Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

There's two kids, and all the fishes that you see hanging up on the walls here, his kids actually caught. Now these aren't the actual fishes. What they do is they take a picture of it, and then there's a guy who makes a replica of it because they're environmentally safe here, and so they they wanna do the right thing by the fish. So they either eat it or toss it back. Growing up on Long Island, places like this were everywhere. But in Colorado, it's really rare to find a place like this, that you can come and get fresh fish or come buy fresh fish and take it home. Perfect beer to go with this fish right here. We got a red striped Jamaican lager. This is why we're here today. The hogfish.

I'd never heard of it in my life. They're famous for it here. Only three places in the country you can get it. The reason is because they have to spearfish it. So it doesn't make sense economically. And they actually the diet of a hogfish are crustaceans. They actually it's a really ugly fish. But because they eat crustaceans like lobster, the meat is really sweet. What they've done today is they almond crusted it, and they got a mustard sauce on top of it with Caribbean rice and mixed vegetables. In case you can't tell how excited I am, it's like I'm back on Long Island. Beautiful piece of fresh fish. Keep an eye on their social media. They only get this twice a week, and then sometimes they can't even get it depending on whether the fishermen can't go out and get it. They he says he brings in a 100 pounds, and then it's gone like that. Now I see why.

I knew that was gonna be a 10, and it's a 10. That's a 10 plus. If you're not a fan of fish, they have other great options here. They actually have steak here, bone in rib eye, a fillet, and pastas. They brought me a spicy shrimp linguine, which right up my alley using, of course, Gulf shrimp. I know what they're doing. They serve it with a spoon. It's the only way to eat pasta. You gotta twirl it. Tomato cream sauce on this pasta here with the shrimp, some garlic bread. Oh, that is spicy. But I would come here just for this pasta. I'm a pasta expert, and this pasta is exceptional. It may have taken us two years and dozens of episodes to finally get to Westminster, but it was well worth the wait. These five restaurants are amazing.

We'll see you soon for another episode of restaurants near me. Let's eat.

When disaster strikes, it could take the city up to seventy two hours to get to you. With that, it's important that you have all the necessary items to sustain yourself for seventy two hours. One of the most important takeaways you can do is to have a go bag ready at your house, which consists of multiple things that are tailored to you. There's no wrong answer. Add what you think is necessary for you during an emergency, and you're set to go. In your go bag, you wanna include an extra pair of clothes, a trauma kit, and remember your important documents. Ready to eat meals? Add an emergency blanket. Add some extra water. Add a battery or a hand crank radio, radio, and add a flashlight.

Add some cash in there as well. Also, adding toiletries and hygiene products. And keep in mind the nuances, your pets, your medication. And when your bag is all ready, zip it up and ensure it's placed in a well accessible location where you or anybody in your family could grab it and immediately exit the house.

Does your Venn diagram include supporting local businesses, reducing waste, and finding a new outfit? If so, you need to check out our reuse business directory. You'll find places to repair, rent, or buy used items all while supporting local. Keeping goods circulating for as long as possible in our community is great for Denver's economy and the environment. Choose to consume differently.

It's just as good as new

at denvergov.org/reusedirectory.

Welcome back to this weekly meeting of the community planning and housing committee with Denver City Council. Your community planning Hello and good afternoon. Welcome to Community Planning and Housing. That was funny, I just made up a new name.

I did.

You remember there? Did.

I'm good. I'm good. I just

looked at it, I'm like, I'm good. Anyway, welcome. Glad to see you all here today. I'm Diana Romero Campbell. I represent Southeast Denver in District 4, and I will be chairing this committee today. And let's go ahead and do council introductions. Do we have anybody online? No. No?

Okay. Well, we will introduce

them when they arrive, and I will start over here to my right.

Good afternoon, Tamianna Sawyer, District 5. Chantel Lewis, district eight.

Jamie Torres, West Denver District 3.

She slides.

Just in time. Glad you could join us. Laura Alvarez of Lucky District seven.

Wonderful. And welcome, everyone. We have a few action items today, but our first presentation will be housing support for residents. Correct? The contracts for intellectual and developmental disabilities. So I will turn it over to you. Great.

Good afternoon, council members. Thank you so much for having us today. My name is Jordan Mulholland. I am from the Denver Human Services Ideas Program. I am here today on behalf of DHS in partnership with my colleagues from host to request your approval of two contracts, which will be managed by host and funded by DHS at IDEAS mill levy. So I will kick us off in in sharing a little bit more about the IDEAS program and how this partnership came to be, and then I'll pass it to Madore who will talk more about the contract specifically.

Let's see.

So IDEA stands for intellectual and developmental disabilities, equitable access to services. We manage dedicated mill levy funds for services and supports for Denver residents with IDD or developmental delay. We are guided by a community advisory council, which is comprised of residents with IDD and folks who work in the field. And we use their feedback along with other stakeholder group work to determine our funding priorities. Throughout the past several years, housing has been shared to us as a top priority amongst our stakeholders.

So that's kind of the root of how all of this started. Before I talk more about our housing work, I want to just touch briefly on our eligibility requirements. Broadly, folks must have an IDD or a developmental delay in order to access our funded services. We use the state's definition and process for determining whether someone has an IDD, which is done with state designated case management agencies. Ours is Rocky Mountain Human Services.

And so we really rely on them to support us in determining eligibility. We can also support our our eligibility also requires that folks be residents within the city and county of Denver. We can support residents who are experiencing homelessness so long as they are presenting in Denver. So, again, just going back to some of our housing work. Some of you may recall we came to council back in 2023 to present on a contract for a pilot IDD housing navigation program.

This was previously with Bayad Enterprises who are now known as ServiceSource. So the contracts you'll hear about today represent expansion of programming with new service providers identified through a competitive solicitation. I just wanna pause a little bit here and tell you more about the outcomes and lessons learned from this program. These these outcomes had sparked some new service offerings in these new iterations. So while the program really thrived in supporting individuals in avoiding eviction and moving into more affordable and accessible housing options, in stabilizing crises in situations.

I think we've learned that about 20% of folks in their programming were our our contracted services were simply not enough. And these folks were experiencing homelessness. They had little to no income, and they were not yet connected to the IDD services. So they were trapped in this cycle in which they couldn't access housing because they had no income. And without housing, they couldn't access the IDD services they needed to thrive in daily life.

So living on house kept them in this constant state of survival, and it became clear to us that these barriers were intricately connected. And so we realized that the only way we could start to disrupt this cycle is if we created an immediate housing option from which they could stabilize first and then work on their longer term goals. So this is when we started to engage with host, hoping to identify ways in which we could disrupt this cycle. Host, using their expertise, recommended creating a rapid rehousing program for this subset of navigation households in which they could receive this type of housing. And DHS was very energized by this idea, but we also knew it was something that was a bit out of scope for what we do as an agency.

And so it was through many strategic conversations between both agencies where we all ultimately agreed it made the most sense for host to lead on any new initiatives given their expertise and their proximity to the housing system. And And this is what led to a memorandum of understanding, an MOU. The MOU was signed last fall and it details the roles and responsibilities of both agencies. It's very much a collaborative partnership though in that it leverages the expertise of both DHS and HOST in order to successfully roll out this innovative project. So in this partnership, DHS will provide up to $6,000,000 to HOST to fund the next iteration of the navigation program as well as an IDD pilot rapid rehousing program.

And then HOST will use the funds to execute and manage these contracts with awarded providers, the the same ones you're here you'll hear about momentarily. And then they will ultimately hosts will all to be ultimately be responsible for contract management and for approving invoices with our funds. DHS will support in providing subject matter expertise related to IDD and IDD service systems and will also support in ensuring compliance with our eligibility. And then host will ensure providers are adhering to evidence based program standards and supporting them in meeting their contracted outcomes. And then DHS will get access to contractor reports and will attend site visits alongside hosts.

So that is a little bit about how we came here today and got here today. I will pass it over to Midori to share more about the contracts that were produced from this MOU.

Good afternoon, Midori Higa. She, her pronouns. I'm the director of homelessness resolution programs at host. So can I do a little bit more?

I'll take it. Okay. Okay.

So today, we are requesting action for two contracts, 260464 with Rocky Mountain Human Services for 2,580,000. These are three year contracts, so they look large, but three years. To provide stability navigation services to at least 300 people and families with intellectual or developmental disabilities or developmental delays. And then 260463 with Jewish family service for 3,420,000.00 to provide rapid rehousing support to at least 55 households coming from that Rocky Mountain Human Services stability navigation contract. So Rocky Mountain will serve as the referral source for Jewish Family Service.

Cool. So with all of our host contracts, we've been trying to sort of situate how everything works in our continuum of support. These contracts fall into two places. The Rocky Mountain Human Services contract sort of falls in the top area for more stability and prevention. The goal is to connect with households who are experiencing that housing instability, help navigate that circumstance, and move on.

Then the rapid rehousing, of course, which is fully situated in our housing programs. So, again, both contracts have three year terms. The contracts start May 1, so a little bit atypical of our traditional contracts with the stability navigation contract working with Rocky Mountain Human Services, again, for that stability navigation for households that are living with IDD or developmental delays. And their goals are to reduce homelessness, increase housing stability, connect households with long term support services, improve access to benefits, income, and housing resources, and to support that self sufficiency and independent living. And then for Truche Family Service, right, again, sort of being at least 55 households through rapid rehousing with the goals of quickly moving households from homelessness to permanent housing, providing that supportive service that they need in order to create stability, closing those affordability gaps because sometimes that's one of our biggest challenges, connecting participants to long term community resources through the different IDE programming that's available both through Rocky Mountain Human Services and other community partners, and that assistance would last up to twenty four months.

So I want to explain to you all an overview of how the programming will work. Rocky Mountain Human Services already has a number of internal and external connections for referral sources in addition to those referral sources that they already have to connect to folks that are experiencing housing instability and living with IDD, hosts and DHS will help direct some outreach activities with Rocky Mountain Human Services so that they're connecting to other folks experiencing housing instability or homelessness. So that would be like working within our shelters to meet folks where they're at and connect with them and add to their caseload. Once working with Rocky Mountain, they'll sort of assess that person's stability and where they're at. And if they are experiencing literal homelessness and would benefit from rapid rehousing, they can be referred over to the JFS program.

And then appropriate housing options are not just I just wanna be clear. Right? Housing means a lot of things to different people in different stages of life and with different abilities. And so this doesn't necessarily mean your apartment for yourself market rate forever, but it could include independent housing, host homes, assisted living, or vouchered resources as well. Digging deeper into each contract.

So program goals listed here. Again, Rocky Mountain will have a team of eight, a director for care managers, an outreach person, an administrative specialist, and a program manager. And then they'll also have client support costs that are flexible in nature, largely to support eviction prevention needs, but anything that might help a person obtain that stability. It's important to have those flexible funds for different circumstances. And then Jewish Family Service, again, the program goals are outlined here They that we've are working to rapidly house folks with IDD, remove those financial barriers to housing, provide intensive stabilization services, and connect participants to long term supports that sustain housing stability.

They'll have a team of nine folks, including an IDD rapid rehousing manager, four case managers. Case managers would assume a caseload of about 15 households, a director of employment services, director of disability services, director of community resources for stability, and an payable specialist. And just a reminder that rapid rehousing is up to twenty four months of support. And again, the client costs are built to be more flexible but would primarily be paying for rental assistance since that would be the biggest lift in rapid rehousing. Last, just to go over some program outcomes, I just want to note that these are annual outcomes, three year contracts, but the outcomes are broken down annually in that twelve month cycle.

For Rocky Mountain and the stability navigation program, we're looking to have 80% of the households that work with them are prevented from being evicted if they are currently in that state with the housing instability. The goal is also to have them work with at least 50 new households that have not previously been engaged with Rocky Mountain Human Services with the intention to try to, like, spread our wings a little bit further and find more folks to support throughout the city. And then we're asking that they do at least eight outreach touch points a year. So, again, connecting to other folks living with IDD, hopefully through shelters. There was a lot of discussion through the procurement process about how do we reach out to other special populations that are also living with IDD such as youth or folks that are older or folks that maybe just hadn't thought that might be an option for them as far as IDD services go.

Sixty percent of the households should be reporting an increase in housing stability, quality of life, and self determination one year after receiving services, and seventy five percent of applicable households will receive IVD determinations and be enrolled in the appropriate service, and that's through the course of Rocky Mountain's typical programming. And then for JFS, for rapid rehousing, we wanna make sure that a 100% of are engaged in case management and ongoing support. 85% of the households are housed within sixty days of enrollment. 80% of the households have an increase acquisition or employment annually or at exit, 90% of the households are placed into permanent housing and that 85% at the end of their term or time with GFS do exit into permanent housing. So that is all of the stuff I have for you, and Jordan and I are able to answer any questions you might have.

Great. Thank you very much for the presentation. We have a number of council members in the queue, and we will get started with council member Alvetras. Thank you.

It's a really great program. Sounds like definitely interested in how many families we're helping or individuals that we're helping, but I'm curious if you can contextualize that against the population of people that you imagine have IDD or that we have data are experiencing this and experiencing homelessness.

Yeah. Great question. Thank you. We have data from Rocky Mountain Human Services as of last year, 2025. They served approximately 7,000 individuals with IED and developmental delay.

And then in in terms of experiencing homelessness, this is data reflective of our current our previous programming with ServiceSource, but also through point in time. I I think there's room here to get and I think we'll get better data through this program, but that data shows about one in five folks experiencing homelessness have an IDD, so twenty percent. And so we know that it's pretty prevalent, and we also know that we haven't been reaching those folks as well as we should be, which is why we've really prioritized incorporating outreach Rocky Mountain attending shelters on a monthly basis, doing IDD screenings, collaborating with the service providers, and doing trainings around what does IDD look like, how do I get someone connected to the IDD system. And so that is a main focus of these contracts is really trying to not only bring in more people, but understand the prevalence of

it as well. That's great. And I I didn't realize it was that high either, And so it sounds like a much needed solution. With that, I also am wondering with about half the participants earning under 10,000 annually, what is the long term strategy? I appreciate the twenty four months. We've done this before with other programs. But question is what happens after those twenty four months or how do we continue to support individuals? I'll go for it. In a

prior life, I worked at a community center board enrolling folks into these types of services. And so specifically for more so for individual adults, once they qualify for services, they are also eligible for different sorts of housing options that the general population wouldn't have access to. That can look like a host home, So someone living with IDD being able to stay in someone else's home just so that someone has eyes on them and can support them with their different activities of daily living, which could include cognitive or behavioral issues as well. In some cases, there's group homes for folks if that's of interest. And there's also different types of vouchers, especially at the state level for folks that are living with IDD.

So there is a little bit more resource option in that space. For families, they may not know or understand what types of options they have to earn income by caring for someone in their household that's living with IDD. If which we've encountered in shelter spaces where maybe a child has some pretty significant challenges and so they do need more care. And so a parent can be paid through waiver services to give that care to their child, which is above and beyond what we would typically see. So there's different options and ways to sort of think about what stability looks like.

That's great to know. And I guess while we talk about that and you're having like a twenty four month program, is our ability to figure that out, you know, six months to a year in and give those resources to somebody that may not qualify for Yep. Additional programs? Is that part of what you're working with?

Entirely the intention. Right? So Rocky Mountain Human Services gets a referral for a household. They connect with the household. They're screening them for intellectual or developmental disabilities. They already do the main determination process. That's part of their job in the city, and that's primary bread and butter of what they do in the city. So they're able to connect in house to to complete that IDD or developmental delay determination. So that helps open those doors for

other types of resources. Great. Thank you. Thank you so much for this. Oh, did you wanna add

something?

I'll just add also that what we've also seen in the service source programming is that a lot of these folks still need access to SSI and SSDI. So that's a big part of the programming that both agencies will be working on. And I think JFS thrives really well in supporting people and getting employment, and we do know folks with IDD have the desire and can work. So, again, just adding to the options here, I think we're really excited about getting creative and exploring what we can do to support these folks.

Beautiful. Thank you so much. Thank you, committee chair. That's all I have.

Thank you. And I'd also like to welcome council president Sandoval who's been listening in as well. So just let me know if you wanna get in the queue. Next, we'll

go to council member Torres. Thank you. Thanks for the update. So I was looking back at the budget book for ID Ideas Fund, and you had about $21,800,000 rollover from 2024 to 2025. What was your rollover from 'twenty five to 'twenty six?

Sure. Let me pull up some numbers here. Let's see. So beginning 2026, our fund balance was 17,700,000.0. But by the end of 2026, we're gonna see that drop down to 10,700,000.0. And we've actually seen a reduction in our revenue from last year to this year. And so we do anticipate that by 2027 and beyond, our fund balance will drop, and we'll be at trying to remain at 10% of our annual revenue for our fund balance.

Okay. And your revenue is based on property taxes, not property Correct. One of the things that I'm wondering, placement for rapid rehousing is just general housing that's available throughout the community. Has there been any discussion of a housing development or project that's specific to this population?

Yeah. That's a really great question. There has. And in some other projects, we've engaged with the development team over at Host. I think there's a lot of movement happening regionally in this space and creating more inclusive housing, and we have explored it as well. I think with our revenue starting to decline, we've had to consider priorities, and and I think that's been put on pause for now. But, certainly, we know how much of a priority it is, and it's been a recommendation by our stakeholders. So it's still top of mind if and when we can find the right investments for it.

It seems like something that is kind of niche, right? And then this is for three years, but are you anticipating this becomes like a routine investment from the IDEAS fund?

Yeah. I think it's still very much a pilot in terms of the rapid rehousing, but the goal is depending on the data and how successful folks are and, again, understanding our investments and our revenue, we certainly plan to if it's working, continue to do it. Okay. Alright.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

I thought you were giving me the I don't have question.

Go ahead. Councilman Lewis. You were kind

of doing the

I'm sorry. Go ahead. I just I I was curious. You mentioned the eight points of contact, and I was curious as to what counts as a contact. I I don't know what slide that was.

Maybe, like look up

to that? Yeah. I got you.

Let me Go for it.

Get to it. Here you go. Oh.

The the contacts were related to shelter sites. Uh-huh. And so any host funded shelter would be considered a point of contact. And I think we've described it as monthly, and then it's a little bit more fluid in that sense of, like, okay. I'm gonna come here on this day, maybe do an IDD screenings, maybe do case consultation, maybe do a training. But all of that has yet to kind of be worked out with the provider.

Got it.

Okay. Thank you. That's it.

We've definitely done stuff like that in our shelters before. It just hasn't been as consistent as of late. And so it is a benefit. It really does help the frontline staff understand people's experiences a little bit better Mhmm. And identify folks that they can refer to other places that they just didn't know they had a place to refer

them to. Do you normally put that as a metric in your contracts?

Not for our regular shelter contracts because that's yeah. This is very specific. Unique. I like it. Yeah. The stability navigation piece. Yeah. Thank you. That's great.

Thank you. I do have a question around it's a micronuance. Couldn't use that word again today.

It's a

word the day.

The age group of when you say 50 new, it's households. So that could be the parent, it could be an individual, but also a child within the household. What are some of the partnerships that are put together to be able to identify and make sure that that you have a pipeline of folks that are coming in? Like, who are the partners that you're working with? Sure.

I I I can touch on this. I think, certainly, the shelters are the biggest priority. Particularly, we know in the service source programming, a lot of the pipeline came from Denver Rescue Mission. It came from Salvation Army, the what's that shelter called? It's Salvation Army. Crossroads? Yeah. Crossroads. Forgive me. And then schools, hospitals, and so I think it would look very similar. And then Rocky also has their own community funded initiatives. So, like, El Group Ovita is a big partner in this space, And so we'll lean on both housing partners as well

as IDD service partners. Great. Do you think that or maybe you do this currently, but is there screening at the shelters, like the family shelter for ID IDD? So part of

which we'll get to hear about next week with our Metro Denver homeless initiative presentation, but part of the HMIS intake does include the disclosure of an intellectual or developmental disability or develop developmental delay. So does but self reported data. Right? So some folks may not know or understand that. And that would be, right, the demographics for both the parents and the children in the household.

And so there will be the opportunity for Rocky Mountain to offer this sort of outreach service to the family shelter spaces and do a little bit more screening and support in those spaces that they may not have had previously. So I think that's very much an option. And when folks do identify we have definitely had situations in the family shelter where we know that's truly the case for that household and have worked to provide additional supports last year even providing some training to the shelter system on IDD and getting connected to those resources, specifically Rocky Mountain in our community.

Okay. Great. Thank you. I appreciate that.

Are there any other council members with questions? Okay. I think we're good. This is an action item, so we need I'll move second. Okay. Move second. Do we need to just a thumbs up? We're good? Alright. We are moving on to the floor. Thank you. All right. Our next one is a briefing for the housing needs assessment.

Whenever you're ready. Good afternoon, council members. I'm Laya Mitchell, the director of development and catalytic partnerships for the Department of Housing Stability, and I'm joined today

I'm Heidi Heidi Agler with Root Policy Research, and we're a consultant to the city.

And we're gonna be covering today a first briefing about our housing needs assessment and anti displacement and reinvestment strategy.

We can go to the next. Yep.

So today, the agenda, we're gonna go over just an overview of the project. We'll dig in a little bit on the scope of work, talk more specifically about the anti displacement and reinvestment strategy components specifically, go over some timelines and deliverables, and then have an opportunity for your insights and questions and feedback as we move forward with this project. So the housing needs assessment was a requirement that was put into place through some state legislation in 2024. Denver applied for and received a competitive grant from DOLA last year from the Colorado Department of Local Affairs to cover the 75% of the cost of a housing needs assessment for the city and county of Denver. We were thrilled to receive that.

We went through a competitive RFP process last year and selected Root Policy Research to conduct the housing needs assessment for us. So we're excited to have them started. We had a contract go into effect at the beginning of the year, and it'll go through 2026. Host has put together an advisory team of our staff to help work to work with Root and help guide the policy and analysis. We have representation from our homelessness resolution services team, housing stability, and housing opportunity, and then also have colleagues who are actively working with us from DITO and CPD, particularly on the housing reinvest the anti displacement and reinvestment strategy components, that can be really a sort of cross agency citywide initiative.

We'll dig in a little bit more on that. And I did want to note that the housing needs assessment will form the basis of host strategic plan and also forms the the basis of the housing action plan which is required by the state.

I'm gonna give you an overview of the main components of the housing needs assessment, and there are six main components. These are areas of analysis that the city has conducted regularly when it's done housing needs assessment, but also are building upon what the state requirement is. So most of what the city's done in the past has gone above and beyond what the state now requires. So when you're really you're in really good shape when you're starting this, you've got a lot of historical analysis. We start with the demographic analysis, and that looks at projected household growth and population growth.

We look really specifically at age. Age, I think, is underrepresented as a really influential category in determining housing needs, and it's really affecting housing needs and housing gaps right now. We look at tenure, which is rentership and ownership, the mix of units that people occupy, not only by tenure, but also by cost burden and by their levels of affordability. We look at size, we look at household type, income distribution for renters and owners, and also shifts in income over time. And then we put all that together and we look at how that impacts housing demand.

Housing market is specific to price trends, affordability trends. We also my colleague, Avilia Bueno, who is here with me today, is putting together a projection model that will look at housing needs by income, by tenure, by age, by household formation rates, was a very sophisticated look into the future of housing needs. We also take a look at accessible and visible unit needs for people with disabilities, preservation needs, and we compare that against development trends and what's known in the future, what's projected for development, and that's how we come up with gaps. There's a special economic analysis that informs this. We'll take a special look at jobs, what jobs people have, job growth, what wages those jobs command, and then what they can afford, both for rent and for ownership.

For displacement, Laiya talked about a special piece to this, which is an anti displacement and reinvestment strategy. The data that will inform that will look at race and ethnicity shifts over time, geographic areas with elevated risk of displacement, Denver's history of anti displacement strategies, where there are best practices, where those could be improved, and then we're really focusing on policies for the future. Housing needs are a little different than the market analysis in that those look at some of the populations that you all just heard about. So people who have outsized needs, they may be experiencing repeated evictions, be at risk of foreclosure. We look at those needs very specifically, so that's the perspective of the household.

And then last but not least, we come up with recommended policies and programs that will inform the strategic plan. Doctor. Cog did a regional study about two years ago, and this informed a lot of the housing needs assessments that some of their peer communities are doing. I just wanted to touch on that a little bit if you have specific questions about that needs assessment. Avelia can help answer those.

But a couple of nuances with how Doctor. Cogg looked at the data. They looked back at households and household formation rates years ago when Dever's market was more affordable. So they tried to counter the doubling up with people living with their parents longer because they can't find affordable housing and correct for that. They also assumed certain vacancy rate, which is what we will do too, and also assumed increasing rental affordability over time, largely attributable to people aging.

They used state demographer projected household growth, which is our starting point as well. And the other unique piece is they looked at we have to look at an income distribution. So the people who will be residents of the city over time, we have to assume what income they will have. They looked back to 2013 for that income distribution. So I just wanted to acknowledge their methodology is a bit different than what we will do.

We'll have a more tailored methodology for Denver. Their needed units by AMI level or area median income level are there on the right, and that's as of 2050. One unique aspect of their projections is they do look regionally at which communities will be accommodating both transit growth, density, and employment growth. And Denver's really the big game for that. And so a lot of the future growth is driven into Denver.

So residential growth is driven into Denver by their model. Also want to touch on the anti displacement reinvestment strategy. The goal is to develop a citywide strategy looking at displacement in all of its forms: residential, commercial, industrial, as well as cultural. So we'll be doing a detailed analysis of what contributes to displacement, not only residential, but also displacement of small businesses and minority, women owned businesses. We want to acknowledge that the risk looks different depending on the neighborhood context, and so we're thinking really hard about displacement in one neighborhood or a neighborhood cluster may look very different for residents in another neighborhood, and doing the analysis to reflect that.

So we've already got some ideas, which we talked to Lai and her team about yesterday, in how to construct a model that's really looking at the unique aspects of the neighborhood and risks of neighborhood. At the end of the day, this will lead to cross agency collaboration, recommendations of how to bring all the good work that the city's been doing into a concerted anti displacement and reinvestment strategy. And I just wanted to give you a couple examples of some of the analyses that you would expect to see out of this study. These examples show you what we're really focusing on is where people have disproportionate housing needs. So recognizing the market doesn't work for everyone at the same level, and how we're starting to look at how that might differ.

So the first is looking at industry, so the jobs that people work by race and ethnicity, as well as the wages or the incomes that they command from working in those industries. Just a couple things that I would note. If you look at black Denverites or Hispanic Denverites and the jobs that they cluster in relative to non Hispanic white or all Denverites, you can see they're more likely to be working in education, in health moderate to lower paying wages, construction, which is a really vulnerable industry, and also more likely to be unemployed or underemployed. So that matters because the market needs to make sure that it's providing affordable housing for all of the wages and workforce types that Denver depends on, and that can disproportionately affect certain people of races and ethnicities. We'll also take a closer look.

We did this a couple years ago at the experience of homelessness by race and ethnicity and household type. In this case here, we looked at how many months people spent in homelessness by race and ethnicity, and their experience was really different. We see that in some cases, cultural norms will tolerate tolerate overcrowding or coping mechanisms differently and bring people out of homelessness more quickly than maybe some others. And so we'll take a look at what solutions work for different types of people working very closely with host team. Shifting to talk about homeownership.

This is a pretty stark graphic. This looks at the share of homes that were affordable by neighborhood to households earning or wanting renter households wanting to buy and earning incomes of 81 to 120% AMI shows a really dramatic shift after the pandemic as interest rates reached record lows. There was certainly some concentration of affordability for this income group in 2020 and 2021 really has been erased since 2023. And you see that the share of affordable units is lower than 20% in most of Denver neighborhoods. And also, I wanted to talk eviction filings.

This is some analysis that we did as of 2023. Typically, of the anti displacement models that people create focus on where they're renters, where they're low income people. That isn't always where evictions are concentrated. We see movement oftentimes into where there are new multifamily developments. Maybe there are favorable rates that people, when they move into their rental units, they can afford it, but something changes, rent goes up, or they have an income loss and they can't afford those rent anymore.

And so the eviction patterns are a little bit different than low income household patterns, and so we look at that separate from concentration of demographic groups as well. So that's just a little bit of a teaser of what you can expect out of the study, some of the work that we've done in the past that we'll build upon. In terms of timeline and deliverables, we are currently collecting data, actively collecting data, starting to outline the report sections, and planning the community engagement. A note on that, we are not duplicating any of the good engagement that's being taken that's taking place right now associated with neighborhood plans, other planning initiatives, a lot of the work that Host is doing with targeted groups. We're going to supplement that with focus groups and engagement with targeted resident groups that typically their voices are not reflected in the data.

They may have unique needs, and we want to make sure that we cover that. We're also looking at the displacement risk assessment, as I talked about. We will start delivering the preliminary housing needs and projections in late July, displacement risk assessment in August. As Laya talked about, our contract goes through the end of the year. We'll start to put out recommendations draft materials in the fall. And with that, I am happy to take questions.

Thank you. We have a lot of questions and a number of everybody in the queue. So let's go ahead and get started with council member Alvidrez.

Thank you so much, committee chair. Thank you for this briefing. You know, it's been something I've been looking forward to a long time. I really appreciate outlining. A lot of the methodology is addressing a lot of the issues that we've been seeing.

I think one of my biggest concerns, especially coming out of the state of homelessness report from 2024, which is the latest, is the huge uptick in families experiencing homelessness. And I do believe that it is a result of the types of housing that we are building. And so I'm curious, are you you said you're collecting data. Is that part of the data that you're looking at? And how are you planning on analyzing the types of housing as far as, like, are we building the housing that families need?

So we'll do a couple of the the first question of is the type of housing that's been developed or that exists, is that actually accommodating needs? We can look at it a couple of different ways. We can look at cost burden by the type of housing that people are occupying by renter or owner status. So is a senior household more likely to experience high levels of cost burden if they are a renter or they're living in a multi family or if they're living in a duplex or if they're living in a single family detached home? We also then can look at that by household size and the type of number of bedrooms to understand where are

people

fitting within not only their affordability, but the size that's appropriate for them. In terms of what's being developed and the rents that are commanded by those new developments, we use commercial dataset called CoStar, and so we're able to see what rents are asked when units are coming online, what vacancy rents they have, the size of those units. So we can do a pretty deep dive that. We're certain income level, if they're wanting to do buy, what's on the market or if anything for them, and where is that located, and whether or not that's a deed restricted property.

I appreciate that. I think what you all what all that said is where are we at right now? And I think part of my question is how did we get to to having these families be homeless? So what led to them becoming homeless? And also, I think part of my concern when I look at the data that's out there currently is that vacancy rates are high for apartments, for rental units.

And so how do you put that those two figures next to each other? We have a lot of vacant apartments across the city, which you have 4.7. It's definitely more than 4.7% vacancy rate, but yet we have homelessness. So where is that disconnect where maybe the people that are homeless, aka families that are homeless, don't want a studio one bedroom on South Broadway in one of the new high rises that we built. So how are you going to look at that question?

We'll at both vacancy rates by by the age, so when the unit came on, and the types of units. So typically what you're describing is there is a pretty severe mismatch between families who are experiencing homelessness and their income levels and what the rents that are being asked, particularly for

So the it's not just the rents. It's the actual units.

Right? Exactly. Yeah. We can look at it by unit composition, location, and size too.

Okay. I think that's just one of the biggest concerns that I have is that how are we saying that we need all this housing when we have a huge amount of vacancy rates? I do agree we need housing, but where is that disconnect and how and I guess this is for for you is, like, how are we gonna use this data as we invest those host dollars to make sure that we're investing in the areas of greatest need, especially looking at the data, which is the other the doctor Cog study has the vast majority in 50% or less AMI. And so that's not anything that a developer is going to be able to develop as well. So how are you going to think about that?

Yeah. Thank you. That's a great question. And I think what you're identifying is that gap between what's available and built in the market and what community really needs. And there is we know there's a mismatch there, and I think the housing needs assessment is gonna help us identify exactly where it is, you know, what exactly what part of our community, what demographics, so that we can mean, really, the the aim of the housing needs assessment is to help us make the best choices we can, the best data driven and community driven choices about how we use our resources, our limited resources as city to build and support the kind of programs and housing that are needed by our community that are most needed.

And we'll do that by taking the housing needs assessment. We'll have a policy recommendation section, and then we're gonna use that to inform our strategic plan so that we're really taking this data driven and community driven approach to informing our our tactical decisions of the coming years so that we are best meeting the needs of our community.

That's great. And I think another thing that I would just raise up as far as the data is looking at the strategic plan for the last five years and where it has really failed. There are some areas where we've done well on those five year goals, and there's you know, one of the highlights that our office has been focused on is black homeownership rates and those homeownership rates across the city. So what where are these individuals going, and why are they leaving our city? Coupled with who's owning these houses now if we if the homeownership rate in general amongst anybody in Denver is down. That's all I have

for the moment. I'll get back at the queue at the end of the queue

if there's time. Thank you.

May I have for a point of clarification on the vacancy rate? The the 4.7% was the target rate in the Doctor. Cox study, so it's not a reflection of the current rate that the consultant team used for looking forward.

Right. And I'm aware of that, and that's why I'm concerned that our actual vacancy rate is higher than the healthy rate of 4.7.

Yes. Okay. Thank you. Great.

Thank you. Council member Sawyer.

Thank you. Thanks, you guys. This is super interesting. I'm I can't wait for the results. So really looking forward to finding that information. I am a little concerned about the 2025 Doctor. Cog study because it does not seem like the metrics that they used as our the basis are really good metrics in the first place. Right? Like, Denver's future share is based on 25% of job and 26% of developable land. That's wrong.

We know that right right off the bat. I don't have to be a Denver City Council member living in this world to know that that is wrong. And all of the data that we have for current information, right, backs that up. So things like, for example, there are more permits permits being pulled for developments outside of Denver than inside of Denver. Rents are higher outside of Denver than they are inside of Denver.

And, right, all of those different metrics do not add up to the basis that the doctor Hogg study started from. So I think that's really concerning. So I just want you to clarify for me because you put it in here, but you're not using the Doctor. Hogg study as a basis for where you are starting, are you?

We are not. No. We are designing a more tailored model. We are required the state requires when regional studies are done that those numbers are acknowledged in the needs assessment actually in the action plan. And so there is a recognition that a regional study was done, and these were the findings of that, projections, and these are the city the city of Denver's findings. So these will be actually newer newer data that were used too. That study was done a couple of years ago.

Okay. I really appreciate that because I think it's really concerning, and I just wanted to make sure that this wasn't, like, where the base

of where we're starting from. Right, yeah. We're required by the state legislation to acknowledge that a regional study was done and that Denver was part of that. So you will see those numbers reflection in the needs assessment. We are designing a unique model for Denver, a tailored model for Denver.

Okay. That's fantastic. Yeah, go ahead.

And that's part of why so Denver, with within the state legislation, we have the option to opt in to the regional housing needs assessment and accept it as our our as our own. And we did make the decision to do a tailored localized one because of the kind of unique needs of the city and wanting to dig deeper on sort of neighborhood level data. And so we we still work collaboratively with doctor Cog and participate in, like, the regional discussions, but we did and do want to have a very our localized with a kind of unique data set that's updated and pertinent

to us. I really appreciate that. Thanks for doing that because I agree with you that that is very important for us. I will just second what council member Almiedra said. I think it's really important.

We we, like, anecdotally know, right, what is going on with the mismatch between what is affordable for developers to build, which is studios and one bedrooms, and the needs of our community, which is two and three or maybe even four bedrooms. And so we like, we know that that that exists, but it would be good to have the the data to kind of back that up. My question for you is, how are we going to use this data once we get it? Because we know that's what it's gonna show. Right?

Glad we'll finally have the numbers to prove it, but, like, we know that's what it's gonna show. And if it doesn't show that, I will be very con concerned. But how are we then going to like, what is the end game for host in terms of how we take that data and and transition that into action? Because most of that is private development that we don't invest in invest in, and it's just the the way the market is working. Right. No. I do

think we have to acknowledge what we have control over as a city. But, you know, even outside of host with CBD, permitting, you know, we do have sort of a a pulse on the market and some some level of interaction with with market rate development as well. But I think within host, we're really we'll be looking at policy decisions, programmatic decisions, and funding decisions that we would reflect in a strategic plan and a and a housing action plan that really build on this data and say, given constrained resources, how do we make tough decisions that's, you know, really support our community? So for for housing opportunity for development teams, it might be we already have some prioritization of larger bedroom counts when we're making decisions, like a per investment that we make in affordable housing is increased for like a three or a four bedroom. Is it increased enough?

Is it the right amount? Should we actually only be funding large units versus small units? You know, those are ways that at sort of a tactical level, we could take this data and then apply it to both existing programs and policy and then really think about if there are things that we need to change about what we're doing investing in. And so that would that would go then through sort of strategic planning alignment process and then into action. Okay.

Yeah. Appreciate that. Yeah. That's fantastic. Thank you. Thanks.

Thank you. Council member Torres.

Thank you. Just a quick super excited to see this when it comes back, and thank you for for digging in on the data. Just a random clarification question. Back when pre host, there was hope, the housing and opportunity for people everywhere, There was a conversation that I was part of you have to do the hand thing.

You do it every time.

There was a conversation that I was part of where they talked about how the vacancy rate is arrived at, and it did not include brand new, never rented units, never rented for the first time units. Is that the case? It depends. You can look at

it two ways. So you can and what we'll typically do is we'll look at vacancy rates by by characteristics of the development, the unit type, unit size, scale. So we can look at it. We can we can adjust take out the units that have just come online to account for that lease up period because the lease up period is gonna raise the vacancy, and so you can look at it both ways. Okay.

So you can see but this is what the CoStar data get us. You can see by when I say development type, I mean, you know, a large multifamily luxury development with, like, a very nice fitness room and decks or one that's maybe more tailored for middle income households. We can look at that type of property, look at how when they were built, when they came when the units came online, and what the vacancy rate was and the

fluctuation Okay. Of I guess I'm just really interested in, like, that whole picture because I think I hear anecdotally stories that units are just being held vacant, and they're just kind of sitting on them. And others and those might be kind of higher end units. And others where even like the Sun Valley development, some of the lease ups were kind of slow to fully get filled. So where are our gaps?

And just want to make sure that we're seeing that whole picture as opposed to kind of when people are leaving. But I appreciate the work and can't wait to see this. And I'm always kind of looking back also at what's being built and comparing kind of what we need to what's being built. We had a great visual in the host budget presentation in 2023 that showed a gap or actually overproduction of I think it was over 120% AMI housing compared to the need, but a vast underproduction of pretty much anything else under that. And I'd be interested to see where we're at now.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks. Great.

Thank you. Councilmember Lewis. Great.

I just have one quick single question. You gave the examples of the analysis, and one of the things that I've been thinking about is our growing population in terms of, like, 65 and housing for those folks and and seeing more of those folks experiencing homelessness. And so I'm I'm curious as to and I see in the presentation, you all do have this wind out. It says age distribution of current and projected population.

Mhmm.

So I'm just curious if you all are thinking about that demographic of folks and and having that as a piece of the analysis to make sure we have a specific targeted to councilwoman Sawyer's point strategy for addressing what we might learn there.

Mhmm. Yeah. Absolutely. We we We often look at senior households. The tricky part of looking at senior households is for low income owners who occupying a home that's probably bigger than what they need, what choice will they make?

And typically, people do choose to age in place because they can't afford to downsize. So in Abilia's model and the model that we build, we have to make some assumptions about what a low income senior owner will choose to do and whether or not that creates demand for a studio or a one bedroom unit at a affordability level. That's kind of the on the technical side, that's what we're looking at. We also we do have a lot of data on the cost burden level of senior households, poverty, whether or they own their homes. And then we also can look at who becomes a homeowner at which age, and there's a lot of differentiation among races and ethnicities as well. So you'll see all of that.

Lovely. And and the last question. I know I said I had one, but you reminded me I actually had two. Was you mention eviction filings? Do you also use foreclosures as well?

Yes. We look at evictions and foreclosures.

That's it. Great. Great. Thank you.

I actually have a few questions as well. Or you can Yep. Of course. Yes. Yes.

Yes. We have so I think, again, just the type of housing that's available. And most of what we're talking about is for rent. And I think that it's also incredibly difficult for us to it's like we need to have the conversation about ownership as well. And I think that the rent prices and what's being invested there is just I would just like to be able to broaden the conversation so that we can include homeownership because there are significant dollars that are going into our rents and not going towards a mortgage and not allowing people to build that equity over time.

I had a question on one of your slides on slide nine. Mhmm. And this is more of and maybe you you can you have some analysis of it. But when you look at it, the months experiencing homelessness by race and ethnicity, is there some what's happening between ten and twelve months? Like, that's such a significantly small number there. And I'm just wondering, is that is there some narrative that goes with that? You

know, I don't know. I think and this is coming out of the HMIS data, so the data on the experience of people in the continuum of care system. It may be that that's just such a may be that that's a really narrow window that the data are these are data that are they fluctuate a lot, especially with people whose experience with homelessness is very fluid. And so it may it may be that there's we call a margin of error, just a lot of noise or margin of error in the data. But we can certainly ask when we're updating this, but I I'm not sure. That would be great.

I was just I was just wondering, is there, like, something magic that happens between ten and twelve months, and we're just missing that gap? And then also on slide 12, eviction filings, and I think this definitely tracks with the experience in 2023. Bless you. But also continuing to hear from folks that are, you know, facing evictions and the locations where they are. Is this something that is I'm looking at the county courts and route policy. Do we have any more recent data? We're in the

process of collecting that now. Part of the the data that I brought in to to show you were based on analyses that we did prior to this contract that we've done for host over periods of time. And so I just wanted to give you a picture of when we think about disproportionate housing needs and how people experiencing the housing market differently, what kind of analysis we do to inform that. Okay. Because the areas that

are shown is where we have naturally occurring affordability. It's where I have very large 300, 400, 500 unit apartments. And so this is I'm just saying this map very much tracks with what I'm seeing and hearing in in Southeast Denver. I don't have any other did you

wanna hop back in? Yeah.

Please. Yeah. Thanks for bringing up the eviction map. I think one of the things we've been looking at too at our office is just eviction filings is one thing, and then talking to the sheriff's office of who actually is getting evicted and what resources are helping. The sheriffs could be actually a really great resource in that whole conversation around eviction, which I didn't know until I talked to them. So I just went up with that. But another concern that I have looking you know, we're looking into the future. Right? Mhmm. Climate change is very real.

It's affecting insurance costs, and it's affecting the types of housing that people need and want and how they're able to not be displaced. So I'm curious where does the climate change part of this conversation fit and insurance costs. And when you're looking at housing costs, how are you going to put that into your analysis of what the future needs of the city are? Because my understanding is this is not just like what do we need in this moment, but looking into how far into the future are we looking into that.

Avila and I just did a wide study for the state of New Mexico, and they asked the same question about homeowners insurance. And so we did a bit of a some some research looking at data that are out there to help understand how insurance cost fluctuates whether or not that is a predictor of foreclosure. And so we can certainly build that in to this as well and and include I'm thinking as you're talking through this and looking at price inflation and and sort of housing costs in the future, particularly for homeowners that is that that should be a factor.

And what is the most resilient types of housing looking into the future? You know, I think about part of my district is historic neighborhoods. These houses are very inefficient. What does that look going into the future? Is there something to that conversation?

And I think about one of the things that I think about when I think about affordable housing is that it's hard to create affordable housing when the price of housing is going up. And I think about insurance costs, building code, all of these labor costs to pick up housing. And so how are we going to be looking at not just because you mentioned homeowners and insurance, and that's who we think of when we talk about insurance, but landlords have to pay insurance on their buildings as well. And that cost is gonna get pay passed down to the renter. And so making sure that we're thinking about that as a whole, not just homeowners that pay homeowner insurance, also anybody.

You know? Like and I really, really wanna commend. I didn't even think a housing needs assessment looking at small businesses, and I think that's an important aspect that you brought up that I didn't necessarily think about, but they are also talking to us about insurance costs. And part of affording housing is your utility bill, which is also connected to climate change. So I would say yeah. Yeah, please. Oh, just I would

say I don't have data on it, so anecdotally at this point, but our for our affordable housing developers and providers who provide affordable housing, the cost of insurance has gone up significantly and is a is a huge burden. So we are really watching that already at host, and I do think we can bring it into this. And then quality of housing stock is a component as well. And I think as temperatures rise and sort of air conditioning or cooling becomes more important for sort of the health and safety of residents, you know, that's a factor as well. So, yeah, thank you.

Great. I'm grateful for that. And then I recently was able to tour an affordable housing, a newer affordable housing development in my district, a 100% affordable, and they're not able to rent the units, and the math is not mapping. So when I say the math is not mapping, it's the rent for affordable unit is, like, for their one of their units was, 16 or $1,800 depending on studio or one bedroom, and that was at 60% AMI, and that wasn't 30% of the people's income that they're trying to target for their affordable target. And so as much as we have these targets, not only that, but that's about what rent is.

Mhmm. 16 or 1,800 for a studio or one bedroom, at least in the West Side. I appreciate that you brought up neighborhoods in my district. We will find different rents on different areas of the district. But in the same neighborhood where you have an affordable unit for $161,800, you could get a market rate unit for 16 or 1,800.

And so I don't know if projecting into the future, there will be a real disparity there where market rate again is a lot higher than what you find in affordable unit, but also so two issues is the affordable unit isn't necessarily the 30% of the income of the person. And second of all, it's what market rate is in that neighborhood also adding to the struggle there. And so hoping that thinking about that as we create these affordable units is important as well. So I think if you talk to anybody that's recently built affordable housing, they are struggling to fill those units. And then my last question is, how are you going to talk to people who have been already displaced out of the city?

Because I think that's an important group of people that I wanna know why did you move out, what would make you consider living in the city of Denver again.

That's a great question. We can we can do that as part of targeted focus groups. The probably the best way to get that information is to do focus groups. We do we have in the past worked with a firm that does that helps us do sampling, and they're multilingual firm. They're in Southern California.

We do a lot they do a lot of our statistically significant survey work, and they can recruit. And I've done this in the city of Austin, actually. We did focus groups of people who had relocated to outside of the city, and we did three focus groups asking them why. We typically we'll convene people in a place that's comfortable for them. We we pay them for their time, and so it's like a a professional focus group like you do if you were participating in a product discussion.

So we can certainly build that in. I think that's probably the most strategic way of doing that. We had talked about with with the host team or with the broader the collaborative team about doing a survey and decided not to because people are pretty over surveyed right now, and there's lot of engagement happening in the city. That would be another avenue, but it is a little hard to get that target group through a survey if you don't do a statistically significant survey, and those are expensive. So that might be there's some, you know, there's still quite a bit of data showing that people in certain parts, particularly on the West Side, will move to Aurora. Whether or not they're buying a home, if they're moving because they can't afford Denver, I think would be the types of questions we would ask.

Yeah. And I think they can't afford what they need in Denver, but they can afford maybe something that they don't need in Denver. And so continuing that, and I think when we talk about people that have been displaced and even just looking at, you know, Host has the great data on homeownership rates, is that it it making sure that you're demographically also looking at you know, it is mostly people of color that are leaving the city, and the city is, for lack of any better term, becoming whiter and whiter. And I don't think that's the goal of anyone. I think that we wanna have a diverse city where everyone can stay, feel welcome, and afford to live.

And so really thinking about how when you look at those people that have been displaced, are you looking at the demographics of those individuals proportionate to the people that have left the city as well? That's all. Thank you so much, committee chair, and thank you all for this work. I'm really like councilwoman Sawyer said, I I I'm ready to see the results any day now. Right? Just kidding.

Quick time check. We have one more council member in the queue. Quick question, and then we will go to

our final presentation. Thank you. Super fast question. My colleagues reminded me. I had a question about your eviction filings graphic. The one bright red neighborhood in my district is Auraria. Why is Auraria on on here for eviction filings? Students.

Can look at the data. It might just be

that

it's I don't know. We can look.

Okay. It's not a lot of other than student housing Mhmm. There's a

couple loss, but that's it. Yeah. We can take a look.

Thank you. Mhmm. Alright. Thank

you for the presentation. Thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate

it. And next up, we have the Quebec corridor study. Council member Lewis.

Okay. Do

you want me

to work this line?

Yeah. Please. Or I can do it while you're talking to you.

That's fine. Yeah. I gotcha. Alright. Hello. Hi. We are here. So you all know me. I'm councilwoman Lewis. I represent District 8. And

Hi. I'm David Coogler. I live in Central Park. I was part of the Quebec Corridor task force. I also live in income restricted housing before purchase housing. So if you ever wanna talk, let me know. I've got lots of thoughts. I'm also the secretary of Central Park United Neighbors. I'm on the mayor's good neighbor committee of a small business owner, in in the city. So thanks for having me

here. Did you get everything?

I also host some podcast called Call Me Limbo where we talk about local politics. Councilwoman has councilwoman has been a guest as well. It was councilwoman parody if you ever wanna check it out.

So, yeah, I'm very excited to have this conversation about the Quebec Corridor Task Force and with a member of the Quebec Corridor Task Force to discuss their experiences over the summer. Before we begin, I wanted to set the table with a few things first. I wanted to take Brie, who is on my staff who led this work. She was incredible in convening the people of this group for leading with curiosity and empathy over the 2025, and we would not be here without her. So thank you, Brie, all the way in Australia.

Second second, I wanted to talk about the origins of the task force. So my first proper day as a council member, I learned that the that my district was going to be asked to bear the brunt of the sheltering services for the program that was then called House one thousand. The city had already acted on the acquisition of the hotels in the district located at what we refer to now as the Quebec Quebec Corridor. Perhaps not surprisingly, we hear from folks on the Quebec Corridor in shelters and businesses and homes all the time about the conditions of the area since those shelters have opened in addition to the the shelters, but also the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless also has a a housing development over over there as well, and so they tend to group that even though it's not a part of the House one thousand. So based on those frustrations, I was feeling around the work with the shelters that the shelter providers were doing, the data.

I had a third party consultant collect data for both Councilman Watson's House one thousand shelters as well as mine as well. And my desire was to ensure that the system worked as it was originally designed and that we weren't just simply warehousing folks with which was what we ended up doing. And so I wanted to try and address these complaints and concerns holistically instead of simply treating the symptom on an individual basis, and so I asked Brie if she would run the task force as a result. And so what is the Quebec Corridor? Oh, I am in charge of that. Maybe I should let you be.

I can do it. And

just that quickly,

I failed.

Now you're doing great.

Okay. Thank you. So what is the Quebec Corridor? If you've ever driven around Quebec driven along the Quebec, the sense is that there's a barrier between the different parts of my district, and so you can see that so distinctively actually with Quebec from East Colfax to South Park Hill to North Park Hill to Central Park. The zone in question in Quebec is from 23rd Street on the South end to Northfield Boulevard on the North Side.

The section is a high speed section of the road with a mix of commercial, residential, and a big concentration of shelters as well. We'll talk about that more in a second, but I wanted to be able n e n n p I n p I. Lord have mercy. Which we'll talk about that more in a second as well.

But just to give you

all some historical context, so Quebec used to be the dividing line between the city of Denver and the Stapleton International Airport, and so the hotels have become shelter the hotels that have become shelters were used for travelers at the airport. The neighborhood of Central Park is the master plan community that has taken the place of the airport. And so when we started developing the task force, we got perspective from many folks in the area, including long term residents of Northeast Park Hill. The degree to which the airport shaped life in that neighborhood cannot be overstated, and the relocation of the airport led to a lack investment in that community in particular relative to what had existed before. So why a task force?

Because we love them. No. I'm just kidding. So as I mentioned before, we wanted to hear from folks in the Quebec Corridor and the shelters and the businesses and homes about the about the conditions of the area since the shelters have opened. And regardless if we wanted to hear from them or not, we were hearing from them because they had they had concerns.

And so with that, I was resolved to do something that was inclusive of community input. And so BREIT took charge of this project and organized it to create short, long term, and medium recommendations to improve the quality of life in the Quebec Corridor. And so who was on the task force? It was made up of three neighborhoods, Central Park, South South Park Hill, and Northeast Park Hill. A lot of business owners in that area were the main body of the task force. The city was able to provide agency support and expertise at the meeting. Anything I miss? Great. I'm doing great. Alright.

Okay. So now I'm gonna stop talking and turn it over to the folks who are actually on the panels on the task force, excuse me, to discuss the process and the recommendations.

Yeah. Thanks, councilwoman.

Do want

me to So sure. Yeah. Thank you. So the first meeting was on April 3, and it really just set the tone for future meetings, including what problem the Quebec quarter task force should solve for. So we decided to come up with short, medium, and long term goals, which I'll talk about.

But wanna talk about first what we did not recommend. Here's a quote from one of the folks who participated. The Quebec quarter task force does not support a ban on camping and overreliance on policing to respond to poverty and homelessness or the continuation of isolation for unsheltered residents to necessary services to find stability. We advocate for the city and the community to invest in quality services for both visible and invisible homeless folks across Denver. And then on July 23, the panelists discussed cold weather sheltering and did not support the continued use of 4040 Quebec, which is called the Aspen, now as a cold weather shelter facility.

And I will ask why they weren't were not a stakeholder or add. Excuse me. While they were not a stakeholder on the task force, the fire and police have seen a lot more calls, a larger volume of calls, because of the concentration of the sheltering on Quebec. So just wanted to add that piece. Go ahead.

Yes. Thank you. Mhmm. We have some good news for coming about that later, though, too. So, some of the long term goals that we talked about in our May 21 meeting, we discussed long term goals for the quarter, which we defined as 2027 and beyond.

So we had three recommendations, one around housing, one around future land use, and one around transportation. So first, regarding housing costs, the task force recommended that development plans include more housing development to meet the needs of folks who are at 30% to a 110% of the area median income level, which I think aligns with some of what we've heard today too. This amounts to more housing for folks with income levels between $29,450 to a $112,850, and this is from the Department of Housing Stability's twenty twenty five home income limits. Second, on the issue of future land use, the task force recommended that the corridor on both sides of the street of Quebec be included in the near Northeast area plan, which is an upcoming initiative that will set land use goals for the next twenty years in Northeast Park Hill. And then third, finally, on transportation, the task force recommended the design and implementation of continuous and accessible pedestrian and cyclist infrastructure to ensure the walkability and prioritize multimodal transit.

It's there's train tracks over there and then on ramp into onto Quebec, which turns into I 70. And so it's and there's not a lot of, pedestrian infrastructure. So, the Quebec Corridor also should facilitate quality alternatives to single occupancy vehicles and traffic while also facilitating slower speeds. So then, in June, we talked about some medium term goals, which we defined as 2026 and 2027. So we came up with two recommendations.

The first was that the city set up a city investment fund that could cover the needs of the area, and this would be a specially dedicated source of funding that could not be used for any other purpose and would be a means to ensure that the concentration of shelters was backstopped by a plan and the means to invest in our communities. The other medium term recommendation for the corridor revolves around the future of the shelters. Currently, despite how it feels to some Central Park residents in particular, those shelters are not slated for indefinite use as shelters. And so what do we wanna do with them? So some of them, as the Aspen Shelter at 4040 Quebec, which was an old Doubletree hotel, are city owned assets.

And this means that at some point, the use of these shelters will change and the city will have a decision to make about what what use it was. So the discussion was around permanently affordable income restricted housing. And then short term goals. So that was defined as the 2025. So we came up with two things.

So first, the task force recommended that there'd be more open space for the shelter congregants to gather. And so when we were doing this work, the Salvation Army was the operator of the Aspen shelter, and now it has shifted to, urban alchemy. And as part of the good neighbor committee, for the Quebec corridor With the mayor's office, Urban Alchemy is working on opening up a space inside the hotel because right now it's just surrounded by really large parking lots. So, really excited about about that. Yes. Love without shade, no cover, no seating. It's not very hospitable, especially in the summer, at least the increased isolation for the residents.

Hear from the neighbors as well, as you all might imagine, is that they're often saying, like, we see the folks who live in their shelters, and they're outside smoking cigarettes, or they're outside hanging out with their friend, and so trying to be doing normal things. Correct. We're humaning. So trying to find opportunities as well to be able to provide services for the folks who were there.

Yep. So and then the second recommendation that we had concerned the physical looks of the corridor, which had a big impact on how Northeast Park Hill and Central Park neighbors perceive and feel about the shelters. So trash and landscaping have been frequent concerns for the neighbors, and so recommendation here is to organize trash pickups, which there was one part of the give five mile high initiative that first lady Johnson has spearheaded, and it was really well received in the neighborhood. So, like, doing more of that would be would be really great. Using city services to improve landscaping, other efforts like that.

One benefit of this is that the trash cleanups could include both shelter residents and the neighborhoods, and it would would help to build trust and engagement between the two groups. I also think I also wanted to highlight, one of the pieces of information that we received from lieutenant Hines in our March 18 Good Neighbor Committee was that since urban alchemy took over the shelter, there have been there's been a a pretty dramatic reduction in calls for service, for police service to especially the Aspen Shelter. And councilwoman Lewis said to me beforehand too that the fire department has also seen a reduction in in calls there too. So, also, they said that the number of overdoses that they've had since they took over, and this was as of March 18 in the Aspen Shelter, there were three and all of those were reversed. So I'm I'm

And there were significant overdoses.

Yes, before. So I think the new shelter provider is is doing some good work from at least in the last three months from what I've seen. So that's what I've got.

Alright. Let's talk about some next steps. So those are the recommendations from the task force. And so let's turn towards what we are doing to implement all of this. So we did some walk audits.

Walk audits are one of the short term recommendations from the Corridor Task Force. They're done through the Denver Regional Mobility and Access Council and are designed to collect direct feedback from neighbors and to advocate for safer, more walkable streets for all users. We have participated in walk audits with doctor Mack in other parts of our district as well, and I'm excited about the process and the reports that doctor Mack creates, and I'm working to bring a doctor Mack audit to the corridor. As I mentioned before, we were able to successfully successfully bring the shelter corridor into the n n e p NPI Pro. Thank you.

Process. I'm a get it. We just keep kicking off in earnest in spring, and this will ensure that the long term land use planning will include the corridor and be sensitive to the conditions of that corridor. Originally, it was not included. And then finally, we're working with the new shelter provider and implementing the recommendations of the task force to develop common space at the shelter, which Urban Alchemy is in favor of in favor of.

They just need some more money. Additionally, working to bring other resources, including trust building activities to the shelter via urban alchemy. And finally, we had meetings with hosts about the development, the true development of a navigation center at 4040 Quebec, which I'm sure you guys are sick of hearing from me saying

that because I'm sick of saying it,

which would address the use of the shelter as a cold weather shelter and to achieve the medium term goals of figuring out shelter distribution. And I'm pleased with the initial meetings we have, but I'm preserving judgment until I

see more details. And

with that, that is all we have. Happy to take any questions.

Oh, well Thank you. And Yes. Thanks. You did sprint. And

I I

really I really appreciate it,

but it was great comprehensive information. We'll start with council member Sawyer.

Thanks. Thank you so much for this information. Thanks for volunteering your time and energy us. Do it. Participate in this. I know that you probably get asked to do that a lot. And so

It's okay.

I like to do it.

Thank you for our community panels. Yeah. This is really useful information. I was especially heartened to hear that Urban Alchemy has turned out to be an excellent shelter operator Oh,

so good.

Because we sat through a lot of public comment about that in opposition to that. And so I'm really thrilled to hear that that is going the way we hoped it had gone it would go and not the way our a lot of our public commenters feared it would go. So Yeah.

And I

and I visited forty forty Quebec, like, just on a whim, and the the energy is different in in the shelter when it was operated by the Salvation Army versus urban alchemy. So excited for that. It's it's a hopeful situation for sure.

That's great. Yeah. That's fantastic to hear.

And in our can I have one more

thing too?

It was

like in our January Good Neighbor Committee

Oh, they come to that also.

Yes. They come. Yes. They're engaged.

So do it

different. They refer to, people experiencing homelessness as unhoused loved ones, which even just the language is different. But I

forgot what I was gonna say. Well, if

you think Yeah.

It'll I will come back to oh, I remember the Denver there was a Denver article about urban alchemy who had taken away the keys of the residence. And I was one of I was very resistant. And I asked Tyler who's the representative from urban alchemy about, like, why are you doing this? Like, taking away dignity from from folks and their independence. And he said it's to ensure touch points, and we're assessing sobriety, and we're assessing, just the health and the care of the folks who are who are living here. And so again, like I even had to shift a little bit of some of my approach and how I was maybe thinking about thinking about providing that service or or or taking that approach. And so and it seems to be working so far. So yeah.

That's really great. So question really around next steps. Right? I know there are several things on the list that are budget dollar heavy. Mhmm. Right? And so has the mayor's office or host been responsive to or open to those conversations as we're starting to talk about the '27 budget?

Yeah. So we've had a number of conversations with those specifically. Well, let me start with the cold weather shelter, and we have commitments again that they won't be opening cold weather sheltering at 4040 Quebec for the next winter season. We'll see. The second is we've had conversations with hosts about the navigation center. Uh-huh. And so they are in the works of putting something similar to that together. It's not the navigation center that, like, we talked about and envisioned. It's like a navigation center not even on a, like, Pinto budget. It's really bare bones, but they have been receptive.

Okay. Yeah.

We broke.

I guess we'll

I guess we'll see what happens with that.

Okay. And I recognize as I was given the presentation that this probably is a presentation that that should be to the administration and his staff and less to council members, but also I was hoping that Brie was giving this presentation so that she can give it to council members, but you got me.

Good one. Sorry. You're doing good. Okay. You're doing great, friend. Just in terms of the so the other thing we heard about the Quebec quarter that was really challenging was the level of uptick in petty crime, petty theft from stores, grocery stores, etcetera. So I'm curious whether DPD has any data on that or whether the changes that the short term changes that have been implemented already have had an impact on that? Like, where

I can take some of that. Are we on that yet? So in the in the most recent meeting as well in in March, a lieutenant Hines said that you're correct. A lot of it's like like just shoplifting, and there's a lot of shop with the Northfield Shopping Center and the Quebec Square. Their Walmart was reporting to DPD that the the most common shoplifted items were like deodorant, toothpaste, like just consumable, like that you need in order to just basic hygiene items and pet food.

So what Urban Alchemy, DPD, and Walmart are now preparing to do, like, is very, like, very new as in, like, the last, like, few weeks that they're planning on doing this, is Walmart's just going to make a large donation of pet food supplies, hygiene products to the shelter in hopes that the that the shoplifting crime that they were seeing in Walmart will go down. So we'll see. But I think that that's that's what that's what lieutenant Heinz was at least saying

Okay.

Is that the approach that they were going to take. And then they've also kind of entered into a partnership with with Walmart as well to and they also opened a satellite location in Quebec Square as well. So DPD did in the last maybe six months or so. Okay. Yeah. Very recent. And so I'm not sure of the of the yeah. But, yeah, but most of the crime is shot lifting.

Okay. We're I know we're right at time. So I've just if I could just follow-up with one other question, I guess, or comment. I am a little concerned that the solution to the challenge of shoplifting was to make a donation to the shelter as if we know that the residents of the shelter were the ones participating in the crime. And, like, that just it makes me a little concerned because I don't know that we know that. No.

We we and we don't, actually. It was one of the questions that I gave to chief Thomas, and he said that there was no correlation between the shoplifting and the existence of the shelters, that there was no way for them to say that that that those two were connected. Okay. So I don't know how they got there. But they're there, nonetheless. Okay. Great. Yes. Thank you. You're welcome.

Thank you. Just a real quick comment. Some of the things and thank you for doing the work and for participating participating for this corridor study. It's interesting because there's a lot of similarities with the family shelter that that we are seeing as well and is also coming from community, having safe places Mhmm. To be outdoors and also indoors, having walkable spaces because mostly hotels don't have these, you know, walkable spaces and then having a, you know, a good path to be able to get to the park.

I think something that I would like to continue the conversation with you about is a broader conversation as to what is the next step for our sheltering because it was also presented like this will be affordable housing someday. And what is that timeline, and how do we start to prepare for that? I think the expectation of maybe not only the people living within the shelter, but also those within the community outside the shelter have an understanding that, you know, this is gonna be affordable housing Yeah. At some point.

That's right. And that's that's a part of the conversations that we were having with host, and to to say, like, how do we think comprehensively about our shelter system from a geographic perspective as well as the cold weather weathering shelter as well. And is there a policy that we might need to start thinking about in terms of, like, how it we execute on these things because the the plans are lacking in this moment. Yeah. So we just need

to be able to close that loop. But Correct. If we are good on questions, thank you so much again

for your

time. The study, and we are adjourned.

Alright.