Your community planning and housing committee starts now.

Ah, there we go.

We're on air.

All righty.

Welcome to community planning and housing.

It is apparently November 18th, 2025.

Early start at 1 p.m.

today.

Yeah, we have a packed agenda.

So I will start.

I'm Sarah Parody, Councilmember at large, and I will start on my left.

Oh, hi.

Good afternoon.

I always feel like I'm so surprised when I start first.

Hi, Diana Romero Campbell, Southeast Denver, District 4.

Good afternoon.

If I'd be that it's lucky district seven.

Hi, I'm Amanda Sorry, District 5.

And I don't think we have any council members online today.

Councilmember Flynn, you're just in time to introduce yourself for the people.

Hello, people.

Look at that, the smooth entrance.

Alright.

And so since we have so much on the agenda, we'll start out with a presentation on the Far Southwest area plan from Brian and CPD.

You can introduce yourself and get us rolling.

Thank you so much.

Good afternoon.

Thank you.

My name is Brian Boteo, a senior city planner with the Department of Community Planning and Development.

And I'm the project manager for the Far Southwest Area Plan.

And I'm pleased to present this to you today for your consideration for background.

Far Southwest Plan is the latest plan in the neighborhood planning initiative.

It's comprised of these six neighborhoods we can see on the screen.

Harvey Park, River Park South, College View, Bear Valley, Marston, and Fort Logan, essentially everywhere in the city, west of the South Platte River and south of Jewell Avenue.

It's entirely in Council District 2 as well.

And we've been working on this plan really over the course of the past year and a half or so, gathering community input.

And we think it really combines the guidance and comprehensive plan 2040, Denver, with community input and strong community support.

So let me kind of give you an outline of the agenda.

First, I want to cover the criteria for adoption of supplements to the comprehensive plan, which this is.

And then I'll kind of proceed in a narrative fashion.

So I'll talk about what we did for our first round of engagement and how we use that to draft our initial draft of the plan.

And I'll talk about some of the plan contents and what we heard from the community in response to that.

And then I'll conclude with the staff recommendation and I'll be open to any questions.

So comprehensive plan 2040 uh establishes three criteria for uh supplements to the comprehensive plan, so that uh you know an inclusive community process has to be followed to develop the plan.

Uh supplements have to be consistent uh with comprehensive plan 2040 and Blueprint Denver, and plans have to demonstrate a long-term view.

So throughout my presentation, you'll see uh how uh the Far Southwest plan meets these three criteria.

So I want to begin with our first round of engagement.

Actually, I want to talk a little bit about what we did at the outset of this plan.

So uh to begin, we reviewed comprehensive plan 2040 in Blueprint Denver and identified which policies and strategies in those plans really required community input and some kind of level of neighborhood specificity.

Uh and then um we use that analysis, we identified those topics, and then we um went to the community uh beginning in summer, you know, from late summer through the fall last year, together community and but um to get that level of specificity that we needed.

So um I won't go into everything that we did for engagement.

I'll say it was extensive, but we really took kind of a three-pronged uh approach to it.

Um so we kind of had our traditional in-person uh uh engagement, so we had a large kickoff meeting, 250 folks attended it was far more successful than we expected it to be.

Um, you know, we met with RO's in the far southwest area.

Uh we had pop-ups at community events, um, and then we also had some focused in-person engagement.

Uh and so we partnered with three um uh nonprofits uh in the far southwest area uh for community navigator support uh to help reach underrepresented communities in Far Southwest.

Um, and then we also um connected engagement with a manufactured housing community uh in the far southwest area, and throughout the process, we met with um high school students uh at JFK and Lincoln High Schools.

Um and then we also had online opportunities for people who prefer to participate online or couldn't participate in person, so we had surveys as well.

And you know, this is really specific to the first round, but this is kind of the approach we took uh throughout the planning process.

And I'll say at the early stage, our engagement was bolstered by the fact that we sent out 30,000 postcards, nearly 30,000 postcards, one to every address of far southwest to make sure that everyone in the area was aware about the plan from the outset.

And so after uh analyzing what we heard from community members in that first round, we identified six community priorities.

You can see them here, complete commercial centers, quite suburban neighborhoods, local businesses, safer street design, transportation options, and social community spaces.

And as you'll see, I'll go through each one of these consequentially, but and some of the associated policies and outcomes with them.

But as you'll see, these are interconnected in many ways and overlapping.

So for complete commercial centers, this you know refers to what we call, you know, those community centers and corridors in Blueprint Denver.

And just to give you some context, this in Far Southwest, these are areas like along Federal Boulevard, Sheridan Boulevard, Wadsworth, Evans, and today they are essentially entirely automobile-oriented and entirely commercial.

A lot of community members spoke about how they felt very transactional.

There are places you go to, you conduct whatever business you go to, you go there for, and you go home.

And there's a strong desire to see really more neighborhood centers.

And so the plan has some has guidance to balance the needs of drivers and people who walk and take transit and roll and bike.

What is essentially entirely privately owned land today to include public spaces and really function as community gathering spaces?

And so uh this is especially important for Federal Boulevard, where we're seeing uh that the next BRT line in Denver will be along Federal, and so this plan includes significant guidance to for how Federal Boulevard can evolve from an automobile-oriented corridor today to a transit-oriented corridor.

And uh just for your reference, you can see on the map here the commercial areas I'm really talking about are outlined in black and colored and maroon.

So Federal Boulevard and Evans, there's two shopping centers on uh Sheridan Boulevard, and then on Wadsworth as well, and then kind of the flip side of that is quiet suburban neighborhoods.

So the um uh commercial areas uh in far southwest have um significant capacity for growth.

Uh and so the um far southwest plan largely adheres to Blueprint Denver growth, Blueprint Denver's growth strategy of uh you know seeing most of the growth go to centers and corridors uh where there's the you know the best access to transit, better access to jobs and amenities, and keeps most low residential areas low residential.

Um there is some exception to that.

Uh you know, I mentioned the uh upcoming the Federal Boulevard bus rapid transit line in recognition of the improved transit access there.

This plan has upplaced some of the low residential on and near Federal Boulevard to low medium residential.

You know, we've identified there's community support and opportunity for housing options like townhouses and duplexes today where there are only single unit residential.

Another part of this is preserving uh historic areas like those uh in Harvey Park, which has um uh a collection of uh historic mid-century modern houses, and also um implementing traffic calming on select neighborhood streets where folks see um uh speeding and the accompanying loud noise.

And so again, this is the Denver Feature Places map.

The uh low residential areas are kind of the cream color, and then you can kind of see outlined the areas near Federal Boulevard where we're proposing to allow uh duplexes and townhomes, you know, with considerations for design and affordability and anti-displacement.

Um we also heard there's a strong support for local businesses, um, to see more local businesses in far southwest.

Um, so you know, part of this uh is that complete commercial centers uh strategy, right?

So having housing where there are businesses can help uh uh entrepreneurs in those areas uh thrive.

Um also investing in affordable housing in those areas is incredibly important.

One of the top priorities we heard from business owners was that uh it's actually it's difficult to find employees that can afford to live in the area, and so investing in affordable housing is critical.

Um and there's also support for a business incubator in far southwest to see more local businesses, safer streets.

Um, so far southwest is uh entirely within the suburban context, it's mostly post-World War II suburban development.

Um many of the streets are very automobile-oriented.

We expect most people to continue to drive, but there's opportunities to improve safety, especially with traffic calming on Select Streets, so in places like uh Lowell Boulevard, Sheridan, you know, several neighborhood streets we've identified in the plan uh areas where residents have said that traffic calming, improved crossings, whatnot are necessary, and then related to that is transportation options, so building out the recommended bikeway network, uh making transit investments.

You know, you saw the map earlier where how much uh opportunity there is for growth on Wadsworth Boulevard.

That was a relatively large area that is planned for growth.

Um it is not a transit priority street today.

So if we expect that growth to go, it needs to be accompanied by improved transit access and transit service.

Um similarly, many of the neighborhoods uh are the two neighborhoods south of 285.

Um their street network is not necessarily ideal for typical bus service.

You know, there are a lot of uh loops, there's you know, only a handful of entrances in and out of subdivisions, and so we see that as an area where uh microtransit uh could be a possibility, especially uh in partnership with neighboring jurisdictions.

This area borders seven other uh jurisdictions, and so many times people are crossing in and out of Denver on a daily basis.

Another part of this is improving uh making desired trail improvements, turning certain streets into greenways, and then finally social community spaces, so in um investing in public spaces, especially in those growth areas, right?

Where we expect most growth to occur, where commercial activity will take place, um those are the areas that most lack public spaces and parks today, and so that growth needs to be coupled with investment in public spaces there, and this also includes making the South Platte River more of a community asset, turning South Platte River Drive more into a greenway, seeing improved landscaping and uh pedestrian facilities, um and so you know that's kind of an overview of what we heard from the community, what we incorporated into the first draft of the plan.

Um we went back to the community to ask, okay, this is what we heard is is what we put together, does that reflect what you think you told us?

Um, you know, we took a similar kind of multi-pronged approach, community navigators, in-person events, online and online opportunities to take surveys and review and comment on the plan.

And what we what we saw was actually some pretty significant support.

So this is, you don't have to pay attention to necessarily all the numbers, but what I want to call your attention to, these are all six of the uh community priorities.

We asked folks, do you support this?

What's your level of support?

Um, and you know, the along with the kind of associated policies and outcomes, right?

And what we saw for each of them was uh 78 to 88 percent agreement with community priorities.

That's the kind of denim and forest green color.

Um the the yucky green color is uh neutral, um, and then uh the other two the kind of uh Barry and yellow are people who disagree with the plan.

So we saw a pretty strong level of support uh for the plan, um, which meant that kind of both with this uh after this round of engagement and the next round, um, we really only made tweaks to the plan.

Um there was no kind of major redirection um from that first draft.

Um and so our our third round really focused on um this was what we completed uh most recently at the in you know September, October, really focused on review um uh hearing from folks uh that were still underrepresented and in answering a few kind of lingering questions.

Um and so what we found there, and I want to share some of our community navigator feedback because they were very successful in reaching folks and uh reaching a broad uh representation of the community.

Um and what we heard about key themes and community desires really reflected, I think what was already in the plan.

And we actually saw a stronger level of support from uh those surveys that we got from our community navigators and kind of the general population, right?

So the average was eighty-eight percent agreement both for people's um uh what the plan said about people's specific neighborhood, but also the broader far southwest area.

And Brian, I can off with a quick time check because you're two-thirds of your you're through about two-thirds of the way through your excellent slides.

Okay, most of them are most I'm I'm most of the way through my slides, a lot of it's right.

No complaints.

And so um, I just want to actually to conclude um the um uh advisory.

This there was a community advisory committee that helped craft this plan, uh, and the members of that committee voted uh last month uh unanimously to recommend uh approval of the plan, and then planning board um met uh just two weeks ago to uh review and discuss the far southwest plan, and they also voted unanimously to um approve uh the far southwest plan.

Um there was some discussion at planning board about um naturally occurring affordable housing.

I'll say it was probably a bit broader than the far southwest area plan, whether this was we're using the right terminology, what exactly that means, um, how should we address that in future plans?

So I think it's probably given us a lot to think about for our next round of MPI plans.

Um, but uh they did uh uh approve it unanimously.

And so um, you know, I think we've pretty extensively covered the community process.

Uh we found that it was developed through an inclusive community process over the course of the past year and a half or so.

Um, you know, we began with comprehensive plan 2040 and Blueprint Denver as the basis for um all of the plan's recommendations.

Uh and um if you read the staff report, um see how extensively this draws on the Denver Comp Plan 2040.

And so we believe it's consistent with uh those two plans.

Um and it also takes a long-term view.

It has a uh 2040 uh planning horizon, um it establishes uh uh community-based vision for land use built form, um, land use, built formability and quality of life, um, and um we think you know it will take many years to uh achieve the the vision of the plan.

Um so our recommendation is that uh the committee um for the plan to the full council for uh uh full consideration.

And with that, open for any questions.

Thank you, and I because you had appendices.

Yeah, um, the innate sense of time of people who present for the committee is very impressive.

Um I do welcome council members Lewis, Council President Senoval, and Summer Cashman to the meeting.

Thank you guys so much.

Um, and then so far I have, of course, Councilmember Flynn first and cue, followed by Alvidres, and if anyone else wants in, yeah, Councilmember Flynn.

I just want to say also, anytime you are in District 2, you are going to see that level of community engagement because they know and love their council member.

So I'm not surprised that the engagement was so high, but it's really impressive.

Thank you.

I've never met anyone in district two who doesn't know you.

So I think I might run for a fourth term now.

Seriously though, let me start by.

I think I first and foremost, I need to thank Brian and Abner who led the process on along with the staff.

We kicked this off well before the first public meeting.

Uh the team came down to Southwest Denver.

We uh my office treated them to a lunch.

Uh, and then we did a quick tour, similar to the one that we gave to you, and and and councilwoman uh Gonzalo's good chairs at the beginning.

And they went everywhere.

I think the numbers that were on the engagement and the outreach believe how much work they really put into it.

Uh any time I go out and about in my in my district, I couldn't swing a dead cat without running into these guys.

They were at every RNO, they were at uh uh pop-up of me.

No, I got PETA on my trail now, but uh pop-up events in parks, and I would go out when the consultant team was doing the pop-up events in the parks.

I would go out and see who they were engaging, just people walking along and say, hey, let us tell you about the plan.

If there was a completely unrelated event, they tabled it.

It was I think it was just really an incredible uh uh result.

And especially I want to highlight uh the neighborhood that I've always been most concerned about in this plan, has been College View.

Um a little bit with uh Marley, which is in the Southwest Plan area, somewhat Brentwood and Harvey Park, which is in far southwest, because I believe these are my most outrageous neighborhoods for uh displacement.

And so I really really appreciate the deep dives that they did in Collegeview with the navigators that produced a lot more input that we wouldn't have unless we had folks who are intentionally uh dedicated to uh to bringing them out.

In my view, this plan is very similar to the very first MPI we did, which was far northeast, which was districts uh 11 and 8.

And uh uh because mostly it was suburban contact zoning.

I know near Southeast uh Councilman Cashman uh has a lot of suburban context, but uh I think in terms of Councilwin Gilmore's district and and much of uh Councilman Lewis's district, uh suburban contact zoning.

So the realization that uh blueprint gives slightly different guidance for this versus urban urban edge, etc.

Uh, the team the team really got that, and so um I was prepared to to say, oh, oh, we can't do this, we shouldn't do that, whatever.

Every every step of the way was positive.

And uh, I'm really pleased by that.

I think they hit the nail on the head.

So uh we speaking of engagement, we did our own.

I know you all had your uh it's newsletter list, people could sign up online and get the CBD uh planning department newsletter.

Uh, but with my aide Stacey Simena, we established our own uh NPI newsletter.

Uh, that people who are interested only in that uh we would give them our own views on it and uh and increase engagement that way, and so all the way around, I think it went well.

And uh I guess I have to say I'm surprised because, you know, I was ready for a rough roll and it didn't happen.

Uh the level of agreement that we got was tremendous, and uh I think people are ready for this.

They're ready to accept uh the change that's coming.

We mean we mostly now it's not included in this plan specifically, but we had the Loreto Heights small area plan.

And people had a lot of anxiety over that because that beautiful open campus.

And I am getting so many compliments now as Loreto Heights as the housing is opening up bit by bit.

There eventually on 70 acres, there eventually will be uh about 1400 new housing units across the across the spectrum, and twice the amount of open space that the code would have required.

And so I think they saw that and they say, you know what?

We have the capacity to accept the population growth, the household growth that we're supposed to accept.

If we could work a little bit more on local businesses, that would be great.

Uh retention, mobility, um, this plan gets us there.

So I'm happy to support it.

Thank you.

Awesome.

Um, thank you.

I assume you don't really have questions because you've been on the ride the whole time.

But uh, no, I think I used up all my questions with Brian, yeah.

But yes.

All right, you guys can remove each other from your speed dial now.

I should say I really appreciate the focus on historical properties because I've been telling people downtown here for 10 years now that history in Denver is much more than Molly Brown.

Okay.

We have the Fort Logan Army Fort down there in the historic homes.

We have Molly Brown in our district.

Molly Brown's summer home is in our district and still preserved and it's open.

There's a restaurant on the back side now.

Um the the Paul Whiteman Arthur Harvey House in Harvey Park, the big mansion there, and so and the mid-century modern, the uh Cliff May homes.

Um so the focus on those historic properties is very, very much appreciated.

Thank you.

Thank you for that um introduction.

Um, Councilmember Alpha Dros.

Thank you.

Um, I just want to share, yeah, urban planning is very scary.

Which is two low-income neighborhoods at risk of displacement, it's a very serious concern, and I appreciate so much that you represent this area with that level of concern.

And I will say the Salvas Area Plan has been very stressful for me because of my heart because I and my heart is for you know the people that continue to be displaced from our city.

So thank you for your diligence and thank you for the team for the engagement because it does make all the difference.

I feel like how my job has become explain what zoning is and what a neighborhood plan is, and all residents here is like another plan, like didn't we just do a plan and they don't want to, they don't in my experience, um, they don't necessarily want to engage in the Southwest area plan, and um although we still have had some engagement, but they don't know if their voices matter a lot of times, and so it does take door knocking.

We've done my whole entire staff has been door knocking, we've been explaining, we've been having meetings, we've been having, we just had a business fair just to get the businesses out to talk about what their needs could be.

So um it is a very challenging job.

Um, but this plan looks really great.

Um, one of the things I haven't detailed the view, I will say, but one of my concerns um as a southwest person um is just around school closures.

Was that taken into consideration in the plan, the schools that have closed and reuse of school buildings?

Um so in far southwest, uh, there's kind of more of a partial school closure with Quinsmiller, um, which is now I believe high school only.

Um it no longer has an elementary school component, but DPS will continue to use that property.

Um the um, I guess there is actually a charter school um in one of the focus areas at Sheridan and um Evans that uh DPS I believe is actually moving to Castro elementary.

Um, yeah, yeah.

Um and we've discussed with DPS what a potential uh you know future might be for that site.

They aren't entirely sure what they would like to do with it, but um I think there's lots of opportunities to integrate that with the um with the vision of you know that we have for that shared in the South Sheridan commercial center.

Um could I clarify that that's not an an original DPS building?

Uh that's an old king, the old King Supers credit union building on the back side of uh where the old target store was at uh on the west side of Evans.

Oh, but DPS owns it.

Oh, okay.

Great.

Um, and then another thing that has come up around the river, um, has been gas stations going near the river because of the legislation that was passed.

Was that mentioned at all in any of this?

Because I know it's come up in the southwest area plan.

Yeah, it um that specifically didn't come up in far southwest.

Um, the um all of the land near the river uh in the far southwest area is uh industrial.

Um, it's within manufacturing preservation areas, and this plan proposes that it um continue to be industrial.

Um that being said, we didn't hear much um anything, my knowledge about uh gas stations um in that area.

Okay.

Um and then I really appreciated the complete streets part and attention to tree canopy, and I want to shout out I saw on the news the other day that um parks and rec has planted more trees this year than ever before, and so I'm glad that was um, you know, part of this plan and uh and appreciate this area because it is Mr.

Xavier and Jason, part of what I consider my community.

So thank you all for your diligence on this plan.

Great, thank you.

Um council president.

Thank you.

Um in other plans, does this plan go all the way down to the Platte River?

Did you incorporate any language on the for the Platte River?

Um we have a language in the near Northwest plan, the West Area Plan, and we just added it to the downtown area plan.

Is there any language specifically that calls out the Platte River?

There is, yeah.

So we um there's actually a page of the plan that kind of ties together a bunch of disparate policies and outcomes that relate to the South Platte River because you can find them in the mobility section or the land use section or the college view chapter, for example.

Um, and so I think it's actually the last page of the quality of life chapter that kind of brings all of that together.

Um, so you know, we have a recommendation for South Platte River Drive becoming more of a green way, for example, um, and orienting more businesses towards South Platte River Drive and keeping guidance to keep some of those um more impactful uh components of development away.

So we don't want to see like loading docks, for example, fronting um South Platte River Drive.

Um the we've incorporated guidance from the Healthy River Corridor study about um you know a 50-foot riparian buffer from the edge of uh the channel uh both for the South Plot River and several of its tributaries, so like the Bear uh Bear Creek, um, West Harbor Gulch, um, and then you know the 150 uh foot influence area and beyond that as well.

So this um this plan builds off of the Health River corridor study.

I'm gonna find the language that I have for the exactly for that we incorporated.

Um but I would love to have it added.

Um I think it was from David Gasper.

So um I have it, I'll send it to you.

Yeah, so it says the South Platte serves as an important ecological and recreational amenity for residents prioritizing the health of the river and increasing public access to and along the river corridor are crucial for transforming the South Platte River into a premier urban corridor where people and nature can thrive in harmony.

If that's not added, I would love to get that added because then that would be I'm trying to add that same line throughout the all of the plans that touch the South Platte River because at our South Platte River Committee, we have an initiative wanting to look at that more holistically as a corridor, right, instead of just a river, like treat it more like federal, and so then you could do an overlay over on it, and you can do other type of uses.

So if you don't mind, Councilmember Flynn, I would love to have that added.

Um they were able to do it at the last minute at the um in the downtown Denver area plan before it got brought to us.

Yeah, I think the um the spirit of that is already represented in the plan, so I I think yeah, it would make sense to do it.

Awesome.

I'll send it to you.

Yep.

Thank you.

That's a great catch, Council President, for all of our plans that are along the river to be consistent in that way.

Yeah, they yeah, did you have anything?

Yeah, that's right.

That's why we're just not sometimes in planning, we're just not good at lining all of our policies and having through lines through them.

I'm gonna just keep trying to do that.

Okay.

Did anyone else want to get in cue?

And if not, I will ask a question, but just leaving that open for everyone who's, especially because we have non-committee members here listening, which makes me think you're interested, Mr.

Cashman.

All right.

Um, my question is um around the two-unit near federal.

Um, I not having been here for a terribly long time and was sort of I don't know that we always have been consistent about implementing some of those suggestions through to the zoning code.

Um, so I was just curious um how that zoning actually looks right now around federal compared to what the plan is proposing and what the implementation of that would look like.

Like if we actually would need to change some things from single to two along that corridor.

Yeah.

Um so it looks different depending on which side of Federal Boulevard you're looking at.

So on the east side of Federal Boulevard is the College of Use South Platte neighborhood.

Uh and that neighborhood actually already allows two primary units on lots.

It allows um tandem houses and um it allows the tandem house building form on every lot, doesn't have to be a corner lot.

Um, on the west side of uh federal boulevard, uh, you have Harvey Park and Harvey Park South.

Um, and the low residential areas there only allow single unit suburban houses.

Um the guidance in the plan uh for both those areas says um, you know, townhouses and duplexes, which is what we heard from the community of support for.

Uh I do not believe we currently have a zone district in the suburban context that allows both townhouses and duplexes, um, but not some other building forms.

Um so there would need to be um uh uh a text amendment for that, and I'll say that's not without caveats as well, right?

Um, so uh the plan also talks about ensuring that those um building uh forms um would be consistent with the character and scale of the uh existing neighborhoods.

Um, and so I think there's a lot of concerns that under the current zoning code that um you know if we just allow duplexes and townhouses, it would not be of the same scale.

Right, because we don't have massing restrictions or whatever.

Yeah, okay.

That's super interesting.

Um, and then I I will cut it off there because um, Robell Campbell looked in the queue as well.

So okay, it's it's more just a statement, and I think um so nice and congratulations on uh, you know, having a far southwest plan.

I think that this just highlights, and you know, council president.

You said this last night as well, that we really need to be able to have all of our um neighbors have these uh neighborhood plans because although we've been talking about and it is rapid gentrification and changing neighborhoods and displacement, um, it's happening all throughout our city and it's going very quickly.

Um so I feel an urgency that all of our neighborhoods get to be included in a neighborhood plan, and I know that we have some that are in the queue, um, but just another exclamation point behind the importance of this.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you for that.

And Councilmember Sawyer.

Thanks.

Um, really, really appreciate this.

I've been through two area plans, one um was very wonderful and the other was very not.

Um, and so really excited to see um that some of the changes that have been made uh over the last few years in CPD have really um resulted in a much more positive MPI experience for the residents um and for council members, so that's fantastic.

Um, I do just want to mention, you briefly mentioned it, um, it's something we talked about in the near southeast area plan.

It is a major gap in our zoning code that in the suburban context, there is not a zone district that allows for duplexes and row homes.

Um, this is not something we can continue to talk about and not do something about, because this is literally missing middle housing.

Um the single thing that we have a gap for.

And so, like the near Southeast Area Plan, we have an entire area plan that recommends duplexes, but no actual form in our zoning code that allows for duplexes.

This cannot continue.

So I don't say this to undermine the work that you guys have done here in any stretch of the imagination because this is absolutely fantastic, but we do have another area plan where we have the suburban context where we are making recommendations that literally cannot be implemented.

Um, and that is really concerning to me.

Having we approved the near Southeast Area Plan 18 months ago, and we talked about this gap then, and nothing has been done about it.

So I really just bring that forward and just say that it would be my request in the CPU 2026 work plan.

We fix this finally.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, Councilmember.

I have to that one.

That's exactly right.

When we had a development on uh Quentin on uh Kipling Street years ago before the plan uh park west town uh duplexes are called we rezoned it to Row House 2.5 uh suburban with a waiver for to allow the duplex to allow the duplex.

So they built all the duplexes off of Kipling Street.

And yes, Kipling Street is part of it is in Denver to allow the duplexes.

But I'll have to look into this, uh Brian.

There are duplexes in that immediate area, in Stanford, Stanford Commons, I think it's called, and elsewhere along Kipling or duplex developments that went up in the maybe in the early nine early to mid-90s.

Yeah, that's why we have to see how they were done under the old code.

What was the old zoning?

There are PVGs on them.

So maybe look into that.

I would have to look.

I think they may be PUDs.

Um, I'll look at it.

Thanks.

Okay, thank you.

That was actually really interesting.

I have a question, Council President.

And I think the unlocking housing choices is that I think they will actually make, I know Councilmember Flynn sits on that, and councilwoman um Torres and my staff goes to all of them.

I think that that will actually be the recommendation is from what I understand they're looking at all of the adopted plans and looking at how could they make recommendations to implement it.

Once again, I don't it won't be just a rezoning.

I don't think it will be.

I don't think it will be, um, but I think they are attempting to do um look at all of those plans, which would impact all of our council districts, um, because I also have recommendations in the near Northwest plan that don't cannot be implemented.

And so I do think that that's what the unlock in housing choices is, and I also do think that that work group is really chow, like it's a lot.

I've sat and I've listened to a couple of them, and I'm like, um, they're doing a like it's hard conversations.

I think Councilmember Flynn could attest.

Okay.

Yes, okay.

Yeah, that connection to the unlocking housing choices is exactly where all of our minds are going, I think.

We could get an update on where it here at the committee.

I know we've done that.

We should do that.

Yep.

I know we've done that with the um running board planning board, but we haven't had an official one at committee, and so then that makes it a little bit feel different.

Sorry to keep trying to get a chair.

No, this was a really interesting.

This was a really interesting aspect.

It's fun.

I I brought up the topic, I was eager to talk about it in here today.

We just did.

So I feel like we were talking to each other throughout that, but um that just goes to show um the fact that we have these nuanced plans that really took the dive and and said this is exactly where in these neighborhoods, you know, we should have the two units, but then our zoning isn't matching that is is a hurdle, and we all see it.

So anyway, um, all right.

Speak now or forever, hold your peace, guys.

All right, um, thank you so much, Brian, and please like convey our gratitude and um to everyone for this work.

It was just excellent.

I'm glad we got to hear about it today.

Thank you, Councilmember Flynn as well.

Can we need a motion?

Uh, we do and a second uh thumbs up to go to the floor.

We will see you there.

Thank you.

All right, and our next action item today, or both we have an action item and a briefing um, both from hosts, but I think from different presenters.

Um, first about our outreach contracts.

Looks like we got a host of host folks.

I believe I've sat.

How did I never come up with that one before?

As soon as you guys are settled and ready, feel free to introduce yourselves and um council members you can start getting into for this one as well.

Sounds good.

Uh hello, my name's Lana Dalton.

I'm the director of unsheltered homeless response for host.

Hi everyone, Polly Kyle Government Affairs Officer with host.

Hi, my name is Corey Branch.

I'm the program manager for the street outreach, with host.

And we're here to talk to you about the 2026 overview of street outreach, youth, street outreach, and community ambassador work.

Great.

Thank you.

I think we've been waiting on this one a little while.

We're really excited for it.

So thanks.

Good.

Uh so this year we held a competitive process, procurement process for our street outreach youth street outreach and community ambassador services.

Um, from the procurement, we're seeking approval on the following contracts.

So we have the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless Street Outreach Services, also known as DSOC or the Denver Street Outreach Collaborative.

That is not in front of you today.

It'll come to you next week.

I apologize for that, but we are going to brief you on it today.

We have the Urban Peak Youth Street Outreaches, Youth Street Outreach Services contract, and then the Urban Alchemy Community Ambassador Services contract.

This is the contract summary.

So these contracts are going to be going for for three years.

So starting January 1st of 2026 and they'll end December 31st of 2028.

This has each year's amount.

There's a 2.5% COLA adjusted in each of these years in order to make up the total amount.

For CCH DSOC contract, you have $6,959,216.

For Urban Peak, you have 1,206, $206,260.

And for Urban Alchemy, you have $3,075,625 for a total contract amount for all of these different contracts over the three-year period of 11,241,101.

For each of these contracts, we have the following measures in place to ensure there's accountability across the contract.

So we do mandatory quarterly reporting that's both qualitative and quantitative.

We have daily operational meetings, regular partner meetings and leadership convenings monthly.

Quarterly programmatic site visits and annual contract monitoring.

When you look at host spectrum of work, you'll find under the outreach and unsheltered response, we have street outreach and community ambassadors.

This is one part of the large continuum of services that hosts division of housing stability and homelessness resolution works on.

Within street outreach, we specialize in all different types of populations, youth, adult, families, and also have behavioral health and nursing providers that are connected to us in this work.

We also distribute funds to the Department of Safety for emergency hotel and motel stays for vulnerable people, vulnerable people, particularly during like extreme weather events.

So whether that means cold weather or very rare warm.

So what are street outreach, youth, street outreach and community ambassador services?

Street Outreach really uses a housing focused approach, engaging with households that are experiencing unsheltered homelessness.

So that's living outdoors, living in vehicles, could be large vehicles, or other places not meant for human habitation.

It's proactive housing focused street outreach, as I mentioned.

And we also are engaged in the mayor's office street engagement operations.

So that's response to 311 calls or other referral mechanisms.

Our youth street outreach does the same thing as street outreach, except for they serve a population of ages 12 to 24 and specialize in that specific niche of population.

Many times also our youth are not necessarily in encampments or on the street, but rather in public areas like libraries or rec centers, and so they have the tendency to outreach there more often than our other outreach partners.

And then lastly, we have our community ambassador services.

These folks are serving households across Denver that are in need of hospitality andor safety services, and or households who are experiencing homelessness.

They also conduct public right-of-way cleaning services.

Alright, so you'll we're gonna go through two different matrixes.

One of the first matrix is 2025, which is where we're at right now.

We'll go through 2026 as the contract stand.

So here's our current matrix of the FTE that are connected to each line of work that's performed by host and their contracted partners.

You're gonna see three different colors on the screen.

One is this peach color, which is specialized services.

I'll take a page out of CPD in the yucky green color.

It's the outreach services, and then we have the blue uh targeted street engagement services.

Um, so looking in our specialized services, we have nurses.

Um, those are folks that are out on the street uh providing medical care as well as referring into medical care that is necessary for our folks that we're seeing.

We have behavioral health clinicians that respond to clients in crisis who are struggling with severe persistent mental illness and or substance misuse disorders.

We have administrators and managers, and these are folks who really help manage the program, provide administrative support, and most of those folks don't work in the field.

And then we have this column housing stabilization.

Uh, these staff are currently in the 2025 DSOC contract, but have since for 2026 been taking out, you received a presentation a couple of weeks ago from our housing central command partners and host.

Those stabilizers have their own specific contract that have been taken out of this contract.

What happened was when we were in had the L and Mile High Division, we uh put together the Housing Central Command utilizing redeployed outreach staff, and so subsequently these folks ended up in this contract as a result, and so we're taking those out to put them in the appropriate contract, and that's seven FTE that are connected there.

If we move into the green category, as I said, youth outreach, doing outreach to youth ages 12 to 24.

We have our newcomer and family outreach, so those are folks that are providing outreach to folks that are new to Denver and or our families.

These staff are all bilingual and are specially trained to work with this population.

I do want to mention that those folks are on limited term and have been extended into 2026.

And then general outreach are outreach services to address immediate needs, provide access to shelter, facilitate housing placements, etc.

And then lastly, we have our street engagement.

So again, this is very much connected to the mayor's office initiative around street engagement.

We have our priority enforcement area ambassadors.

So they're specifically down in the downtown district, really working on engagement with people on the streets and focus areas to promote pro-social behavior, develop relationships with businesses and residents, street cleaning and other services.

And then we have 311 and rest of city outreach.

So those are folks that are responding to 311 calls, provides general outreach as time permits, including responding to the housed community.

Um, I do want to note that all of these contractors and our host employees may be redeployed during cold weather events or extreme weather events, and again, those housing stabilization folks have been removed in 2026, which you'll see on the next slide.

Thank you.

All right.

So same structure, specialized services, housing focused street outreach, and targeted street engagement.

The FTE allocations look a little bit different here because this represents a $580,000 cut from outreach outreach contracts, removing housing stabilization, reducing youth outreach, and reducing contracted general outreach and increasing and community ambassador services.

Is that we have had two FTE from host that have been removed, two FTE from DSOC that were removed, and also one Urban Peak outreach worker that has been removed from our contracts.

When looking into 2026, we're moving into a street engagement model that has two parts, and so we have priority enforcement zones and rest of city zones.

So that's really the blue boxes that you saw on the prior slide.

These zones have different FTE allocated to it.

So if you see in the TEAL components, those are the priority enforcement zones, and that's where the community ambassadors, those 10 FTE will be deployed at any given time.

And then in the rest of city, you'll see 10 FTE that are outreach workers that are deployed to respond to 311 calls and do specialized projects as it relates to the mayor's office.

And so that could be things like including.

Excuse me.

Alright, so moving into the contracts.

To start off with, the contracts that we have in front of you are well the one that you'll have in front of you next week, but we're talking about today is the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless DESOC contract.

So this is a partnership that is a long-standing partnership in our community between the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless and St.

Francis Center.

And quick pause to define that acronym.

It stands for Denver Street Outreach Collaborative.

Thank you.

Yep.

It's street outreach, street medicine, and street behavioral health services for unsheltered adults.

It's three-year contract, January 1st, 2026 through December 31st of 2028.

The total amount is listed below.

The number of FTE per year are connected to this contract is 20.6.

And then I've also placed some specific outcomes and output measures related to this specific contract, as well as on the next slide, which you don't need to go there yet.

But on the next slide, we go into depth of what's actually in the contract itself.

So you can take a look at that if you'd like to.

But the number of households enrolled in HMIS annually is 715.

The number of unique clients contacted by nurses and medical annually annually is 250, and the unique number of clients contacted behavior by behavioral health clinicians annually is 180.

Our outcomes to permanent or stable housing is 112, and exits to shelter annually is 354.

This team operates Monday through Friday, 9 to 5, and that is both for the five FTE that are going to be designated for street engagement operations, aka the rest of city, and this seven FTE that are will be focused on housing focused to street outreach.

Both of these teams may be flexed based on cold weather events.

This next slide is just to highlight all the different outcomes and outputs that the contractors have agreed to agreed to and as it relates to this contract year over year.

So these are per year outcome measures that we will be measuring.

The next slide.

Again, it's a three-year contract, 2026 to 2028.

The contract amounts are listed below.

The FTE is located below as well, with it broken down to 3.85 FTE.

Some highlights to outputs and outcomes would be the number of households enrolled in HMIS annually is 130, and some outcomes would be that the exits to permanent or stable housing annually would be 40 households, exits to shelter annually would be about 75% of the 130 that are listed.

This team operates as one team of two Monday through Friday, 9 to 5, and they also may flex due to cold weather outreach because they participate in that as well.

Again, this slide is just around the dedicated outcomes and outputs that are in contract as it relates to Urban Peak specifically.

And then the next slide is a new contractor with us in outreach, and that is Urban Alchemy.

They'll be providing our community ambassador services as it relates to providing those for people in Denver.

Again, three-year contract, the contract amount is below.

The FTE will be 12.68.

And the outputs are a little bit different because community ambassador work is different.

It is not outreach work specifically, although it does have aspects of that.

So number of encounters annually is 36,500.

Number of engagements with unsheltered households annually is 685.

I'm pointing out the difference there in regards to they engage with the general public.

So like it's not just people experiencing unsheltered homelessness.

This is folks that could be wandering on the street and would like to know the best restaurant they would like to go to, or they point out that there's some garbage or things over here that they would like taking care of, and this team can address those needs.

Excuse me.

Also the number of cleaning activities annually will be 3,650.

The referrals to appropriate services and locations will be at 90%, and the referrals to homelessness or related services for those folks that they contact that are unsheltered will be 760 referrals.

The hours of operation for this team are different.

They work seven days a week.

Three teams of two Monday through Friday from 10 a.m.

to 6 p.m.

And two teams of two on Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m.

to 6 p.m.

They also may flex based upon the cold weather operations that take place and will be dedicated only to those priority enforcement zones listed on the map that I showed you earlier.

And lastly, this is the um outcomes and expectations that are in contract for urban alchemy around what they're expected to achieve in uh 2026.

And do you have questions?

We do.

I have a queue going that starts with Council Member Alvidos followed by Councilman Sawyer.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

So my first question the way I was reading the slides, it looks like this is uh outreach that is sent in response to 311 calls.

Some of it is.

So if you're looking at the blue section of the thing of uh well, right now 2025, it's everyone.

We were everybody responds to 311s, but we're segmenting that out to really get back to our housing focused street outreach, which we haven't been able to do in a couple of years, and so um we're really centralizing on dividing our FTE out to be responsive as far as that's concerned.

So they'll be proactive in these zones, yeah.

Yeah, I understand.

Okay, that's great.

Um, one of my concerns around 311 is the cutback of hours and it not being available like on Veterans Day.

My consistent were calling and just getting hung up on.

So I'm wondering where are they supposed to call if 311 is down?

That's a great question.

Um typically what has happened in the past, and I don't know if this is the actual solution, but 911 has been the backup for 311 in the past, but also not my um really my genre either.

Um, okay.

Um, I will say I am worried about children, especially after 6 p.m., and so ending as six, like how did that become a decision?

Yeah, so um with our teams, we can receive referrals at any time.

Also, we provide um those hotel and motel uh funds to DPD as well as we've partnered with STAR, and so those folks with families and with children can you can utilize those services and be placed in a hotel and host will get a referral and follow up within four days post uh placement from one of those other teams.

Okay, and then what about kids under 12?

Um, so oh, I'm sorry, for the youth specific.

So we address those with our family team.

So typically those folks are with families if they are still under 12 and still considered experiencing unsheltered homelessness, our youth team will definitely address that.

But if they're with uh a guardian or other family member, our family team would take care of that.

Okay, and then when you find a child, you know, I know Urban Peaks doing the outreach, but what if they're full?

Are these children going to be sent to adult shelters or what's the plan there?

So our family team works directly with our family partners at the Tamarack, the connection center, all those things.

So Urban Peak really works with unaccompanied youth, yeah.

Yeah, and then um our family team works with families that have youth that are under the age of 18.

And so we really work with them to place them into a location a scattered side hotel, or if it meets prioritization criteria, and then from there we get them prioritized on the family shelter wait list and work with them until they enter into family shelter.

So they could end up at a regular adult shelter, is what I just heard.

At a family shelter, not at a regular 18-year-old won't end up at a regular shelter, they will be at a family shelter or youth shelter correct, yeah.

Um, and then um, I'll just wrap up with um one question, which is I have been seeing children, you know, especially like near Sixth Avenue and Federal Boulevard near Alameda and Federal, you know, regardless of temperatures, babies with their parent.

But where do we intervene when it is a child under 12 with their parent on the street and they're refusing to put their child in a safer condition or they have their child on the side of a highway?

We'll go out and we'll definitely talk to the family.

Um, being experiencing homelessness is not necessarily indicative of a child protective services case.

And so um, while we will um we'll talk to the family, we'll understand what their risk factors are.

We'll try to understand if they are staying with someone or are um connected to like doubling up or whatnot, because many times those families are doubled up with somebody else, and if that's the case, we try to keep that um that situation going because as you know, our family shelter system is is quite frankly um over capacity right now, is and there's a large wait list, and so we try to keep people in the places that they're staying.

But if there are risk factors, we definitely will contact um child protective services if we see signs of abuse, if we see signs of neglect, if we're being told that folks aren't you know eating or things of that nature, we'll definitely reach out and we do so on a regular basis.

Thank you for the chair.

Thank you.

Um, next I have Councilmember Sawyer followed by um Madam Fotem.

Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thanks, you guys.

Um, really supportive of these contracts.

I just um wanted to ask about the locations of for kind of the the targeted support because all of my council districts borders Aurora.

Um I know that it's like this in districts six and four as well, just to the south of me, and I suspect it is like this on every border in the city of Denver, um, but we get very little outreach support um out there on the borders, and we have people out there every day all the time who are particularly living in their cars on borders, and so um I appreciate that there are sort of targeted areas to these contracts, um, and I imagine that there's a whole thought process process behind why they're targeted, where they're targeted.

Um, so okay, but I'm just gonna say that doesn't help our council districts at all.

Sure, right?

This is every dime we have for targeted outreach, and not one of those dimes is touching council district five, and that's really concerning because I know everybody likes to think that council district five is just full of rich white people, but it's actually not, and we have real problems, particularly along the border, um, as it comes to uh people experiencing homelessness and particularly living in their cars and campers on our borders in Denver.

Um, the vast majority of the time when we uh call in, it is our hot team who goes out there from the district three or district two police departments to make first contact.

Our hot teams are gone now because all of the hot teams have been moved downtown to out of the police districts, so now there is no district three hot team to make that contact, and so what I'm seeing here is a total focus of resources on downtown Denver, and every dollar we're spending on downtown Denver, and I think it was council president who said this last night uh in when we adopted the downtown Denver area plan.

There's an entire city out here, and the tax paying residents of Denver don't live in downtown Denver, they live in the neighborhoods, and zero of the resources are going into the neighborhoods, all going into downtown, and so I don't have a problem with these contracts.

I understand the decision, but it has to be said here and now that the decisions that each agency of the city and county of Denver are making, are focusing all of our dollars and all of our resources on downtown Denver to the detriment of our neighborhoods, and that is not okay.

Thanks.

Can I comment on that?

Please do.

Um, okay, that's not that's okay.

So on that map that you saw, so those are definitely the targeted areas, right?

But this year, what I'm really excited about is that um we're taking that housing focused outreach back, and we're able to deploy those folks across the city in a different way, and so it's not deployed through the targeted street engagement system that's being set up, but rather we can be proactive across the city, and we're currently setting up meetings and working towards how are we going to deploy staff across the entire city with our other resources that we have, and so that to me is very exciting to be able to start doing some more of that proactive work, and we would do response to 311s as well, but also like it allows us to have a larger reach, I think.

So, thanks.

Thank you.

Um, Councilman Rock.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um, and thank you to the two of you.

Uh, you asked a lot of my questions, so I won't ask that question uh or those specific questions.

More thinking around with a different deployment.

Is there is it only through 311 that you get notified, or is there another way as we get calls into our office from community members or you know, people who are concerned?

Is there another way for us to be able to have direct contact and outreach with you?

Yeah, absolutely.

So we have the 311 system, and that's also transitioning into Salesforce, which I think Mr.

Chandler has come and talked to you about as well.

Um, and then we also have our own referral form that we um utilize, and many of your council aides have access access to that, and we receive um referrals on a regular basis.

We have a 24 to 48 business hour turnaround time on those referrals, so we're always happy to take those and respond to those as you um as you provide those, um, and we can we can send that out again.

Okay.

Um I appreciate that.

Uh I just to reiterate, I think as we're looking at families, children, and on the borders, just putting an exclamation behind that.

Um, those are very real things that we're experiencing, um, at least in Southeast Denver as well.

So thank you, Madam Chair.

Um, Councilmember Lewis is okay.

Um, thank you all for the presentation.

Actually, I have a very similar uh question as councilwoman Sawyer um regarding the priority areas.

What are the priority areas and how are those selected?

Um, so is there a way to get this back up?

Yeah, so if you just slide nine, they're young.

Cool.

Uh so the priority enforcement areas are the teal colored um areas, and then the rest of city are those black areas internal to the city and county boundaries.

Um, those were chosen through the mayor's office street engagement.

Um, based on a formula or criteria.

Um so these are all areas that we have, um, excuse me.

These are all areas that um teams have had focus on throughout this last year, so like um we've called had what they're called focus areas.

Um, and so all of these areas that are in teal have been outreached extensively this year, um, and then next year the hope is to kind of like where we had the account resolution components that were closing areas, and we're really relying on enforcement to be part and present in those areas.

That's what the ideal idea is behind that.

Thank you.

Um, when you all talk about the ambassadors, can you speak more to that?

I'm particularly interested in what you all mean by hospitality.

Yeah, so um community ambassadors.

There's many different um folks across the nation that do this type of work.

Uh, we actually have some ambassadors currently that are um in the ballpark JID.

Um, those folks uh were hired by the JID to do that work specifically.

We have the Denver Dream Center currently that is doing some kind of hybrid community ambassador work, but what they're doing is they're really out there providing a presence in the community, displaying pro-social behavior.

Many times folks have lived experience or they have prior um other incarceration or things of that nature to really relate to the people that are on the street, and they're a mechanism that are just there to say like provide a presence, and then they also are there like to provide directions to people, they're there to provide cleaning services.

Um they're just kind of a hybrid ambassador that's there to ensure that the area is clean safe and welcoming to all.

When you say cleaning services, what do you mean by that?

They literally will power wash sidewalks, um, they will clean graffiti, um pick up needles, things like that.

But these aren't the folks that are necessarily participating in the sleeping of folks that are living on our streets.

Correct.

So these are folks that are really working to keep a clean environment, keep it to keep it safe, and um work with folks to if they are in a closed area to continue to move along.

Okay, and then I have some specific questions regarding the contracts.

Um, slide 12, when it says outcomes and expectations, um, it says one home enrollment assessments 80%, 80% like 80% of 100, like 80% of the sorry, 80% of the households served.

Say it again.

Uh 80% of the households served.

Okay.

Um for the contract, um, for the youth street outreach, you have one metric that says 40 households.

I'm assuming like unique households, and then the X's to shelter annually is 75%.

Yep, 70%.

And 75% of the 40?

Of the households uh or of the, let me find the slide.

It's 14.

Of the 130 households that are enrolled in HMIS.

So the 75% pertains to the 1,660.

No, the that's those are contacts, so households, um, so of the 130 uh households, it is 60% of the those um households that will be it have an HMIS housing assessment completed or a one-home enrollment assessment completed.

Okay, as long as they're over the age of 18.

And then my last question um for the community ambassadors and the activities, the activities and the outcomes and metrics don't seem to have any correlation.

So you have like activities, transportation, connection to benefits, engagement with partners, coordination with city, um, etc.

etc.

And then when you go to outcomes, one of the outcomes is referral to appropriate service locations, referrals to homeless or other related services, and then provide direct assistance, um, and what did you provide?

What did you provide?

Can you can you walk me through the thought process behind how you arrived at the outcome?

Yep.

So the referrals to, so because the community ambassadors are serving a different type of population, they're serving both housed and unhoused residents.

Referrals to appropriate services andor locations would be like, hey, I told you to go to, or I told you how to get to the ballpark.

Like that is how um that is an appropriate referral to a service or location if that's the question that was being asked by the resident or by the person that was asking it.

But if it was a referral to, or if it's somebody who's unsheltered um and is on the street, the referral to homelessness or other related services means like, hey, does this person clearly need a shelter bed?

Does this person clearly need medical assistance right now because there's something that's happening that's indicating to me I'm not a medical professional, but like there's something indicating to me that this person needs to seek out medical um assistance.

Um, and so referrals to homeless or other related providers are those 760 referrals, and then the provided a direct assistance, and what did you provide?

So in this contract, there are dollars specifically designated for direct assistance.

Um, so that could be something like a lift uh to a shelter, or that could be um, you know, um, it could be a variety of different things like uh lift to a food bank or assistance with food or assistance with water or things of that nature, and so um if folks are experiencing something where they would need direct assistance, um, 50% of the folks that they are assisting, um, we would ask that they provide some sort of assistance to those folks.

I it seems like an easy metric to be able to um attain, but it doesn't seem like a metric in which it would provide a lot of benefit in terms of like outcomes for how you actually improve the life of the individual that you might be coming in counter with, or in contact with, excuse me.

So if if someone needs a shelter and you refer them to the shelter, there's no way to capture, or at least the way it's written here, maybe there's something more within the contract to capture that you successfully connected them with whatever the service that they might be in need of.

Yep.

So they're documenting everything in HMIS, and so we will be able to pull reports specifically about folks that are experiencing homelessness around the services that they are connecting people to.

Um, so then for the community ambassadors, be because the other ones were very specific to like we're carving this out for folks experiencing homelessness, but it feels like the community of ambassadors are both working with those that are unsheltered as well as those that just might need directions to a um a baseball game.

Yep.

Talk to me about the thinking behind that because it feels like though they would need very specific, like those seem like two different jobs to me.

Yep.

Great, great question.

And also I think this is a little bit out of hosts wheelhouse, to be quite honest with you.

I appreciate the um so these are all things that this is our first year really diving into having community ambassadors as part of our portfolio of things that we're doing, and so I appreciate that feedback, and also um would say that the I think the primary mechanism for community ambassadors is to really like engage those folks in those in priority enforcement zones that are unsheltered and they happen to do these other duties as well.

They're they're trying to provide pro-social behavior and examples of that throughout.

They're trying to like ensure people are um connected to the most appropriate service that they're coming across, and they may also happen to provide directions to someone at the same time.

So, but yes, this is a little bit different for us.

Okay, thank you.

Those are it.

Thank you.

Great, thank you so much.

Um, anyone else want to get into you before I ask a beautiful?

Great, go for it, Council President.

Um, thank you.

Thank you.

This is super challenging work, and just want to say thank you.

I remember when we were on the streets on Zoom, I think.

So I'm a bonding there.

Um, so just want to say thank you all for this work.

My question is, right now, if you if I look at that map on the priority enforcement and the rest of the city zones, is there any I couldn't figure it out, and then I was like, oh, it's based on police districts.

Could you do an overlay based on council districts so that I could look on because I think I'm the only council district that has police district one and council district one, um, and our police districts look different, so then I can figure out where it's lining up, that'd be helpful.

And then the second one is um what happened to all of the how are we going to address all of the people who are living in their campers?

So Northwest Denver, we have like besides everything along the Platte River, right?

Because I have the Platte River, so that's the Platte River, um, that's I-70 and Pecos.

Once I finally figured out the map, I was like, okay, I got it.

Colfax, I understand, but everywhere else, I feel like we're it's like a water balloon where we're like, you know, squeezing one part and the water goes to other other areas, and because my council district is right along, if you follow I-70 right there, and you have to see those two lakes, they just go to Adams County, then they come over and they start on pedroll, then they go all the way to Sheridan, they go to Adams County, and they start.

And there's this notion that just because they're experiencing homelessness by living in their campers that there's perceived unsafety, right?

And it's not accurate.

I mean, I I'll be the first to say, hey, I walk that lake, I walk that that 46th Avenue all the time.

Um, but there is, I don't even know how to address it.

So I don't know if there's an internal group that's looking at that, and it would be great to bring on some type of council member if we if there is, because we would love to be partners.

We want to be partners, and I know that this there were updates to our I think Councilmember Cashman was one of the sponsors of it, um, to how we approached um, you know, all of the campers and all of the things that happen to the cars, especially if they like have issues and where do we take them?

And it's just not working, which I'm probably speaking to you all that you probably don't think it's working very well either.

Um, so I just want to say I heard that there's a system change.

What is that system change?

And then how can we be helpful and partners in that change?

So I'm gonna answer part of it and then I'm gonna hand it over to you.

Um so there's right now we have uh large vehicular homelessness pilot.

It is staffed with four total FTE, and that's all they do is they're working day in and day out with people in large vehicles and vehicles to um try to work with them to solve their homelessness.

Unfortunately, that funding that we have ends at the end of this year.

And we will still work with folks that are experiencing homelessness in vehicles and whatnot, but we won't have the same type of programming that's associated with the um the large vehicles.

Um this team, only for FTE, obviously can only cover so much, but has done an uh an amazing job at doing what they have with what they have, and so um Corey is actually in charge of that um team and can speak to a little bit about what they have done and what they are doing and how it's been helpful.

Um, and we would hope to see some additional dollars uh in years to come to help address this a little bit better.

Yeah, thank you.

Um, and uh I think this also goes to council member Sawyer's comments earlier too, and I am a proud resident of district five.

I'm just saying that.

Um, but um, you know, over the course of the last six months, we've worked uh really deliberately to connect with people experiencing homelessness and vehicles.

Um we went out and did a number of surveys with people that are in vehicles to understand what their needs are and uh how best to serve them, what type of outcomes they're looking for, and to uh to a number of folks that we talk to, the the answer is the same.

They want to be indoors.

Um there are individuals uh to your point, I think, that have uh fallen through the gap a little bit because you say, Well, they've got a vehicle, they're not in a tent or something like that, and so maybe they don't um need the same level of support, they do.

Um, and so during um the uh work that we've done since October 6th for a pilot uh working with people specifically in vehicles, we've had um a tremendous amount of success.

Um for we've uh encountered 65 um unique individuals, so we're receiving basically um referrals directly from different city agencies, maybe advocacy groups, city council aids as well that are sending us referrals for people experiencing homelessness in vehicles that we're connecting with.

Um we've connected with 65 people out of those 65 people, we've had 44 resolved outcomes.

We've had eight vehicles surrendered, including RVs, trucks, campers, trailers, things like that.

But um, I think uh to your point though, um the the work's not done and um whether uh this this pilot ends at the end of this year, we're gonna need to have continued outreach support um in 2026 to make sure that we're getting as many people connected to services as possible.

So the um the the work that's being done um right now from outreach through host and through our partners, um, these are dedicated public servants.

Um, one uh point that Lana didn't mention yet was that due to our um efforts throughout the city during cold weather activation events um last year or sorry, last season, we didn't have a single reported cold weather death across the entire city, which I think is um probably unprecedented in at least recent memory.

Um but uh to wrap up though, yeah, we we continue to prioritize individuals that are living in vehicles.

We'll continue to outreach them and do our very best to make sure that they're um supported and uh uh on the road, so to speak, um, to uh resolved outcome.

Okay, so um I appreciate that.

I no doubt are they public like hardworking public servants?

I've I've seen them out there witnessed what's going on on a policy level.

Are you all looking at different policies that need to be changed or implemented?

Because one of the things that happens in Denver is we pass a policy on city council side, and often there's not time to go back and review it and say, is this actually producing the outcomes that we want?

And I'll take it totally different route.

I've done locked and land use rezonings in northwest Denver for active street use to get small local businesses, and a year later I went to CPD and I said, is this actually producing the outcomes that we want?

And they're like, We found an error.

No, it's not.

And I was like, what happened?

And they were like, we didn't understand when it had two major intersections, you have to bring an amendment to be able to actually get the robust outcome that you want.

And so I partnered with another council person who was gonna use that tool to amend the ordinance to create the outcomes that we want.

And so there's a whole entire chapter 27 that deals with people like with our homelessness chapter.

I mean, I know chapter 27.

I'm sure you all look at chapter 27 all the time.

And Councilwoman Kenich, it was like her legacy.

She kept adding to chapter 27, adding to chapter 27, adding to chapter 27.

And we dedicated funding to chapter 27, dedicated revenue sources.

And my question to you all, you don't have an answer.

Have to have an answer, but is it working?

Because I feel like parts of it are working really well, and I feel like parts of it are not working really well.

And that's when you can partner with us on this side as a lead to bring ordinances like that and say, hey, in all honesty, we've used this, and these do really need to be updated.

And it's no, it's not an issue, it's called good governance.

We should be updating our organizers all the time to make sure they are actually producing the outcomes that we want.

Um, because this is such a challenging environment, and it's changed so much from COVID.

I mean, right?

Everything is changed after COVID and the immigrant crisis and all these things that we just did not know when Councilwoman Kenich was working on for chapter 27.

Um, so just want to put that lifeline out there that if you all see these policies, ping us and say, hey, can we be thought partners on this?

What are you experiencing?

What are your aides experiencing?

And let's just look at some of these policies that we have that are limiting this, or or not.

Um, so just it's more of a policy discussion as you all are doing this great work.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, I'm true.

Thank you.

Um, and Councilmember Lewis had one additional question, I think, and I don't think I have anyone else in queue.

Oh, okay.

Go ahead and see I didn't see that.

No, no, you're fine.

You're next again.

It's it's more of a general comment, and it's not a reflection of the work that you all are putting together.

Um, I asked for a roll call vote so that I can vote no on this because one of the observations that I had when I first came on to council as I was looking at the contracts, is that the metrics that we put into the contract often pushed us further from the goals that we were intending to do, which was to solve the issue of homelessness and um this contract specifically as it pertains to the ambassadors, it doesn't feel like that it's getting us closer to figuring out the homelessness.

I also, which is probably going to be surprising on that I say this as we look at the priority zones, I do believe that we should be spreading out those resources throughout the entire city, and the reason that we concentrated in the area is because the mayor's office is concentrated the um issues in in particular areas, and we're not solving what we are hoping to solve for.

So it's not a reflection of the work that you all um are doing, and I have a deep appreciation for the work that appreciation for the work that you are doing you all are doing, but it's the right direction that you were probably given on from the administration and so appreciate you all, and I have to vote no.

Can I ask one question before we get to a vote, which is what's the source of funds for the urban alchemy ambassadors contract?

Is it homelessness resolution funds or it is homelessness resolution funds and general fund combo?

Okay, um, I have a concern with that.

I don't know much about and you all may, so you could tell me, but um, doesn't seem quite right to use homelessness resolution funds there, I would say, because it doesn't even sound like that's the goal so much.

Um I missed a piece about that contract, I think, with respect to um who urban alchemy intends to employ because that's not really the metrics, like the metrics are around contacts and everything else.

Um, so can you I kind of know their model generally, having just sort of met with them, but can you tell me it is there anything requiring them to um employ particular people for that?

It's not a requirement, but it doesn't um yeah, it was part of their whole proposal that they brought forward for the procurement process.

Okay.

Because it seems a little funny to me.

Like I would understand this as a um as a workforce kind of program, similar to like Dumber Day works, um, if it was being done in that way.

Um, and then then I would see sort of the connection, um, and I hope that is some of what they try to do with it.

But um, as framed in the contract, it seems like it's essentially um duplicating what some of the bids and jets are doing, and really it's more about um uh serving businesses along certain corridors, cleaning up those kinds of things, which are things that we should do as a city.

Um, often the bids, you know, layered onto that, but it just seems really strange to me for it to be within host and to be funded with homelessness resolution funds.

I agree.

Um does anyone else want to ask any questions, knowing that we're gonna do a roll call vote on 1881, the urban alchemy ambassador's contract.

Okay, um, so roll call vote.

Well, let me get a motion a second first, obviously.

Sorry.

Thanks, Lawyer.

Move my sawyer seconded by all the address.

Um, let me pull my list in.

Madam President.

Oh, do you want to do the roll call?

Who does this usually?

You guys, I thought so.

Thanks, Alyssa.

Council members Alvidres.

Aye.

Lewis?

Nay.

Romara Campbell.

Aye.

Present Sandoval.

Hi.

Great, thank you.

So it passes, um, it will go to the floor.

Um, but I would appreciate maybe a little more engagement around.

I'm gonna go ahead and ask a legal question to our council about whether it's appropriate to use homelessness resolution funds, and so if hosts could also look into that, I would appreciate it.

Um, okay, and then for 1882, which is the um urban peak youth outreach contract.

Do we need a roll call vote?

And can I get a motion in a second?

No, second.

Okay, okay to go to the floor.

Great.

All right, and with that, um, thank you guys so much for all the info today, and we will move on to permanent supportive housing.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Um, I think it's the six zero for some reason.

It's really not showing 6-0 at that.

Oh, that was for you.

Yeah, it's a time.

Thank you.

No, you're talking about it.

I don't want to start your job for you.

You want to know?

Can you just say that?

Yeah, it's like this doing so.

Um, we scared everyone away, I guess.

Okay.

Have you been?

Thank you guys for the um change of host personnel.

I'll let you guys reintroduce yourselves in Polly's case and then do our next slide deck, and this is just a briefing.

Uh Polly Kyle, uh government affairs officer for host.

I'm Rosie McQuigan.

I'm a family program officer.

Uh, with the homelessness resolution team.

And today I'm going to talk to you all about supportive housing.

And I'm going to pass out a spreadsheet for you all to take a look at that has a breakdown and comparison of some numbers.

Um, so we did a competitive solicitation this year for our supportive housing, and we decided on five contracts, which are listed here.

And what's important to keep in mind is these are going to be two-year contracts for 26 and 27, but we just have the 26 amounts listed as we work to negotiate for our 2027 budget amounts.

Um, only three of the ones listed here are actually going to need uh to be voted on and approved by you all, but I wanted to kind of share all the information about what we are going to be putting forth for the 26 and 27.

And those three that we will need your support and approval on are Bluff Mercy, uh, the coalition for the homeless and urban peak, as those will all be well above $500,000.

And looking at where this kind of fits into all of our work.

So this is in our rehousing effort side of things, and so supportive housing really works with literally folks experiencing literal homelessness to access housing and support services to maintain that housing to effectively end their episode of homelessness.

And this is one of probably the most important tools I would say that we have in uh creating a positive exit from literal homelessness.

Um, it's a bit more permanent than things like rapid rehousing or time-limited rent subsidies.

There's generally not a time limit on how long folks can be there.

And like I mentioned, it includes wraparound services, which are really intended to create that stabilization factor for folks.

So once they're in housing, that's they don't return back to homelessness.

And so just to dig in a bit more about what supportive housing really is, I would say one of the keys to supportive housing is that the services are voluntary and based on the needs of the household.

So this flexibility really allows for the services to better match the need of each household because it can be of quite a wide variety of folks who are actually in these services.

And so some folks, when they arrive, may not really need any sort of case management support, but to know that it is there and available is a crucial part of this program.

And then for folks who may have higher needs, as I will mention in the next slide, that a lot of the folks in these programs do have higher acuity and higher barriers to housing.

And so they will many of them will need those wraparound and supportive services in order to maintain that housing.

So just a couple other things to highlight is that referrals will come through the one home system, which is our continuum of care, and it's really focused on folks who may have those frequent interactions with systems like hospital systems, criminal justice, and emergency shelters.

So really investing in supportive housing can save money in these different systems where we see our frequent users who are continually in and out of jail or hospital.

And in addition to the contracts that I laid out, those five, the homelessness resolution also has two other supportive housing contracts that I'm sure you guys are very familiar with, and they are a mouthful.

So I'm going to read them off.

The first is supportive housing pay for performance, which I know you guys are familiar with.

We've talked about it before.

It's formally the social impact bond or SIB project.

And so that contract supports 245 households annually who have system just or justice system involvement.

And then the housing to health care social impact pay for results act, which is way too long of a name, and supports at least 125 households annually.

And so this is where you really see that these programs are kind of designed to support some of these folks who may have those higher needs or higher systems interaction.

Outside of my division, we have the opportunity team, and they also have supportive service contracts with our permanent supportive housing developments.

And these are 15 years, 15-year contracts.

That's provide a limited supportive funds for folks.

And so really a long, long period of support for folks who really need it.

And so moving into who needs it.

So supportive housing is an appropriate intervention for really any population, veterans, youth, families, individuals.

But as I mentioned, it's really focused on those folks who may be higher acuity.

So looking at folks who may be experiencing chronic homelessness, who may have been outside for a really long time and need that support in order to be successful indoors.

Folks who may have some sort of disabling condition or a mental health condition in which they really need continued support or someone on site to be providing those check-ins and making sure that things are going well.

Folks with complex health care needs are also a really appropriate fit for this.

And then as I mentioned, it's that context and the complex history with justice involvement.

And also if they have a challenging rental history, as we know, evictions are going up in the city, and so this can be a great way for folks to avoid that eviction, or if they have it, to stay housed.

So just looking at some outcomes, and I do want to highlight that these outcomes are not necessarily from the programs that we are funding for 2026, as these were from 2024.

So it is a different, these are different programs, but I did just kind of want to highlight like the overall general trends of what you can see.

And so in 2024, we served 364 households for 26 and 27.

We're looking at about 650 households annually will be served through our um these supportive housing contracts, plus CIPRA and SIP and the pay for performance one, which I can never get the acronym right on that one.

And so we are looking to serve more households in 26 and 27.

The average length of stay right now is about a little over three years, and that's that long-term essence of the program.

And so folks really can stay as long as they need to, and they generally don't exit the program unless they have somewhere to go, like another voucher, a different housing opportunity, things like that.

I will acknowledge that with the highly vulnerable population, we do see more folks who do tend to exit to an institution, or who pass away while in the program.

For folks who are in an institution, that could have been a process that started well before they actually entered into the housing program since we are working with a lot of folks with criminal justice involvement, and so that's something that was kind of already in the works and would have probably happened either way.

So we were able to give them somewhere safe and stable while they were working through that process.

Okay, I think that's it for data.

And then looking at our program outcomes for 26 and 27.

So, like I mentioned, we are planning on serving about 650 households annually.

Each program will serve a different number of households based on the size.

As you can see, CCH is by far our largest and always kind of has been our largest.

There is a mix, and on the spreadsheet, you can see there's a mix of project-based and tenant-based units.

And so project base is when a program owns the building, and they the folks live on site and usually have case management on site.

Oftentimes these rents are already subsidized through other funding channels.

We also have a few that are just tenant-based, and that means folks can go out in the community and we'll have some sort of rental subsidy that is paired with that, as well as with the um supportive services.

And so we really look for.

Then diving into the individual contracts, and I won't go through these too much since you have them in front of you guys on that spreadsheet.

We have Mercy Housing, we're looking to serve about 31.

This is individuals or families.

Then the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, which I already mentioned, is by far the largest project that we have, looking to serve about 165 households annually.

They can also serve both families and individuals, and this will be a mix of at their buildings and scattered site in the community.

Then we have St.

Francis Center, which is going to just be 35 single adults.

Well, there is a mix of tenant and project base, it will be primarily at their Warren Residences program, which I believe is an SRO model.

We then have Dolores Project, which is going to be 35 households.

And as I'm sure you know, they are a strong advocate for our LGBTQIA plus community, and so they will primarily be serving that population.

And if you look at the direct cost, it says zero, and I'm sure that is confusing to you all.

And that's because they have additional funding streams for those direct services and rental subsidies.

So we'll just be funding the staffing for that program.

And lastly, we have Urban Peak, which will only be serving youth households, as I'm sure you already expected they would.

That could be a single youth or it could be a youth-headed household.

So that could be a young mom or young couple with kiddos.

And they are expected to serve about 16 households per year.

This cost per household is a bit higher, and that's because it will be supporting all of the rent for the households.

They don't have other subsidies or streams for these folks for their rental income.

So this will be rental and uh supportive services for all the households.

So all in all, we're looking at about 282 units through these five contracts, and included with those other two that I mentioned outside.

We're looking at serving about 617 total households in 2026 and 2027.

Thank you.

Yes.

And we do have questions.

I'm sure.

First person in queue is Council Member Sawyer.

Awesome, thank you.

Thanks, you guys.

Really appreciate this briefing.

First, I just want to clarify.

In my mind, we are briefing today.

Contracts are coming through on consent next week.

Yes.

Probably not next week.

By January.

They will be they will be through before the end of the year.

Through committee, not necessarily through the council process.

They should be through the council process before the end of the year.

Well, then they're gonna be going through on consent in the next two weeks.

Okay, yes.

Good times.

Okay.

Can you send us an agenda like a list when they would, right?

Yeah, because if you need them to be done by the end of the year, and our last meeting is December 22nd.

Uh so if you and it's two readings to Caesar Bills, right?

So you should check the calendar.

Yeah, and I think we were prepared that if um it does get pushed to the beginning of January.

Um we're prepared for that news.

Yeah, I mean, I think it doesn't have to, right?

Like you've briefed us here, it's just like just file them.

Yep, it doesn't have to on our end.

Yep, and we do have all the the drafts out to the contractors for edits, too.

So we're well on the way of working through those.

Okay, awesome.

Great, really appreciate that.

So you guys are gonna sort that out on your end, but as far as I'm my question goes, these we will see these on our consent agenda whenever we see them on our consent agenda.

Um, but you won't be coming back to brief us on them again.

Awesome.

Okay, great, thank you.

Um, in terms of the funding sources this homelessness resolution?

Yes, I believe.

100% I believe so.

Let me call that up.

I do know it is just one funding stream, it's actually all general fund.

This is all general funds.

So homelessness resolution fund is not being used at all.

No, it's all general.

Okay.

Um, at least for 2026.

I can't really speak to what I have it for 2027.

Okay, that's good to know.

Um, when you are talking about tenant or project base, are you talking about the voucher piece or are you talking about the, like, what do you mean?

Because, right, because we have like project vouchers, we have tenant vouchers, neither of them are run by the city of Denver, they come from the state and federal government.

Then we also have like this weird sort of in between.

Yes, this with the weird in between.

This is the word in between.

I think so.

Vouchers I think are used rather broadly a lot of times, and so this is not like a section eight or housing choice voucher necessarily.

We are hoping that folks will exit with one of those.

If that is possible, that would be great.

Um, but this is really just more about having some sort of subsidy, either paid for through us or through another funding source that is not a voucher.

Got it.

Yeah, okay.

Really appreciate that.

That clarifies, it just confused me when the second column here.

Fantastic.

Okay.

Um, last question is just about so CCH.

Um, it's three a little over three million dollars in 2026.

These are actually two-year contracts, so we're looking at like six and a half million dollars to CCH in the next two years.

Um, I'm curious how many projects that covers.

Like how many buildings does that cover?

Yeah, and I don't know that we have an exact number of buildings necessarily that will be.

I think it's gonna be based on their vacancy, is where they put folks in the program because they are doing the mix of tenant and project-based.

So we're not paying for like an entire building through this funding, but I can dig more into that and and get you a better answer on that.

Yeah, that would be super helpful.

The reason I'm asking is because we have a couple of CCH properties in District Five.

Um, they're McKinney Vento properties from the Lowry Air Force Base that were right, and and they were created 30 years ago at a time when thinking about homelessness um and housing directly out of homelessness was very, very different than it is now.

Yeah, so um, those contracts aren't with the city, right?

There's an opportunity for the city to contract with CCH for um locations like that to be able to provide additional supportive services and stuff like that.

Something I've been asking for for six years, it's never happened.

Um, and I can't tell you whether that's on the CCH side or the city side, right?

But that's why I'm asking because if there, if this is a mix of project-based and um, you know, and tenant-based, then there's an opportunity or a possibility that there are CCH buildings that could or tenants that could be taking advantage of this program that are, you know, in properties that are not necessarily what we would think of as CCH properties that are contracted to the city and county of Denver.

So I'd like to know a little bit more about that because I'd love to know how that is working.

Yeah, yeah, I can definitely dig into that one more.

Okay, yeah, I appreciate it.

If we need to brief after another, like in the next couple of weeks, that would be really great to know a little bit more about it because I I do the other thing I worry about, and we I don't know whether this happens in other CCH properties, but it definitely happens in our CCH properties in district five.

Um the staff turnover is so high and so frequent that um like we might be paying for supportive services, but they're not actually like there's there's no staff to actually do the supportive services, right?

So there's an occasion, we even had a case manager at the Renaissance in 18 months, like you know what I mean.

Again, that is a project that is McKinney Vento project from many many years ago.

So I don't believe that there is a city connection there.

Yeah, but there are if it's happening there, it's happening in other places where we do have city connections.

Absolutely, and I would say just across the board, a lot of our agencies are experiencing that turnover and the hard to hire, and that is something we're working on.

Um, in terms of how we can hold them kind of accountable to that is through our outputs and expectations.

Um we do expect them to be entering services into HMIS, and so that's something we'll be checking out on a regular basis.

And if that's not happening, then we'll have those those conversations with CCH to try and figure out why these services aren't being provided.

Yeah, okay.

I really appreciate that.

I will say it's not just the case managers, it's like property managers, right?

And a property manager position is not going to get entered into HMIS.

There are not outcomes that are expected of a property manager position, and yet if there is no property manager, it's a hot mess.

And it doesn't really matter how many, you know, case contacts are put into HMIS because the living conditions that they might be living in are significantly um different than the ones we would expect them to be living in within from our for our dollar.

So I was gonna say I I have no problem with these contracts going through on consent.

I am very, very supportive of them.

I will be very interested to hear what we learn at the end of 2026 after we do this for a year, um, because I think that there are some real gaps here in like actual functional operational services.

Um, and I'm I worry that we are um that even moving to a pay-for-performance model like we are for these contracts, that there's just some things that are required in property management that are gonna get missed because there is no performance for them, and so I don't know where that expectation is, right?

Like the expectation should be you should have property manager, but uh that doesn't always happen.

Right.

So I I guess I will just say like no problem with these moving forward.

I would love to have additional conversation with you about this um related to those two properties in particular, but um looking forward to seeing what we learn because we don't know what we don't know and of 26.

Absolutely, I think that's really gonna be wait, Jeff.

Do you want to say something?

Yeah, just wait, no, come you gotta come to the gift of and introduce yourself.

Jeff Kositzki, deputy Director at host.

Uh these are not performance-based contracts.

No, the only performance-based contracts are the seven, um, the three hotels and four microcommunities, and it's just a pilot program.

We're not gonna expand this until we see if it's effective.

And also we're thinking about some of the current uh concerns that you brought up before we end, because it may not be appropriate for all contract type.

Yeah, okay.

No, I really appreciate that.

Thank you for clarifying for me.

I was mistaken, and thank you.

Um, but I will say some of the things that you guys mentioned, while it might not be pay for performance, the metrics that you have put in here are different than what we have seen in contracts before.

Like there are real solid metrics in here, so um in these contracts.

So I think that that's really a huge improvement.

Um, okay, thank you for clarifying.

I appreciate it.

Thanks.

Yeah, thank you.

Um we have Councilmember Cushman next, followed by Alvidres.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Uh, so about 300 families a year, we're addressing with these contracts.

Families or individuals.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you.

I was gonna clarify that myself.

Um, what's the need?

That is a great question.

Yeah, I think it's an important question.

You know that I mean 5,000, 20,000, 600, what's the present housing assessment for the need for housing supportive housing.

Okay, they're on that.

Uh Jeff Kasitsky again, deputy director at host.

Um, that is an excellent question and a hard one to answer.

I mean, on any given nights, uh, we're seeing between five and six thousand people experiencing homelessness.

Um, permanent supportive housing is generally used for our higher acuity clients and people who require both the subsidy and the services.

Um I would estimate that on any given year, at least between 10 and 20 percent of the clients probably are in need of permanent supportive housing.

Um, but as I've mentioned before, working on this problem is like a bathtub that's always filling up.

Um, you know, we can put people in the housing, but there's always going to be uh more folks coming in.

But I I do believe we we have a deficit in terms of um permanent supportive housing in Denver, given the acuity of the clients um seems to be getting worse and worse over the years as more and more people are spending um, you know, many years outside, which is you know a trend that we're seeing nationally.

We could give you a better estimate if you would like.

I think thank you, Jeff.

I I think it's uh I think it's important that we have an as accurate an assessment of the playing field as we can get.

I mean, um, yeah, uh because as we can as we look at our annual budget, um, if we don't know what our needs are in any particular area, it makes it very difficult to make an intelligent assessment of how to parse out our limited dollars.

Uh 300 families are gonna be very happy and do very well each year.

Um sounds to me like thousands of other families are suffering that could use these services.

I guess the other question would be, and you don't need to answer it now, my friend, but I think uh the other important question is what is the capacity to serve?

I mean, you know what I what I heard uh Mrs.

Kazitzki say is we probably have a couple thousand more families in need on any given night, but what is the capacity of our system to serve?

Can we do another 300?

Can we do another couple thousand?

Um, part of my frustration um in this area uh permanent supportive housing, mental health drug treatment, is I don't see a clear plan, um, like a regional plan.

And I don't see um a clear listing of numbers of capacity or numbers of need.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you, Councilmember Cushman.

Um, Councilmember Alvedres.

Thank you so much.

One quick question.

Um, if you're a child, how do we get a lease?

You can councilman.

I was just gonna say that we have the housing needs assessment also coming, which will help too.

Um, so youth is the folks who are gonna be leasing up by themselves are generally like 18 to 26 years old for the youth programming.

Yeah, they have to be adults.

Yeah, we we have had some adults, yeah.

Sometimes a parent can co-sign or someone else can co-sign um in order to get that through, but generally they're gonna be above 18 for that youth for a review.

Yeah, and I think, and so one of my questions, that's great.

I was piggybacking after Councilman Cashman, which was it's from what I remember, what I understand is that Dr.

Cog will be doing a housing needs assessment for the region, and we will also be doing a housing needs assessment for the city of Denver.

And I know that RFP was out in August.

And so when do we get an update on that contract?

Oh, um, we I think we expect to have um someone selected in the coming weeks, and then um it'll be in um, and Jeff, you may know better the housing needs assessment timing.

Um, but um it should be coming in the second quarter.

Um third quarter.

Of next year, of next year, the final assessment.

Oh, yes, the no, the final sense, the final housing needs assessment.

I think if we could get everything on it once it's awarded, because I want to make sure that you know, especially I think about communities of color, LGBTQ communities that don't feel safe, like maybe participating in surveys and things right now, like that we are thinking about that when we're doing our outreach.

So I just want to ping that.

Thank you.

Yeah, briefly before it starts.

That's great.

Not this year.

Any other questions?

No, that was it.

Okay.

Um, I have questions.

I just want to make sure no one else wants to be in the queue who hasn't already.

Okay, great.

Um, thank you for this.

Um, I think well, so one thing I just wanted to clarify, and partly it's in response to Councilmember Cashman's questions, but um, these contracts were funding uh a certain number of households, but in some cases they um they may already be in one of these units, right?

And it's a continuation.

In other words, we're not saying this many new households getting into support housing.

That's correct, yes.

Okay, um, and I I just I want to make sure that we're all on the like sort of coming from the same place on that, um, given that the average stay is like a thousand days, and then what's the um I would like to understand a little bit more um when we're talking like across these contracts, um, how much we're talking about permanent supportive housing units versus some of the other forms of supportive housing.

So these are generally all permanent supportive, there's no end date.

Um, if you get another housing opportunity, or if you decide not to stay there, those are the reasons that you would leave.

Okay, yeah.

I was curious then because I the exit, um, the expected numbers of exits, it says exits into permanent housing.

So I was a little confused by that because I would have taken a lot of this to be permanent housing, and my understanding is a lot of times people just need supportive housing.

Yeah, hence the word.

So can you talk to me a little bit about the exit expectations then?

Yeah, so that could be if they get a different type of uh permanent housing.

So if they get one of those section eight vouchers or housing choice voucher that is separate from this, so it'd be a different type of subsidy that they're exiting.

I see.

Yeah, I gotcha.

So kind of exiting from like what we're funding in a way.

Yeah, okay, that makes sense.

That makes sense to me.

Um, and then piggybacking a little bit on the question about the housing needs assessment.

I mean, is that the one that we're doing?

Um, I was thinking of that as being a little bit more about um gaps based on kind of income.

Uh, we may not know this yet, but is there an intention for that also to assess gaps for gaps in the need for supportive housing or get into something that fine-grained or is it because I know like I don't think the Dr.

Cog needs assessment, for example, talked about supportive housing.

I could be wrong, but I think it mostly just looked by income kind of I'm not sure.

I can find out though.

Or it may not be decided yet.

Yeah, that's yeah, something that could be worked out in the scope of work with um the provider.

I mean, I think if it seemed if hosts thought that that made sense and it was affordable and feasible within the scope and could be done, I certainly think we would love to know that.

Um, but I wouldn't I wouldn't have presumed it would be in there just because I don't know that it was in, I don't know that it's been in past assessments or in the Dr.

Cog one or whatever else.

Um okay, I will leave it there.

It's 257.

If anyone had a last question I wanted to get in, otherwise um we will be done for today, and we we really appreciate this.

Any questions?

I really think.

Great, okay.

We have three items on consent.

Nobody's calling any of those off.

Then we are done.

We're adjourned.

Thank you.