today talking about some of the initial results that they're seeing, and so I just want to flag that for you.

Didn't have time to put it in this presentation for today, but we'll be sure to send around the article that highlighted some of the early work of their evaluation that went out today.

Okay, so this is a little bit of a line-by-line status update on many of the sub goals that we have related to the all in mile high citywide goal this year.

I won't hit on every single one of these, but a couple things that I want to highlight.

One, we have maintained 78% connection to services for our register recovery population throughout the course of the year.

And so you'll hear more information about that in a moment.

I also wanted to highlight that one of the things that we're working on is an integrated software solution to manage street engagement team deployments from 911 and 311 calls.

That was scheduled to launch over the summer.

It is a bit delayed, but we've been having a number of strategic conversations about the street engagement system overall, and I think we have some made some major improvements to that, and we still expect to see that software released by the end of this year.

And so I wanted to provide that update.

One is that we have been partnering closely with the Council District 8 office, I should say, working under their leadership, thanks to the amazing Brie, who's uh councilmember Lewis's chief of staff to convene a Quebec corridor task force.

We had great support from the at-large offices on that as well.

Um but we met with neighbors and residents and business owners along the Quebec corridor in a work a working group style fashion over the course of the summer.

So we had five meetings.

Um that group has put together a list of long-term, medium-term, and short-term recommendations to improve quality of life along the Quebec corridor.

And so that's something that we'll be able to share out with you all, but we'll also play a part in as we think about upcoming procurements as we think about contracts as we think about the 2026 budget, and so just wanted to call that work out.

Um then additionally, we've been working really hard with host um and other city agencies on deploying an RV resolution program.

That was something that funds were allotted for in the 2025 budget.

It's been a wild time to be hiring at the city, but we have hired a team to work on that program, and they'll be starting in September, and so we're just about ready to launch that program as well.

And that will allow us to, when we're seeing calls and challenges related to RBs and vehicles and people living in them, we will be able to pair much more of an outreach focused approach alongside of some of the enforcement measures that currently exist.

And so that will be moving forward in the coming months.

Alright, next section of the presentation.

Um, wanted to take a high-level view of upcoming procurements and contracts.

And so, a few things that I'll I'll highlight for you here.

Um, in our last briefing, we mentioned that we were releasing an RFP for all of the non-congregate shelter sites and microcommunities.

Um, that RFP was out on the street over the summer, it was reviewed.

Um, new contractors were selected, and we're in the negotiation process on that, and that will be coming forward to this committee in October.

And so we'll have a chance to look at all the upcoming contracts.

One of the things that we've heard loud and clear from you all is a desire to execute these contracts prior to hitting the new year, and so you'll see the timeline is oriented around being able to execute those contracts before moving into 2026.

Um, so those will be in committee on October 14th.

Um, likewise, our housing services will be uh in committee on October 28th, and then, as I mentioned before, we've really taken a strategic look at our entire street engagement system and all the different teams from all the different agencies that are involved in that, and how we provide those services across the entire city, in every geographic region of the city.

And the street outreach component of that street engagement work will be in committee in November.

And then two other items, the uh all-in-mile high physical, dental, and behavioral health services contract, we will be working on an extension to that and looking for time and committee.

And then the General Services citywide security contract, we'll be having an amendment later on this year as well.

There are folks, as you know, from DDPHE and general services here.

If you have any questions about those forthcoming items, all right.

With that, I will turn it over to Aaron and the team for roads to recovery updates.

Hi, everyone.

Um, so we're here to do an update about roads.

Um, roads was created about 18 months ago, and we're really working with people with really complex needs, people that are in and out of the justice system and the emergency room at a high rate, but overall, really have really complex situations of physical health, mental health, and really overall behavioral health and substance misuse.

Our goal is to get people out of the kind of doom loop of going to jail, coming out back to the street, and so on and so forth, and really get them into a coordinated system of care.

Um, a few of the next slide.

Um, something that we get asked a lot is kind of like what is roads and what is it made up of?

We are part of the all in mile high effort.

Um we're one of the interventions that is used throughout the entire structure.

Um, and so I can go through these at a really high level to be responsive to kind of some of the questions that we get asked around like what is part of this program.

Uh, we have teams that do the first contact, and I think this is where we get actually the most questions.

So I'm gonna spend a little bit of time here.

Uh, this is in partnership with what Cole talked about with the street engagement teams, where DDPHG has teams that also go out in partnership with DD, I'm sorry, DPD, our Denver Police Department, the host teams, um, as well as the outreach, the public nurses and then the substance use navigators.

The goal of this team is really to connect with people that have behavioral health needs that are asking for help and get them connected to a service on the back end.

A gap that had happened in the previous way that this was done was that if someone's ready to get help, the system wasn't always ready for them.

And so someone had to be on a wait list or they had to pay out of pocket, and so what we're really doing with roads is by giving them the tools, the teams that are in the field, the tools, um, to be able to directly place people into services and then pay for it.

We're seeing people opt into these programs directly from the street, and so this has been, I think, a really good support for the um outreach efforts that were already happening.

Um, we also have a team of complex care case managers that work with people who need high-touch wraparound services and uh frequent check-ins.

And so these teams get referrals through the outreach teams right now, um, as well as through the all-in-mile high sites, and so again, these are people that people are really struggling with trying to figure out what is the service that they need, and the teams are able to go and be mobile and meet with these people in real time and figure out how we can support them in maybe a different way.

Um, we can go to the next slide, actually.

Um, so what does that mean?

I think that that slide is really confusing and really high level, but in practice, what this means is that we're able to be hands-on with the participants that we serve.

And so we wanted to give a couple of the stories about what the success looks like in the program.

So I'm just gonna talk about participant A on this one.

Uh, this was a participant who had 308 days in jail since uh 2021.

Um, he was someone that a lot of people knew, particularly DPD.

He got picked up on a lot of low-level trespassing charges, um, and was never held for an extended period of time and really was just kind of falling through the cracks.

Um, we were able to get him into an all-in-mile high site after he went to the solution center for stabilization.

Um, and while he was there at case management, which was lead in this instance, was able to connect with him and really ask what is it that you're looking for, and how can we help you be stable?

He engaged with mental health, he was indoors, um, and he said, I just want to rec pass, I just want to belong, I don't have anywhere that I feel comfortable.

And so they were able to connect him with the church and to the rec center every day.

And so when we look at uh like at a high level, SAMHSA's four pillars of recovery, um, home health, purpose, and community.

These are things that the team really tracks towards that.

If we want someone to be well, it's really important that they fall into those categories.

Um, and so this I think he's a really good example of when we were able to get him indoors, we were able to connect him to behavioral health services, um, and we gave him purpose.

He was at his church, and with community, he was, or I'm sorry, with the purpose he was out going to the rec center every day, and then with community he participated in his church.

It was a really nice story of a well-rounded person that was able to just with asking what is it that we can help you with and connect him to that to get him out of the jail system.

And now he's housed.

So if you go to the next slide.

And on this slide, I'm gonna talk about participant C.

This gentleman had 825 arrests since 2021.

Oh, I'm sorry, 825 days in jail since 2021.

Um, he is someone that if you ask DPD6, do you know this person?

They will say absolutely, and we have no idea what to do with him.

Um he was a really, really tough case, and so what we ended up doing with him is he did go through a hospitalization placement, and while he was there, he was able to get stabilized, and the team worked to get him into long-term care.

Um again was someone that people were just like, we know he needs help, we know this isn't the right system, but we don't know what else to do, and so the team was able to be pretty hands-on with him and work closely with a couple um hospital systems actually to figure out how to get him placed.

Um, so with that, uh, I will pass it over to Ryan to talk about some of the data that we've been able to collect over uh this past 18 months.

Okay.

Um, this first slide gives you a sense of the scale of roads to recovery.

We've had about 300 people who have been involved in intensive case management and/or service connections in the last 18 months.

About half of those people received both intensive case management and service connections, and we've learned that our clients have taken any number of those paths through roads based on their circumstances coming in, their relationship with law enforcement, their relationship with the city, um, existing relationships and experiences with service providers in the community.

Um, and so we're gonna dive into some descriptive statistics to talk about uh what our participants have been experiencing in roads.

Um one of the main outcomes that we're looking at is jail days and bookings across the entire roads population.

We've seen a decrease in bookings and jail days since the program started.

That's true for people who we've worked really closely with, and that's true for people who we haven't worked with yet, but who are eligible for roads.

Um, so that's great across the board.

Um, we've seen bookings per person per year decrease by about 2.2 bookings each.

Um, and we've seen jail days per person per year decrease by about a month after roads enrollment.

Um, we've also seen average days between bookings increase by 83 days after roads enrollment.

And then we have about a quarter of our participants who still haven't been in jail since enrolling in roads to recovery, and that subset had an average of 83 days in jail per year before enrolling.

So we're seeing a really material change for our clients and cost savings for the city.

Um, as far as housing and sheltering goes, um, our clients at intake to case management were about 60 percent, uh, sorry, 70 percent unsheltered or incarcerated, and at most recent case management contact, about 80% were indoors or in residential treatment, and about 40% of our clients' days indoors were at all in mile high sites.

We've made over 400 service connections with over 80 service providers.

Umpower, Hazelbrook, Annanao, and Denver Health have been some of the major providers with more than 20 service connections each, but we've also had a lot of success with smaller organizations serving fewer people that are maybe providing a more small-scale peaceful environment or more tailored service.

Um, and so we've had over 60 providers working with fewer than four clients.

And we've had almost a hundred people who've been connected to multiple services, mostly through case management.

Um, this dashboard is looking at the status for folks involved in intensive case management.

Um the jail and bookings data that I mentioned are included in blue for before roads to recovery and orange for after roads to recovery.

Similarly, housing status is shown before and after.

You can also see some demographic breakdowns, the providers that we've worked with.

We've got 150 clients currently active on case on caseloads.

And then I also wanted to point out that we've had over 8,000 successful contacts with case management clients.

We're looking at a lot of like depth of relationship and care.

And so there's a lot of contacts to get these outcomes with these folks.

Yeah.

I just want to jump in about the providers really quick.

I think something that's kind of like baked into this provider list that's at the bottom on the right hand side is that not all of these are the same, meaning that some of them their intakes are quick, and some of them there's a long wait list for some of them we have contracts with and some of them we don't.

And so there's still providers that are wanting to work with roads and that participants are wanting to work with, and for a variety of reasons, we're not able to maybe get them that direct access.

One way that we've tried to kind of go around that is by doing a community of practice that we meet with quarterly, where we have different providers come together and really talk about trends we're seeing, some barriers, and then how collectively we can break some of those barriers.

So, like an example is we might not be able to connect someone because we can't find them, or we can't do the payment, but someone else can.

And so those are the kinds of things we do in that community of practice, knowing that this is bigger than us.

This is actually a community that needs to come together and really get innovative on how we solve it.

So I just wanted to shout out that we have some really incredible providers we work with, and there are some limitations to us being able to work with them in a different way that we're trying to go through right now.

Sorry.

Okay.

Um, so a lot of the stats on this slide are rates, so bookings per person per six months.

That's because there's been different stretches of time before someone was enrolled in roads, how long they've been enrolled, um, but we can also look at the counts, and this is where we start to think about like dollars saved, um, and also dollars spent on things like services and sheltering.

Remember, again, that there's more time before roads than after roads here.

Um, but this slide gives you a sense of um the total scale for this population, and this is again just for the intensive case management folks.

Um, the it's a different way of pulling and thinking about the data when we're talking about um the people who are only being connected to services and don't have prolonged contact with us because we don't have like a continued update on their housing status.

Um, so this is just for intensive case management.

So there's there's more bookings, more jail days beforehand, if we think about the whole the whole population served.

All right, thank you all.

Um so moving into the final section, um, wanted to provide an update on our site services and look at some of the data that we've discussed here in the past.

Um, as you all will remember, of course, this is a multi-agency effort.

Um, what we will do uh for this last section of the presentation is focus on the housing health and employment services that are being delivered by host, GDPHE, and Dito respectively, and so we'll provide some updates on those.

This is a slide that we've shown in the past, and so this shows our exits to permanent and stable housing over time.

So this is a running total from the all-in-mile high non-carate shelter sites, and our exits to unsheltered homelessness as well.

Um, what you can see on this slide is the great news that exits to permanent and stable housing continue to outpace excess to the streets.

Um, you can also see the challenge that um in quarter two, we had a significant slowing to our exits to permanent and stable housing.

And so I mentioned in the opening uh the loss of those 180 state and federal housing resources.

You can see the impact of that here.

When you look at our quarter one of 2025, it was our best quarter on record in terms of housing throughput.

Our operation is really working.

The system that we've built is being really effective at getting people from the sites into housing, but we lost housing resources, and so we see that slowing in Q2.

And we are working actively to strategize about how we address that as we move forward in 2025 and in 2026.

And then another slide that I wanted to share is related to our um basically our service connection across our sites.

This has been a consistent point of conversation that we've had, and so um brought this slide for you, which looks at the number of unique households staying at the site each month, the number of unique households staying at the site who receive services, and then the total service context that represents.

And so the story you can see playing out is that about 75 to 80 percent of households are receiving services on a monthly basis, and those households are receiving many service touch points, totaling up to the orange total.

We also had a question in our briefings about average length of stay, and so I included some of that.

It's a little bit different site by site, but included that um at the bottom of this slide as well.

And then that I'll turn it over to Tristan if there's anything you want to share about the behavioral health service delivery at our sites.

Yeah, uh, thanks again, Tristan Satyr's director for community behavioral health at DPHE.

So we've been working with CCH for the better part of this year on what services look like across the all-in-mile high sites.

There's a number of things that we've done that are now in practice that I'm happy to share and report on.

We've fully developed a virtual intake form uh that anybody can use, so any of the service uh providers at sites or anybody that is navigating somebody into all in mile high, really anybody that's talking to somebody that might end up at all in mile high can complete, and that intake form will get routed directly to CCH so that they can follow up with those clients to do a full assessment and start providing services in as timely a manner as possible.

This intake form, we before we even formally launched it, we had over 200 entries into it, and it continues to be well utilized today.

I'll just say that.

Space upgrades.

So at the Aspen, there is a consultation and waiting room for CCH that they're able to use.

We had some challenges with flooding earlier in the year, but we've got all of that fixed.

Um they have dedicated space that they're able to provide services in uh private quarters at that site.

Um, we continue to work with CCH on staffing across other locations.

So I think I presented to this committee early on saying that there's a rotation of services, and we continue to look at what that rotation of services is and how that meets the needs of primarily through the intake form and other ways that we understand client needs that they are delivering services across the whole spectrum of all-in-mile high sites.

Uh, lastly, around data collection, so regular service delivery data is available.

We are able to share in aggregate all of the services provided, what those services are, where they're being provided, etc.

We are we think very close to having DI identified uh line level data, which will actually tell us and be able to, you know, quite a bit more and we'll be able to match more closely with how is the need being met.

And so we are continuing to work on that.

We don't think that we actually need a data sharing agreement to get that type of data.

It's only if we wanted identifiable data that we need that.

Um, and so we're talking actively with CCH about whether that's really a need or not.

Um, we're gonna get the de-identified data and go from there.

All right, and then Chris Lowell to round us out.

All right, good afternoon, council.

Chris Slow with uh 10% uh Huffs of Economic Development and Opportunity.

It's so long since you've come before us, you've got to.

I know, right?

Uh hat do I have on today.

I don't know.

Um, most colleagues, formerly, but um well, as you might remember during the last quarterly briefing at this table, council had a lot of questions about workforce activities being served to uh folks experiencing homelessness, and then of course, also in partnership with all-mile high.

So, just gonna give you a quick update and run through there.

So, just wanted to first chat for the benefit of the public as well on Dito's larger legacy workforce system because this is something that we have leverage heavily to serve folks experiencing homelessness and all-in-mile high participants as well.

So, as you all know, you know, our workforce development services is a free, comprehensive employment and training resource for job seekers and employers throughout Denver.

Um, just to contextualize that system for the public, you know, Denver Workforce Services alone in 2024 served over 20,000 job seekers.

It provided staff assisted services to over 7,500 of those folks, served over a thousand employers, held over 400 events, and we're doing all of that through 17 million plus dollars and workforce development contracts that are assigned to 24 unique providers, most deeply embedded in the Denver community.

So, for again, the public's benefit.

If anyone needs a refresher about that system, there's a link in this slide to a recent presentation we've given to this to a city council committee.

So while anyone can access these programs in Denver, um we place additional emphasis on leveraging this system to serve priority populations, and that can be anyone, you know, folks with disabilities, youth, older adults, veterans, newcomers, but also people experiencing homelessness.

And it's a major resource that we leverage to serve all in Malahai guests, well funded, it's well organized.

Um quick just data note on serving folks experiencing homelessness with workforce services.

When any one of these 20,000 people come in to a workforce center or they call or any get in touch with us, they have the opportunity to self-identify as someone experiencing homelessness.

But for any reason, you know, be it that they are at a different phase in their life, they don't want to be profiled into a certain career, they're embarrassed or what have you, it's uncommon for folks to self-identify someone experiencing homelessness.

So the data behind serving that population in this system is unreliable.

Um, in terms of general activities that we've done in this system that support this priority population of folks experiencing homelessness and all in mile high shelter guests, we've tried to remain really nimble with our resources and learn from our lessons and pivot where we can.

We have, so over the last 12 months we've offered, you know, employment fairs all-in-mile high sites, we've held weekly employment education classes, um, you know, those are open to priority populations, guests in all-mile high shelters.

Um we've held um workshops with uh, you know, workforce services, anything traditionally you would consider as a workforce service, um, resume writing, addressing employment gaps, transferable skills, interview skills, um, etiquette, job search strategies, et cetera.

And we've had monthly next step employment and um resource fares as well.

So lots of work is being done in that legacy system, and just wanted to put a, you know, highlight that because um I think it's important.

So let's talk about how we're directly partnered with the all-mile, all-in-mile high system, though.

Um, so I will describe now the rapid rehousing workforce pilot.

Um, this pilot began on the 1st of January of 2025, and it's serving a very distinct population within the all-in-mile high system.

So it's serving folks who have exited an all-in-mile high shelter who uh then exited into housing in um that housing was using a rapid re housing uh sour, you know, resource, and then fourth, they had then been referred to Dito uh for these workforce services.

So um, you know, once referred to us, they can voluntarily choose to participate in our services.

They're triage based on if they want you know training and employment or if they just want to uh uh get to work and get into employment.

So folks who are interested in training, um, you know, we obviously I described on the previous slide, we have variety of pathways to make sure that they're connected with uh relevant training that they're interested in.

So current examples of folks in this pilot who are in training, they're getting their high school accreditation, um, they're in, you know, forklift training, Arborist training, construction apprenticeships, um, they're getting digital skills training.

Folks who want to go straight to employment actually, receive one-on-one coaching as well.

So we have found that to be to be particularly effective for serving all mile high guests, as compared to, you know, event or kind of classroom style resource provision.

And so again, um, all of those classic kind of workforce activities are provided in that one-on-one coaching.

They're on the screen behind me, but examples of folks who are actively working in the pilot, you know, through our support.

They're in security services, they're working in warehouses at U-Hall, United Airlines, they're at restaurants, Walgreens, Home Depot, day labor, some variety of examples on the screen.

So we can look at the data behind this pilot really fast, and then I can be done.

So it can again to contextualize the numbers, just want you all to consider that we're serving a subpopulation of a subpopulation.

So what you're really looking at is this 495 number.

It's the folks who have exited all in mile high shelters into rapid rehousing as your kind of universe of people.

Of those, we've received 135 referrals into the pilot.

56 folks have actively engaged with us.

They're voluntarily engaging with us.

31 of them are actively employed.

So I provided some examples on the previous slide.

17 of them are in training, 11 of them are looking for work or a second job.

And so, you know, of the folks who are actively voluntarily engaging with us, we're seeing near near universal, you know, positive outcomes for those folks.

And so we're really buoyed by that fact.

Um, and in this pilot, we know we're we're doing something right when folks are engaging with us.

So I think with that, that's all I had.

All right.

Um, well, excited to have some further discussion.

So that's the end of our presentation.

Awesome.

I have almost everyone in the queue, not surprisingly.

Um I want to welcome Council President Sandoval and Councilman Campbell to the meeting.

Um, and then we will start with Council Member Alvidres followed by Sawyer.

Thank you, committee chair, and thank you all.

Congratulations on some positive numbers there.

Um, one thing I think would be helpful for me is if we had the shelters specifically broken out by each one, um, as like I'm particularly interested in LaPaz, where others are probably interested in their outcomes, and we've been struggling to get what the actual outcomes are during our good neighbor agreement committee meetings.

Um so that would be helpful.

Um, is there an online dashboard anymore?

Uh there is, it doesn't provide that information by site, but we have access to that information, and we can certainly share it.

Okay, great.

And there is an online dashboard still.

Yeah, there is a homelessness response citywide dashboard.

Okay, um, and then I appreciated what um Roads to Recovery is doing definitely, and I know you mentioned some cost savings, and I'm curious like what is one night in jail cost and like where are these cost savings coming from, or how much I didn't see an actual dollar amount.

Yeah, the estimate for one marginal day in Jill, so like one additional day rather than like a one-day full stay, um, is about 250 dollars.

Um, that's how much it costs us to run to have someone in jail overnight, one additional night.

Okay, yeah.

Um, and so the estimate, the rough estimate that our um one of the other data analysts involved in roads came up with was over the last 18 months, 900,000 in savings on jail bed days alone.

It was population.

Okay.

Um I noticed I heard that authentic recovery homes was a big part of roads and I didn't see them.

Are they still involved?

Or I didn't see them on the list.

Or did I miss them?

I think they're on the smaller list of providers.

Yeah, they to our intensive case management clients.

They've um provided 14 stays in sober living, um, but then also additional stays for folks who weren't in intensive case management, and I don't have that number in front of me.

Okay.

Um, on the slides around slide 1819.

I don't have numbers, can you or the dashboards?

I think for roads.

So this is about roads to recovery.

Um, it talks about before enrolling and then after enrolling, but there's demographic information for before enrolling, and there's no demographic information to after enrolling that I can see.

And so I'm curious, are the outcomes different per the person's background?

We haven't seen any um statistical significance attributed to race in outcomes.

Um since you have it here, it only makes sense that you would also have it in the after.

Well, it doesn't change at all.

We're looking at the same group.

So the other side.

So if you're going at it from you know the previous to after, I'm sure not everyone stays in the program.

Yeah, so this is everybody who has been involved in intensive case management.

So you're right.

We aren't showing a view of like retention, basically.

I think that would be helpful.

Okay.

Okay.

And then on slide 31.

What outcomes based?

Well, and it's always helpful when you put slide numbers.

Note to sell.

Um, let me go back to that slide.

Slide 916.

Um key evolutions for addressing street homelessness.

Oh, in our appendix.

Yes.

Is that where that was?

Slide 30 is right after the appendix.

Okay, so it says replace compliance focused reporting across closed contracts.

When does that start and what is that look like?

Um I have on the screen.

Yeah, so I kept a couple of slides that we used in our uh last quarterly update.

Um this slide was just a reminder for some of our big kind of rocks, our big milestones that we're focused on hitting over the course of this year.

And then this is we did a little bit deeper dive on what was included in the RFP for non-congregate shelters and um how the housing central command that will be coming forward in contract.

Um, you'll see those contracts coming forward in October.

Um, and so uh basically as we mentioned, um, we are moving to more of a pay for performance-based model.

Right now, these contracts are just cost reimbursement models.

So, whatever the eligible expenses are, I you know, pay for that as the provider, then I build a city for it, and then the city just pays the provider back.

Um, we're switching to where we'll be actually paying for specific outcomes, um, and so we'll be looking at have a certain percentage of the beds been filled each night.

Have a certain percentage of folks completed their housing assessments, have they had X number of case management touch points?

Um, and these sorts of metrics are what we will be paying out for.

Um, so specific um to your question.

Yeah, there's really this shift from just a pure reimbursing for expenses to a paying for outcomes, and this is something that we've seen done um in housing contracts.

Uh, the social impact bond was an example of a pay for performance based um funding strategy.

This is not something that's typically been done in service contracts in the city.

It's actually a new and emerging model um across the country, and so we're partnering um on this sort of national pilot, which we're really excited about.

Um but yeah, there's any other specific questions I'm happy to follow.

That sounds great.

The last thing I'll ask is about you know the loss of funding sources, and so I'm curious: are we looking at using more sustainable funding sources or just working within the budget that we have, and what exactly funding sources were removed?

Yeah, so obviously, you know, budget season is is just kicking off formally, we'll be kicking off in September.

Um we've obviously been going through a process of looking at the 26 budget, getting prepared for that conversation.

I'll say generally when it comes to the housing and homelessness budget, you know, the major sources have been the affordable housing fund, the homelessness resolution fund, the general fund, some amount of federal dollars.

Um, and then obviously over the last couple years we had significant ARPA dollars as we move forward in the 2026 budget, we won't have those ARPA resources.

Um, and so the host budget, which is only a component of the all-in-mile high citywide goal will really be focused on the affordable housing fund, the homelessness resolution fund, and then general fund um for its primary sources of funding.

And the vouchers that we lost or the programs that we lost were which ones for the federal and state.

Oh, yeah.

So going back to that slide, um, we had uh about a hundred vouchers uh through the Denver Housing Authority that uh have been pulled back, and then through the state's budget cuts, so far, it's been communicated to us that 80 state housing vouchers have been pulled back.

Um, as we know the states in ongoing conversations about their budget.

Um, I'm just sharing with you what has been communicated to us thus far.

So the federal funding that was lost was and so that was actually not funding into the city budget, funding that DHA had that has been pulled back from them.

So they were not able to extend that resource to us.

Okay, thank you so much.

Thank you, committee chair.

Yeah, thank you for those questions.

Um Councilmember Sawyer, followed by council president.

Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thanks you guys.

Um, this is really great information, and I think um, you know, these uh slides that you have provided us show the amazing and hard work of the city staff members, um, particularly with roads to recovery, the success is really really extraordinary.

So, congratulations on that.

Um, so what I'm about to say is not in any way, shape, or form a criticism of you guys.

Um our job as city council members is to oversee the budget.

There are zero pieces of information on the slide deck that tell us anything about the cost of this, and I think that that's really important for us to know before we go into budget season because if we don't have the dollar per night cost of um, you know, sheltering someone at an you know, even an average at an all-in-mile high site, the dollar per person cost of um roads to recovery, the dollar per person cost of um offering you know workforce supports over the course of a year, like we need to know much more specifically what things are actually costing us in order to go into budget season and have a real informed conversation about the budget.

So I really appreciate Cole that you guys are prepping for the budget right now.

Totally get it, like you don't have 2026, but you have to have 2025, and you certainly have 2024.

So we need that information.

Um, and it would be really helpful if you could put that together for us and get it to us before we get to budget season, just as a follow-up.

Um, because I think that what we need to know as council members and what we don't know at this point, we can approve all the contracts in the world because they're up to a certain amount of money, right?

We don't have actuals, we don't know how much has actually been spent on those contracts.

We don't see that kind of stuff from you.

Um, and so it puts us in a really difficult position.

We are embarking on a really tough budget conversation here, and you guys are doing really good work, and that's amazing.

Um, and the people of Denver are better for it, but also as council members, we have to be able to do our jobs, and we can't right now.

So, asking, please provide us that information so that we have a better understanding of what these success numbers, which are amazing, are costing us at the same time.

Thanks.

Great questions, thank you for that.

Um, and maybe it would be appropriate to get a few slides um financials that relate to this presentation in this committee.

Um, dovetailing with the budget process, we can talk about that a little bit.

Um, thank you all.

Um, council president followed by council for ten.

Thanks.

I was gonna part of my comments were gonna be similar to Councilman Sawyer.

Um, to your point, Cole, the social impact bond.

It drew down on money, and so every year we knew how to know its success.

So it had a metric.

Yeah, so when you say when I read the urban institute report year one, I knew in that report exactly how much money was spent.

I knew how much it cost was in that um apartment, I knew the wraparound services.

So then when I got to the report, and it said it was, I think at the first year it was like in the 70s, high 70s of success, and then like year four return um to higher, it was like, okay, so now we can reinvest in that type of program, and it's it's um having tax dollars well spent.

So to Councilwoman Sawyer's point, I it's interesting that on this slide presentation, you would you couldn't have just added city council set our budget in 2025.

At this point, we've drawn down because it has been 18 months, right?

So you had six months from last year and coming in, or however, saying we have drawn down on this much, which has equaled this much participation in the program, so that we can have some type of um projection because the only way when you're doing financials to protect project the future is to use historic numbers, right?

We all know that.

Like if you're having like my for my council office, I'll go back here.

What have I historically spent?

What have I done?

What I've done so that I could build out a budget in 2026.

So I don't think that we at City Council are asking the administration for 2026 because that comes out in September 15th.

What we're asking is how did when we approved this budget in November of last year, based on that approval that we approved for host and all in mile high, what does that look like for success?

And what are those numbers?

How do I go to defend all in mile high if I don't know at night in jail is 250, 250 dollars?

How do I go to defend to my constituents that we're approving this amount of money if I don't know that potentially we're saving $900,000?

So I would just ask that any presentation moving forward, we have some type of metrics on your approved budget.

We don't need, we're not looking, we're not saying we need 2020 2026.

That's been clear that we're we'll have that conversation during budget hearings.

So I'll I'll I'll stop on that.

So then my next question is slide six at the very beginning.

So if you look in the pink slides, it says the goal is of to bring 2,000 people experiencing homelessness indoors, right?

For 2025, and then you look at slide six, 200 moves into shelter into 2025, 2000, 2000 exits to housing.

I feel like you're starting with the goal, instead of the so on slide six, how do we get to the actual number?

Because it's out of 2,000, but we haven't moved 2,000 people off the streets according to your dashboard.

We we're only at um 14,800.

Yeah, I would these are just a status update on where we were as of 630.

Um, so that's just the same data as this, um, just provided um there as just some of the key items that we're tracking progress on.

Okay, so then okay, I get I get what you're saying.

It's just confusing the way that that's presented to the public because it looks like we have 2,000 and it's not, it's actually so the item, yeah.

All of those items were like goals that we stated at the beginning of the year, and so I'm just providing a progress update on what's that.

For instance, like item complete the closure of Radison non-cargate shelter.

When I when we wrote that on January 1st, we hadn't done that yet.

Now we have um item, bring 2,000 people into shelter.

Here's where we are, just reporting back transparently about where we are in that goal.

So I guess my question to that is is out of the 2000 moves to shelter in 2025, and you have 1485, what rolled over from 2024?

That's a brand new started at zero on January 1st, 2025.

Okay, yeah.

Okay, and then for the roads to recovery section on slide, oh, they don't have um okay.

So participant D, the next slide, overall counts, focused data insights, and the following slides.

What number are you are you referring back to?

So are there's two different numbers.

So in the first one, it says send 2024, 303 people have used case management, and then um a different slide, it says 420.

And so I'm trying just to understand what the overall number that you're using for roads to recovery is.

Like what is the full gamut?

Thank you.

So there are there are multiple numbers, and that's because there are a few different paths through roads.

There are multiple roads.

So we have 303 people who've been connected to services and or intensive case management.

If we go to that 400 number, there are more than 400 service connections, and that can be duplicative of one person who's had multiple service connections.

Plus, some people are connected to services and not to intensive case management, which takes me to the numbers on the dashboard slide, where we have a hundred and fifty five people currently active in intensive case management, and 235 people who have been active at any time in intensive case management.

So in some ways there is no single number, but I would say if you were to say how many people have been involved in roads, it's 303.

Okay, and so your budget is your budget built within all in mile high, or do you have a separate budget?

Um so it's a little bit tricky, but it primarily lives with DDPHE under Tristan's division.

Um we have a little bit of programming and the DPD as well.

Okay, so how do you tie costs to this slide?

There's no cost, I don't see any like, so of the 8,363 successful contacts leading to 324 service connections.

Like I to Councilwoman Sawyer's point again, yes, these are numbers, and yeah, at the same time when it comes to us balancing a budget, approved budget for 2026.

What's the cost that has been drawn down on contracts to get us to that success?

Yeah.

We're more than happy to provide an update on that.

That's not something we've typically shared in these quarterly briefings, but I'm hearing loud and clear that you want that done in the future, and um that's something we can incorporate in.

We'll change the template and make sure that we're doing that as we move forward.

So certainly not trying to hide the ball on that, it's just not been a part of what we've presented as we've been doing this for two years now at these quarterly briefings.

Okay, I understand that I just want to say to go back to the type of contracting that we're doing.

You have to because that's the that's based on the type of con.

Since we've changed the type of contracting, that is a metrics within the contract, right?

Yeah, so similar to like um, I'll just keep hardening going back to um the social impact bond.

We had a set of set of money and it had to meet a certain amount because it was a social impact bond, and then you had to have a report on it.

So I think like we even though you all have the in urban institute, I hope the RFP was to integrate holistically the cost because that was what was so impactful for me when I read the Urban Institute reports coming into running for city council.

Is it had the cost, and you could easily go out to investors and say, you invested your money, and this is the return on investment because we help this many people, can you keep them investing in this?

And so I always think of our taxpayers as the same.

They're we're they're we're investing their tax dollars into these services, and so we need to make sure that we're we're creating that narrative as well as well, especially now that we change the the metrics of the contract.

Does that make sense?

Absolutely, okay.

And I do want to just flag the new contracts that I talked about, that's the model we'll be putting forward in 2026.

So we aren't doing that yet.

We're really excited about where we're going, just trying to preview that and make sure everyone knows what to expect when we bring those forward in October, but completely hear you and more than happy to accommodate that as we move forward.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Yeah, thank you, council president.

Um council Pro Tem, followed by Councilman Watson.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um, so I think it's been covered as far as the alignment with what exactly is being you know offered and what that cost is.

Um so I'm not gonna go hard on it, uh, but I do think that in slide 31, as it's stated, it seems as though there's the recognition of, you know, having contracts paid, you know, city spends regardless of impact, moving to city spends in line with impact.

And so I think that I see it in your in your goals of what the outcomes-based contracts are.

And so what I'm also hearing from my colleagues, and I agree, is just demonstrating that in a dashboard in the reports that come back.

Um, and so I look forward to seeing those probably sooner than later because we are going into budget and um budget hearings.

So thank you for providing that.

Um, I'm gonna say in advance, thank you for providing that.

How about that?

Um, and also thank you for the presentation.

I know that it's there have been um multiple changes, and it's and it has been building the airplane while you've been flying it.

Um, one's one of the questions that I had was about um the workforce um set of set and work piece of it.

There are two things in there.

Um, one is there a connection for I'm thinking about families that are going through and um maybe going through the workforce training.

Is there a connection for child care and child care supports or workforce supports?

It's a really great question.

Um, I know we try to reduce barriers as much as we can when we're doing the one-on-one type of um uh assistance um for folks who have exited, um, and so that might be part of it.

Emily, do you have any extra input on the child care aspect?

Hi everyone, Emily Berger with Denver Economic Development Opportunity.

Um child care is always a huge barrier for the folks we work with, and we don't have a great answer for it.

We try and give resources when when they're available, um, but we definitely don't have like a silver bullet for child care.

It's a tough one.

Okay, um, I it's it is a tough one.

Um, I think with you know, a presentation that we heard earlier today just for some of the organization components through the Office of Children's Affairs, I would just highly recommend if you're not already connected to to work with them closely to think about what are those child care supports so that we can lift them up and make sure that we are making those connections and it's prioritized.

Um I know that like with the family shelter, it also said you know, once people have exited the all-in-mile high sites.

Well, that's also a requirement of not a requirement, but a, you know, this is we're trying to have people have jobs before they're leaving so that you can have long-term success and staying sustainability, and without those coordinated supports, I just I wasn't quite sure how that worked.

So if somebody has to leave an all-in-mile high site, if the family shelter is part of that, can they participate in the workforce um training?

Or could they be part of that pilot for work?

It just seems like you have to leave in order to be part of the program, but for that pilot specifically, it's serving folks who have exited to housing.

Um, and there's a couple of reasons for that.

Like I mentioned at the beginning though, um, we are actively um resource provisioning the inside the shelters to try to connect them with the broader system as well.

So I think that's that is being offered, but in terms of the pilot itself, um, yeah, it is a you you have to exit and you know, a large part of that it's an attempt to focus the our kind of limited workforce services and capacity um to folks who are at a clear stage where they're gonna be most able to take advantage of it.

You know, they're they're exited and they're in they're in housing, so they're they're at that point, so um, but I I hear you loud clear.

So, um thank you.

I I did have just one other quick question.

Um, is there any update or is there a dashboard um number that you have um about a wait list for family sheltering?

I know that that has been, thank you.

Um I know that that has been such an issue, and making sure that families can get into the shelter and respond.

Um I don't have that number off the top of my head, but we will follow up with it.

Okay, um, and does that, I know wait lists are always like a point in time, you know, and it and it fluctuates and so forth.

So I'm also cognizant of, you know, it is a hard number to capture, but maybe gives us an idea as to what that demand is and that we're meeting that need.

Yeah.

Um yeah, Jeff Kazitski uh normally sets here for these variants.

He wasn't able to be here today.

And so he would have that number.

We'll provide it as a follow-up.

Um, I know that we've been working on some solutions to bring the wait list down, um, and you all have been our partners and advocates in that, and um, so we'll follow up with that information and uh be sure to make sure that it's moving in the right direction.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Yeah, thank you for those questions.

Um, Councilmember Watson, followed by Councilmember Lewis.

Uh thank you so much.

Uh uh committee chair.

I want to say um thank you all.

I think the information provided, even without the construct of all of the dashboard information is a positive step.

Um, and appreciate that kind of uh granularity in your uh data and feedback um to this committee, and uh I'm certain folks who are watching appreciate it as well.

I want to thank Tristan and um Alex and the DDTHE folks for really um looking at the uh non-HIPA data for the CCH contract.

I've been on that like a dog in a bone, and I won't say anything more.

I appreciate um the thoughtfulness and getting that HIPAA information because I think it's is vital to the good work that your entire team does and the service you provide to the folks who absolutely need it.

Um, what's curious um from the roads to uh recovery uh team any impacts for the work that you're doing on changes based on um specific departments, whether it's 8 cent or anyone else no longer um being um participating within the program, have you foreseen any impacts as far as intake um leveraging from our district court systems to look through any of the the um the I don't even know if you call it departments, but teams that we used to use that now based on restructuring or not.

Can you share a little bit on that?

Yeah, it's such a good question, and it's when we get a lot, and it's it's a little bit tricky.

So last year um we were new, and so we were kind of trying to figure out what our footing was, and so our mission has always been to divert people out of the justice system and into a coordinated system of care.

Um what we weren't able to really find our footing with last year is like where do we fit in the system?

The system is massive and we are very small, and so where do we make the biggest impact?

And so we ran a bunch of pilots last year.

Um, one was at the jail, one was with courts, one was with street engagement, and one was at the aid center.

And what we found was the place we felt like we made the biggest impact, um, and we did one at all in mile high.

Um, and where we felt like we made the biggest impact was actually working with our street engagement teams as a layer where we went out and did proactive outreach, but also responsive outreach.

So if there was a team that was like, oh, we have a really complex need, can you come out and help?

We felt like that was the biggest impact we can make.

And in fact, it was so great that we filled up our caseload.

Um, we were really small at that time.

We built up our caseload pretty quickly, and with feedback actually from council and from the community, was like, well, what if someone doesn't want that intensive case management but does want access to services, which is why we opened up another lane where they can still get access to that, they just don't get that intensive case management component.

So yeah, I think there's been a lot of shifting and a lot of movement, and I we this year are gonna stay the course of getting referrals from all in mile high and from the street engagement teams.

Um, and we work closely with the courts.

We still have people that do get arrested, and we still have people that are in court or are currently in jail and they're a partner of ours, and so we meet with them regularly, we'll go to court dates with them.

We never would turn someone away because we didn't get, you know, they're not at the right part of the phase.

There isn't any phase that's right or wrong at this point for um other than the entry.

Um, so I I don't know if that answered your question, but I think that, like I said, through the pilots we did last year, we think this was a really good place to kind of lead into this year and hold steady.

It's very helpful, and obviously, we can drill down a little bit more on kind of where and what and how you're looking at your capacity management and really where your best uh support structure is at.

But I I really appreciate the specifics that both of you provided uh today.

I think it was extremely helpful to see the statistics behind it and then kind of the thoughtfulness in a way that you all are evolving, a very complex and new process.

So I really appreciate both of you.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

Um, Councilmember Lewis, and then I have questions as well.

And if anyone wants a second fight of the queue after that, let me know.

I have two quick questions, hopefully.

The first one is in 2023, there was the um house 1000 initiative and then 2024, 1000, 2025.

It looks like you all have started over, and so I wanted to know what what's the total number in the all in Wow High initiative.

Yeah, um, we do have that available still on the public dashboard.

Um, I'll follow up with the exact numbers, but we've moved more than 7,000 total people indoors and more than 5,000 people into housing over since we started in July of 2023.

Okay, thank you.

And then the second question, I of course I want to know about the RV resolution program.

So if you all could talk a little bit more in detail, maybe you don't have the detail because you talked about the RFP, but I'm just very ecstatic about that.

Yeah, of course, and um we are too.

So I think when we initially um envisioned it, we thought we might approach it a bit of how we approached large encampments back in 2023, this large event-based style of resolution where we'd go in to an area, resolve every RV vehicle, bring people indoors, close it down on the back end.

Um we have been in planning conversations bi weekly.

I'm smiling at people that joined me for those meetings, and uh we're gonna not go exactly that direction.

Um, what we decided to do is more of a traditional outreach-based approach, and so we'll have a refer, we'll have a dedicated team that's focused on RV and vehicular outreach.

We don't have that right now.

We have, you know, PD, we have set, we have our outreach teams that all are maybe interacting, but not in a really focused way.

Um, and so when those teams are in the field interacting with folks when we're getting 311 complaints, when we're getting uh referrals from council, we'll be able to submit a referral to this team, and they'll go out in real time to work with um folks that are living in RVs and vehicles.

When they engage with those folks, they'll have a few different options for what that engagement looks like.

For some, they'll be able to resolve them straight from the streets to housing, right?

Um for others, they would move them into an all-in-mile high site and offer them two options.

One would be you can move in and you can take your vehicle and maintain over ownership of your vehicle.

There's going to be some specific rules like no one can live in your vehicle while it's parked in the lot, um, those sorts of things, or you can decide to go ahead and give up your vehicle, and then it would go through our um uh recycling process, and we would provide a little bit of an incentive for you to do that.

Um, and then a fourth lane that we'll have for folks is you know, there are some people that are in RVs and vehicles.

Denver was not their chosen destination or their final destination.

We'll offer them some assistance to get their vehicle back on the road and get to the destination that they were choosing.

So our dedicated RV resolution team through host, we'll be able to deploy that based upon referrals.

Um, they have those positions have been hired, they'll be starting soon, and we'll be training them throughout September.

Will the um will the parking be time bound?

So if they choose option one and choose not to relinquish their vehicle, can they as long as they're at the mile high-mile high side, can they park in the they'll just be living at the shelter like anyone?

They would have a vehicle, they have to, you know, maintain it according to the rules, just like anyone else would, but no, it wouldn't necessarily be time bound.

Okay, and then for those that relinquish their vehicles, I know you said there's an incentive, is it market value for the RV or is it something?

No, not necessarily.

It's it's not it, and this has been a conversation with you know, city attorney's office.

We are not buying that vehicle.

Okay.

Their RV basically meets the um abandoned vehicles definition at that point, and so it could just be um towed and impounded at that at that point.

Instead of instead of just doing that, we would offer them some incentive to go ahead and relinquish it if that's what they choose to do.

Okay, it'll be totally by their choice, okay.

And then the last question I have is because I hear this pretty um consistently from folks who reach out to my office as well as you all um regarding the RVs, is they tend to get excuse me, bogged down with citations.

And so I'm curious as to how you all have thought about, you know, someone who comes in and desires relinquish it, or if they keep it, how are we thinking about how we might be able to provide some relief for these citations for folks?

Yeah, I think that will be part of what the outreach team is is focused on is really wrapping around and meeting the full needs of the individual that's in that circumstance.

It's gonna be really focused on how do we get you towards a housing type of outcome.

Um, but we'll be taking a full look at kind of the needs of the individual in the moment, like we always do with street outreach.

Okay, and then my final question, I promise.

My final question is um regarding um partnerships for some of these sites with like nonprofits.

I know you all talked about workforce, but do you all have planned to be able to activate the entire hotels to like the ballroom or even the kitchen space in order to be able to provide those either volunteer opportunities or even workforce opportunities for um the residents?

Because I've heard that as an ask, and I'm just curious if you all are making any strides in that direction.

I will say I would love to be able to do that.

Um, do it, those things cost it cost money.

Um, and we have to evaluate, you know, have like what the best utilization of that is, what the outcomes would be as we've discussed at this table.

Um and there's conversations that we can have with service providers, especially as we bring new contracts forward about you know what they're willing to bring to the table, what other ideas they have for the space, and so that um is a is an active conversation.

I just I do want you to know that's not just something that's sitting around.

We're I was in two meetings today talking about those kinds of ideas.

Okay, it's just a matter of how do we bring those to life and what type of resources do we have for them and accepting some of those limitations as well.

Okay, okay, that's it.

Thank you so much.

Thanks, committee chair.

Okay, yeah, thank you, councilman.

Um, okay, I have questions too, and we have some time left.

So again, if council members want to get back around, yeah, cool.

I will add you right back.

Let me make a note of that because I'll forget.

Okay, good.

Um, so one quick global comment is just that um I I know why this is hard, so again, this is not a criticism, but the more that we can get these um like consistent slides um across these quarterly updates so that we're updating the same slide for the next update, that's amazing for us because then we just know that we're comparing apples to apples, and it hasn't been apples to apples, like the you know, the fruits have been transmogrifying agencies have been involved funding this change.

That may continue to be true.

But um, to the extent that you can um keep these slides, and even if you're adding new ones or whatever else, that's really really helpful for us to do our jobs to look back and be able to just sort of see in an easy way.

Like, okay, this was where I was adding Q2, this is where it's adding Q3 with the same like format, even if we do, if I may just respond to that for a minute.

I certainly use the base template every single time.

Yeah, but it's a little easier for me to start that way.

So, yes, instead of complementing that.

And many of the slides, yeah, are the same, and there were things added as well.

Um, but yeah.

Yeah, no, I appreciate that.

And I didn't mean to imply that they weren't.

I just am emphasizing that that's really helpful.

And I also think if we could get to the point of also somehow including some financial or cost thoughts in that sort of standard thing, that would also be really helpful to us as as time rolls on.

Um, another quick or a global question that I have for everybody is just whether any of the positions that were um frozen and then eliminated, or in fact laid off, sort of were in the realm of this work for you all across these three agencies.

Three, maybe four, however, many agencies are here.

Yeah, I think that should just be responded to agency by agency.

Um so I don't know if you have sidelines on that from host.

Um, okay, from Dito.

I have to get back to you, but I know that folks who are doing the one-on-one coaching for the pilot are here, so we're still here.

Yeah, okay, good.

And from DDPH, not for roads to recovery, no, okay, great, and then mayor's office.

I think the answer is no to the extent that you're a separate agency.

Okay, um, thank you for that.

And then some questions about roads.

Um, one of the things that and I asked this because it's a question that we get asked from the outside a lot, and so it's more this is just a like help me answer this question for other people kind of thing.

Um, how would you define the population that roads is there to support?

You know what I mean?

Like, how does how do you choose who ends up in the program and who doesn't?

Yeah, um, so I think there's kind of like two answers to that.

So, one is we work with people who are looking for behavioral health support.

Um, and so then the reason there's two answers is the second part of that is one group of them we can do through the outreach team, they're able to connect to services, get access on-demand access through our street engagement efforts.

That's one part of roads.

Um, the second part of roads is the intensive case management part, and those are referrals that come through the all-in-mile high locations as well as a street engagement teams.

Okay, great.

Um, that's really helpful.

Cause I think um at the outset, you know, a million years ago, two years ago, there was a thought that um roads would specifically try to serve only people who had had a certain number of jail stays, and I know that that changed.

Yep.

Um, and so it's interesting to me that um you're serving somewhat broader group, right?

Like people with behavioral health needs, um, but still tracking uh the relationship between jail stays and sort of that.

So there's sort of this like overlap, right, between people who go in out of the jail, people who experience homelessness and people with behavioral health needs that I think I think you guys are sitting in that overlap a little bit.

And then I'm curious um what how if that does or does not relate to addiction treatment.

I'm a little unclear about that piece too.

So yeah, yeah.

Um, so we did start with that initial list of about 850 people, and and the thought was really like to do something kind of like sib of like can we actually track this?

Um, and the reality is like if someone has seven arrests but really wants help, we should help them.

Um, and so we have been able to um move that out a little bit and be able to say actually it's easier to say it through pathway versus like you're on a list or you're not on a list.

Um, I I should clarify too that with our intensive case management, we do verify that they have Denver justice involvement because that is part of what we're trying to show is that when they are part of this coordinated system um and they have these wraparound services that they are going to um find stability in a different way, and so that is one caveat I I would just like to add for the intensive case management component of it.

But only on the case management side is that sort of a um prerequisite, or is that true of the service connection side as well?

And again, I know this has shifted, so yeah, it's it's true of the whole program, okay.

Yes.

Got it.

And then similarly, are there any circumstances where someone would be in the roads population who was not recently or currently experiencing homelessness, or is that also kind of a prerequisite?

Um we do work with people who are unhoused, but housing instability we know comes and goes, and so um I would say that we really try and stick with people who are, like I said, in the online mile high site who are obviously indoors at that point, um, but really the pathway of unhoused.

Our dream would be that we could work with anyone that's ready for services, but we just don't have the capacity for that.

Yeah, yeah.

No, that makes perfect sense to me.

And then I guess to ask that question a little bit differently.

Um obviously you guys are working with people who are experiencing homelessness but are sheltered.

Um, and then do you still have some clients also who have actually moved into like housing?

Um, yeah, we do.

I'm looking at Chris Richardson with DPD because he um I just I think this is a good time to call out that there's some like non-traditional ways that we do housing.

I think the one that we often talk about is like sober living or residential facilities.

DPD actually does a phenomenal job of doing reunifications, and so if someone has a place that they can go and meet with like a family member, but they've also actually done housing as well.

Do you want to share a story?

I don't want to put you on the spot.

Yeah, Chris, if you want to come up to the mic and introduce yourself.

I were never sad to hear stories, so I'm putting on the uh Chris and Director Crisis Services with that police department.

Um, yes, I think our outreach uh case coordinators when we do indicate someone who's with road recovery.

They also have established uh amazing relationships with uh landlords in the community and kind of worked with them and shown like what the impact of shared support can actually look like.

And so they may just reach out directly to a landlord and say, hey, this is someone that we actually want to support.

They may have little income, they may have social security, SSDI, SSI, and they're able to actually place that person directly into that place and then we just help either financially through deposit, maybe first month's rent, last month's rent, um, and then do the follow-up case management with and directly placed into those housing.

Um it really is just the spectrum of what that person needs and where they're at in their recovery, and sometimes it is we need hands-on daily contact, and sometimes it is I need twice a week, just like touch points, and sometimes it's I just need to get over some of the traumatic events that have taken place in my life, and that's traditional therapy.

I really don't need to check in all the time, I just need to connect with people that I can talk with long term.

Thank you.

Um, I'm guessing I'm gonna have counsel members getting back in cued now that they know Chris is here to ask questions because sorry.

Sorry.

So, and the reason I'm sort of I I'm not trying to be pedantic about this point, but I just think that one of the things I've learned by trying to follow the roads work really carefully and learn from you all is that um, like we have sort of, you know, we could say maybe four categories of um really deep issues that people are experiencing, which is like repeated incarceration, behavioral health challenges, addiction challenges, and housing and homelessness, housing stability challenges.

And we know that those things are like deeply interrelated but not coextensive.

And so that's why we've had like this, you know, we've had to really figure out which agencies things live in.

We've had to like it's been super complicated, and watching you all um try to solve that um is just very impressive and interesting as as these two years have gone by.

So with the roads population, um I keep trying to figure out like which thing is kind of the defining characteristic, if any, or is it just that we're trying to create catch people that are like fully in the middle of that Venn diagram?

And then I still kind of have the question about how addiction um treatment or needs are thought about within um within like defining your patient population.

Um I think that has been I think the the cool thing about roads and also like the curse of roads, which is like what are you?

You're like ever moving, and and again, like I think this is really we try and get here feedback from people in the community, various stakeholders, participants we're working with, city council, and so on, and so it's been kind of hard to nail that down.

I will say the one thing that is consistent is that we believe in direct access.

We believe that jail is not right for everyone.

Um, and jail is right for some people.

Like there are some crimes that we would say, yeah, that's not really something you should divert.

Like if someone murders someone, like that is not gonna be a fit for us, even if they have a lot of charges.

Um, but if they're low-level quality of life charges and we have the ability to take them on, we absolutely would take them on to our case look because we want to give them another shot at stability that looks different.

Um so I do think the nexus is people who aren't housed, people who um have pretty complex needs and people that have justice involvement.

Okay, thank you.

Um, and with the court thing, I just want to respond to that as well.

That um we we are not a sobriety program.

I also hear that floated around, or like, you have to be sober in this program or you have to go to sober living.

We encourage sobriety and we work closely with the with sober livings, but that's not the only path for someone.

You know, someone being safe, someone being indoors, someone checking in with someone, someone having community.

That's all steps towards um stability.

And so our our goal is not um to punish people or to tell someone how they need to live their life.

Our goal is to ask them how they would like to do that and how we can support them in that journey.

Okay, thank you.

I appreciate you spending some time on that because um it's like not as simple a question as it would seem to be.

So thank you for that.

And I should sorry, I didn't mean to councilman parity, but we also do have people that are mandated to treatment from courts who are on roads to recovery.

So, like, that does exist, but that's not mandated through us.

Got it.

Yeah, okay, that's awful to know too.

Um, all right, and to your point, these are a lot of complex systems, so you guys are um catching people from a ton of different um paths, like that slide showed.

The other thing I would just say is that obviously the only way you end up in jail many, many times within a given year, by definition, you're not being arrested for something extremely serious or you would not get out of the jail that quickly.

So I just want to make that clear if anyone is listening that if someone's staying at the Denver jail 11 times in a year, it's going to be because they've done something quite minor in the scale of criminal offenses.

So okay.

Um, another question I have is um I know this is not a question with a with a full answer yet.

We know that the aid center in its current iteration um has has closed.

Um, and I'm just curious if there's still a possibility that that space may again be used towards um this chunk of work that you all are involved in, um, or if there's you know a different plan for it that you're able to if you can say sort of like that space is now like gone or that space is still being figured out.

I would I would be interested to know that.

Yeah.

Um, so the aid center, I just want to be clear that the aid center is not part of roads to recovery.

Um that is with ONS.

Um, wasn't it?

Yeah.

Um there it is a city-owned property, and so at this time we do not have a definitive plan, but we do have ideas, um, like citywide of what could be used in that space.

Okay.

Not just for people at this table.

Okay, got it.

Fair enough.

Um, you mentioned these um ongoing community of practice meetings with uh various uh people and organizations that provide services across this area.

Um, I've been lucky to sit in on some of those and also go on some of the tours that people have held of each other's facilities and have just been sort of amazed and astounded at how much um people are in silos in that world, um, even though like I know that they're all extremely aware that they're serving a lot of the same clients, and you know, but they just I think are putting their heads down doing the work like everybody else, and so those community of practice meetings to me have been um I'm guessing we'll never see the we'll never understand how truly beneficial those were because you just can see people suddenly starting to um get to know each other's work, share clients among themselves, you know, without even the city necessarily being involved in that.

So I want to compliment you on those, and then I was and say to the other council members that um I would sort of suggest for the district council members, especially um checking in, and if there's one of these community of practice tours of a facility that's in your district, go along.

I know that's putting some work on Erin's plate to get the word out to people, but um, when I've been able to do it, it's just been so interesting and amazing because it's not just that organization, it's a whole bunch of other providers that want to come and see what their colleagues are doing.

Um so it's just pretty cool.

Like I've learned a lot, and then also just seeing them all like making these connections and learning about each other.

Um, do you have any other as roads?

Do you have any other ongoing stakeholding kinds of meetings beyond those community of practice meetings like any other uh defined groups that you regularly meet with?

And I kind of have the same question for all in mile high.

I know there's the um good neighbor committees, which you all don't run for the different sites.

There was the Quebec Corridor Test Proce Committee by the district aid office.

Um there have been some standing meetings with uh like advocates for in-house people.

What exists right now as far as like ongoing rolling um community engagement meetings among different pieces of the community on this.

Yeah, I can start and then I'll pass it over to Cole.

Um, so with the from Roads for Recovery perspective, the community of practice I would say is the biggest one.

Um we do work with Denver Health ongoing.

Um, they were here I think last week or at one of the committees last week, um, really trying to figure out how we can partner with them in a different way.

Um so that one I would say is ongoing, and then we do the the meetings with different advocates.

I will say that I love this question and I hate my answer to it because uh, being a social worker, like this is what we do, like we lean on each other, we talk to each other, we support each other.

Um, and it's been a huge um, I think we're doing a good job, and I I wish that we could be doing more.

And so, um, like I said, we are a tiny team and we do the best we can, but I think it's a great question and something that we're always tracking towards.

Um, we try and reach out and do coffees as much as we can with people, but I think that there's something really powerful about when you bring people together and have just kind of an opportunity to think and get innovative.

Um, I think there's a lot of beautiful things that come from that, and so um, if there's more that we end up bringing online, I'm happy to loop you all into it because you know, I think everyone's perspective is valid in this.

And again, there's no implant criticism there.

I'm mostly curious because sometimes it's really helpful for our offices to just know about those things and plug into them if they're already happening.

Yeah, um, so not implying that you should be somehow stretching yourself to do more than you can do, um, which I think you already do.

And then on the host and all in mile high side, is there anything you guys want to add to that?

Yeah, uh I host uh monthly mayor's office and homeless advocates meeting.

Um, and so that happens on a monthly basis.

Um, host also has a monthly meeting with um homeless advocates.

Um there are month our regular meetings with homeless service providers, the homelessness leadership council that city representatives host at mayor's office, attend.

Um, obviously there's the quarterly Lyle uh meetings that we have.

Um, and then um let's see.

Uh oh, I wanted to mention that I also convene uh a monthly meeting between DPD and homeless service providers as well for collaboration on uh relevant issues.

Awesome.

I knew that some of those things were happening and not all of them, so I'm super glad I happened to ask that.

Um, and with that I'll um stop myself from continuing to ask things because we do have a couple other members back in the queue, um, council president followed by council member Sawyer, which will probably take us right about through our time.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

One last question to Peggy background, um councilwoman Lewis is the RB.

Um I have lots, probably not.

I think it feels like lots, but it's compared to other people's council district, right?

What um mine tend to be along Rocky Mountain Park and um Berkeley Park.

Yeah, they like start at Federal and move their move their way towards Sheridan.

How does that work logistically with our council offices?

Because we've been given conflicting information.

So some information is to put in into 311.

The reason why that doesn't always feel like a great solution is because you get this response.

Oh, your issue has been dealt with.

It's just this generated response.

That 311 gets out.

Okay.

And then the person looks out their door or they walk by the park and they're like, okay, that's not really happening.

So I know you all you said, Cole, that you use 311.

I'm sure the data, right?

You can see the trend happening.

Um, but what is like, and you don't have to answer now, but it would be great to provide a structure because I will just say I get tons of complaints when I have referred my community to 311 for RVs.

Um it would be better if we could like actually have you're always great at responding, have a human respond.

Yeah, I'd love to respond to all of the complaints every day, but the hours are limited.

Um I I think um we are going to provide a holistic view of our street engagement plan for 2026 as we kind of move forward over the next few months.

Um, this is something we should be really clear about.

Um I think uh want to connect it back to something I've been talking about all year in these meetings, which is that we are working on the um Salesforce software solution for 311 complaints.

Um, and so right now what happens when you put in a 311 complaint related to homelessness, we get about 20 to 30 of those a day.

We used to get about 70 a day when I first started.

So we're down to about 20 to 30.

Um, we respond to every single one of those every single every single business day right now because it's at a manageable level.

We deploy a team to every single one of those.

So people should absolutely put things in the 311.

What we don't have right now is when that comes in, it's tied to a specific team.

We can see, follow up, ensure that they had response and provide that feedback loop to the constituent that says, thank you for your submitting that.

Look, we took it seriously, we handled it.

We the Salesforce solution that we're bringing forward will do that.

Um, when folks reach out to me directly, I do provide that type of customer service and we deploy a team and we make sure and I follow up and say we send a team out.

Let me know if you have any problems moving forward.

So I would say, you know, council members, you all are always welcome to reach out to me.

We'll get it handled.

311 really is a great place for folks to go, and I understand the lack of trust and um all those sorts of things that constituents have, but I just wanted to know I we look at every single one of those 311 complaints every single day, and we deploy a team to every single one of them, and we will have a system that ensures better feedback loops in the future.

Do you have you ever with the creation of this RV outreach team?

Are you utilizing the peak peak um performance to bring because oftentimes when we've had complicated cases like in the city, you can go to peak and they may everyone collaborate?

We didn't use peak for that in particular.

We did use peak um in the whole system design.

This fits into that system design.

We haven't worked out the specific processes with peak.

It might be interesting to have peak do something with 311 because you you would never imagine the type of feedback that our council offices get.

Yeah.

From 311.

Like it's astonishing.

Like people like, oh, call your council person if you want to stop sign.

You're like, wait, wait, what?

And no, I'm not joking you.

It's like, oh, you you know, you need your trash picked up, call your pick up trash, call your council person.

I know you all need some job descriptions online or something like that.

So I mean, but I think it falls into 311 because it's literally people will call my office and say, hey, I just got off a 311, and they're emailing my office.

So I think it's important that you all are structured really well.

Yeah, I think the missing piece is how to bring in those 311 operators and actually redirect them in a constructive way.

That's helpful feedback.

And I I do want to clarify that the Salesforce software solution that's tied in the 311, we've designed that process with Peak.

So we have been doing that over the course of this year.

Um and yeah, I just got feedback the other day from something a 311 operator said.

So I know that there's room for improvement.

Um, I bet all of us around this table can have lived that experience, yeah.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, I think we'll just say, Yeah, go ahead.

So if council members need to jet out, no one will judge you because we're not voting on this anyway.

No, no.

And I will just say in response to that, um, when I was chair of ingov and still now we have been working and requesting tech services come in to have a conversation about 311 for three years, and they have refused every single time saying, Oh, we just need six more months.

Oh, we just need six more months.

Every single time.

So um, just slagging that for everyone around the table.

Two things you do not need to respond to me now because this is these are very deep conversations, but I would love to like know more about the plan for this moving forward.

Number one, what are we doing for the people who are refusing all services and continuing to remain on our streets?

Number two, what are we doing about there are 792 days left until July, until uh, you know, transfer of change in district five at the very least.

And so um there are time limits in our zoning code as it comes to um temporary tiny home villages.

And I have not heard a single plan from anyone about what is gonna happen when those time limits are up, and they're up in 792 days-ish.

So um I would like to know more about that moving forward and kind of where those conversations are in monthliness.

Thank you.

792.

So much, and not trying to all.

And it's not just for the tiny uh no.

I've only been in office like yes, we're done.

Yeah, you guys can be somewhere in the world.

Thank you.

We appreciate you.

Yeah, that's what I said.

Thank you.

But we're all still sitting here talking about me.