Safety, Housing, Education & Homelessness Committee - Regular Meeting

And I am the chair for the safety committee here today. And we're gonna start with introductions of council members that are joining us around the table, and then we'll get into today's agenda. So I'll start over here to my left.

Good morning, madam chair. Stacy Gilmore, District 11.

Good morning. Diana Romero Campbell, Southeast Denver, District 4.

And good morning. Paul Cashman, South Denver, District 6.

Jamie Torres, West Denver, District 3.

Kevin Flynn, Southwest Denver District 2.

Amanda Donovan, North West Denver District 1. And

Chris Hines, Denver's brick and mortar.

Awesome. Alright. Well, today, we have a couple of briefings. We're going to be starting off today with the Denver Housing Authority update, and so want to welcome our guests. After that, we'll have a slight transition where we'll be talking to the Denver Department of Public Health and Environment. So to kick us off, we have some guests joining us from Denver Housing Authority. I'll have you all introduce yourselves, and then we can proceed with the presentation. And then we will I'll take a queue if there are members who have questions, and then we'll do questions at the end of the presentation.

Absolutely. Thank you, Chair Gonzalez Gutierrez, committee members, council members Joaquin Sin Trumbaga from, representing Denver Housing Authority, and I am joined this morning by different members from from my team. And if they can take just a quick, couple of seconds to to introduce yourself.

Hello. Stephanie Sheeman, and I'm the communications and public affairs director here at DHA.

Hi. Joshua Crowley, chief operating officer and general counsel.

Erin Clark, good morning. Chief Real Estate Investment Officer.

I'm Goshia Khan, Deputy Chief Real Estate Investment Officer. Good

morning. I'm Lindsey Hall, the Senior Executive Assistant at DHA.

Thank you. So they are the experts, so they're going to take on any, you know, very technical questions that you you may have. So

They're welcome to join at the table because there is space if they if they'd like to, if there are questions or if they're part of the presentation, please feel free to join us. It might make it easier.

So good morning, council members. Thank you for this important opportunity. I am here today representing the Denver Housing Authority as a transformational partner for the future of this city. As we navigate, pressing challenges from homelessness and affordability to public safety, DHA is driving innovative solutions at the intersection of housing and economic opportunity. Now more than ever within the existing uncertain climate, DHA is not waiting for change.

We are leading it. Next slide. DHA is an economic engine that powers Denver's economy. Our investments act as catalytic engines, leveraging federal dollars. DHA understands its responsibility and is assuming leadership serving as convener for partners at the local, state, and federal levels, creating public private partnerships, generating jobs, and strengthening neighborhoods.

DHA is doing that through innovation on its approach. And innovation is not a boss world for us. It is the way we operate. DHA is adapting, evolving, and pushing beyond conventional boundaries to maximize community impact, financial sustainability and long term resilience. And today, I will take this opportunity to talk more about the important role that we play along with a group of significant updates.

But to provide an example of what I am talking about in terms of the meaningful impact that we create, during the past twelve years, as you know, DHA has achieved nearly $2,000,000,000 in real estate investments, including housing developments, commercial and infrastructure projects, leveraging public private partnerships and maximizing the powerful tools for affordable housing that we have at our disposal. We have done that in partnership with the city and county of timber and, of course, with the support of city council. So thank you so much for the historical level of support that you have provided to DHA and the support that I know you are going to provide to us going forward. So in in other words, our opportunity today is one that is real and tangible. But to achieve just that, I feel that we have a responsibility, and I want to speak loud and clear to our community, residents, leaders, and partners.

DHA wants to have a seat at all tables where affordable housing, community, and economic development is discussed. That is very important. That is because we have the tools and resources, but we also have the track record and willingness to participate on those discussions to create impact, innovating, and adapting to circumstances. In today's rapidly evolving world, innovation and the ability to adapt are not just advantages. They are essential for resilience, relevance, and long term impact.

For nearly a century, public housing has evolved bending under the weight of economic shifts, political change, and social challenges beginning in the nineteen thirties as a bold idea to provide decent homes for working families, expanding in the postwar years with high rises that promised progress but too often became symbols of neglect, adapting in the seventies with the introduction of talent choice to reimagine itself in the nineties with mixed income communities until today when DHA is driving forward with sustainability, innovation, and resident empowerment from the establishment of the Housing Act of 1937 to today's climate of disruption, DHA has been a stabilizing force. For eighty seven years, DHA has weathered economic turbulence, political winds, and shifting social landscapes. At every step, housing authorities across this country faced overwhelming challenges, funding cuts, policy shifts, crumbling infrastructure, and the difficult and and the difficult reality that housing alone is not enough. With that said, at every turn, DHA has adapted, innovated, and led. And today, at the Denver Housing Authority, we are not just keeping up with this evolution.

We are setting the pace. The future demands more of us, and we are ready. Our forward looking strategy integrates sustainability, justness and innovation. Through our community responsive planning and development approach, we are aligning resources, partners and people toward bold outcomes. This is about incremental change and about transformation driven by vision executed with discipline and centered on community.

But let let me let me be clear. No one solves housing alone, but DHA wants to be part of the solution. A solution that we know, understand, and acknowledge must incorporate a level of coordination, collaboration, and interaction with the city and county of Timber and, of course, with the different council members that today are honoring us to with the opportunity to to to present before you today. So DHIS model is built on smart, strategic, public, private partnerships. These collaborations unlock new capital, multiply our reach, and ensure long term financial sustainability.

This is how we have created award winning high impact developments and how we will continue to do more with purpose and precision. DHA wields a formidable and unique set of development finance tools that go beyond traditional mechanism, enabling transformational and sustainable housing solutions in Denver. To be more specific, our financial arsenal, as I call it, includes: number one, taxable and tax exempt revenue bonds number two, access to revitalization programs and grants, like, for example, the Choice Neighborhoods Initiative program number three, the ability to perpetuate public stewardship and achieve cost savings through ground leases, preserving long term affordability, eliminating tax burdens for partners, creating a compelling structure for deep affordability without sacrificing development momentum. And number four, extending statutory tax exemptions to our development partners, reducing the cost of construction labor, materials and accepting projects from property sales taxes. DHA's ability to combine traditional financing with mission driven authority specific tools enables us to lead with impact, scale with intention and build resilient communities like Somme Valley, where DHA transformed an initial choice neighborhood initiative funding allocation of EUR 30,000,000 and over EUR 60,000,000 through the DHA delivers for timber D3 bond program into an over EUR 500,000,000 investment in new housing development and commercial spaces.

And that happened because we ignited the power of collaboration, not only DHA, but as I was mentioning prior, it takes a village. No one solves housing alone, and we're really proud of the partnership with the city, with city council, and other meaningful partners that provide all the necessities and resources so somebody can be today what it is. Thank you. Thank you for that. It is very important also to highlight that DHA has a AA minus credit rating from Standard and Poor's, and that is very significant.

And I have the responsibility to speak louder about that. This provide a significant strategic and financial capacity to DHA and our community. It signals strong credit worthiness, which enables access to capital at lower interest rates, increasing investor confidence and enhances DHA's ability to finance large scale, long term affordable housing developments. It also strengthens DHA negotiating position with public and private partners, ensuring it can act swiftly DHA can act swiftly and effectively in a competitive and changing housing landscape. That is what we have here in Denver.

That is what DHA represents for this community. That is how we can be part of the solution. This is why we need to be part of all of those conversations about affordable housing, economic, and community development. We want to be a good partner for this community, a good partner for the state, a great partner for the region, and a model to be followed nationally because we have that capacity. Our goal is to leverage our credibility and reputation as a trusted partner to support deals while protecting our credit rating so we can do more.

This, of course, will position DHA and this community towards projects that ensure financial sustainability. But to achieve to achieve and, I I don't like to use the the the word but. That that eliminates everything that I just said. And to achieve all of that, DHA must continue speaking louder, and we are very intentional in in doing so to celebrate the results of our collective vision of success. That is very important.

As you know, DHA made a promise to this city to deliver housing that meets the needs of all people. We are fulfilling that promise project by project, unit by unit. We are increasing supply, diversifying housing types and doing it with quality and speed. Our pipeline is robust. Our resolve is stronger than ever.

Thanks to to the strong partnership with the city and county of timber and City Council, DHA is leading the transformation of Timber's Sun Valley neighborhood, one of the city's historically low West income areas into a vibrant mixed use, mixed income community with enhanced connectivity and opportunity. These seven developments that are being shown in the screen are following the legacy that we have already built for generations to come through the Mariposa redevelopment, a nationally recognized mixed income transit oriented community that replaced outdated public housing with modern, sustainable housing. Maribosa has won awards for its innovation and community driven approach. We expect the same level of recognition for our many developments at Somebody, but the most important recognition, the most important legacy is a promise fulfilled that is a true reflection of what the people that we so proudly serve were envisioning for their beloved neighborhood to be. So these seven, amazing, developments coming to replace three thirty three heavily distressed affordable housing complexes are turning into more than 900 affordable housing apartments, but within the confines of a mixed income community where people from all income levels can live seamlessly with high quality.

Now let's go to review some exciting updates. I think that this is the important piece that you all want to know beyond the excitement that we are creating at Zonbally. We have a bold lineup of developments in motion, each rooted in equity and economic mobility. These efforts are part of a system wide strategy designed to reshape the city's housing landscape for generations to come. Each dot on this slide represents momentum, progress and lives impacted.

From feasibility to ribbon cutting and groundbreakings, DHA is managing a comprehensive housing life cycle. Our team is precise, strategic, and accountable at every stage. This is how we turn vision into outcomes and funding into future. Most recently, I want to recognize councilwoman Jamie Torres. She joined us at the grand opening of Jolie, and also deputy mayor, Gardner was with us and executive director, Jamie Rife.

So she she shared, the excitement, about the grand opening of Jolie, not for the sake of celebrating that milestone, but what that milestone represent for the people that we so proudly serve and that specific community. And she also participated on the groundbreaking activity for 9th And Navajo most recently. And we will be very soon sharing time, space, and excitement to unveil soul and flow. And DHA is making significant progress as well to move forward. Mosaic campus located at Councilwoman Lewis District 8 And 4745 North Federal located at city council's president Sandoval's District 1.

Great projects. Amazing amazing progress. DHA is also exploring a very very significant deal to provide 170 unit affordable housing apartments through a development that will include a Denver Public Library branch and a community oriented commercial cafe space on the Ground Floor. This specific opportunity that we are exploring is located on the corner of Washington Street and East 50th Avenue in the Groveville neighborhood at council member Watson's District 9. This is an additional partnership between the city and County of Denver and DHA.

We count with additional local support committed by at least 10 additional partners. Simple thanks to this specific project. And in addition, which is very meaningful for us about this specific project, is that it counts with an impressive 48,000 square foot worth of green space on-site. That is very important and very meaningful as well. So we keep building for the future.

And let me say more. DHA has a current housing development pipeline of 2,720 units for the years to come. DHA has also expanded its footprint across Districts 13789 And 10, with 11 permanent supportive housing developments totaling twelve thirty two additional apartments. And DHA is achieving all of that following our community responsive planning and development approach. We do not plan for communities.

We plan with them. DHA is setting a new standard for engagement and inclusion. Every decision is grounded in Lyft experience. Our planning model is responsive, not reactive. And that makes all the difference in building places people are proud to go home.

We are delivering projects driving measurable impact. Our strategic objectives are clear: transformation, equity, financial stewardship and community empowerment. Every initiative connects back to these goals. This is how we stay focused, aligned, and effective in a complex and fast changing environment. We are driving progress towards our strategic objectives.

As a significant update, EHA completed its housing portfolio physical needs assessment. That is the portfolio of apartments that we currently own. Last time I spoke before this same committee, I was estimating our capital needs to be around $0.02 $5,000,000,000 The completed assessments, and Josh can later talk a little bit more about that if necessary, validated that assumption with an amount of capital needs totaling 246,700,000.0 That is very meaningful data, that we need to understand and will definitely ignite a process for us to rethink how can we do better and how many additional partners, including City Council, will be needed as part of those conversations. In 2025, DHA will initiate its repositioning strategy planning process, following our community responsive planning and development approach to define development concepts in communication and interaction, coordination and agreement with the people that we so proudly serve, including residents, elected officials and their constituents and other stakeholders to set DHA and this community for a successful repositioning strategy initial implementation process where we aim to leverage our vast array of tools and resources for the priority projects. In the interim, DHA remains active creating housing opportunities through its special limited partnerships program.

Through strategic partnerships, DHA will be placing within the next year, short term, housing opportunities in Districts 348, And 9 through eight different special limited partnerships totaling nine sixty three additional apartments. But DHA does not stop there. We also have 22 deals within our pre application evaluation and committee and board approval pipeline for a gross potential of 2,224 additional apartments. This special limited partnership program is focused, this series of potential deals and deals that are coming to fusion are focused on light tech opportunities, light tech low income housing tax credits deals. But DHA and DHA is working diligently in collaboration with the city and county of Denver to establishing what we are calling a companion program that will be focusing on non LITEC deals that aim to serve our population ranging between 60% to 100% of the area median income.

So we are trying to and we are intentional about serving the most of our population. So with with with that said, I I believe that this is important to be to be noted. Our progress is real. And our impact and when I say our impact, the collective, including but not limited to DHA, our impact is is undeniable. And, you know, lastly, I I I would like to touch base in a couple of additional things.

DHA fully understand its role in leading community engagement, providing planning resources, and moving forward planning projects, advocating for affordable housing. And to meet future demand, we must assess, adapt and reposition our portfolio. DHA is taking hard data driven look a hard data driven look at every dispersed asset and other potential opportunities across the city and county of Denver, every council district, and every single community. We are maximizing potential, improving performance, and planning for strategic reinvestment. This is a portfolio management with purpose.

We are using data on neighborhood and resident needs to inform and design the development of properties and related amenities and services. DHA portfolio assessment planning and development repositioning project is evaluating DHA dispersed properties using physical, locational, and financial attributes, identifying development potential and repositioning options to advance the DHA vision. I am talking about those single family homes and other smaller assets that we have across the board in in most of of the existing districts and how can we elevate our housing opportunities if we leverage the necessary resources and the level of participation and collaboration and partnerships that exist today? DHA impact extends far beyond bricks and mortar. We invest in education, wellness, job readiness, and environmental justice because, True Housing Success is about thriving residents, not just occupied.

And the Riverfront Park is a an example of that. It's a bold vision coming to life, a vibrant, accessible, celebrated community space that redefines infrastructure. It is a statement that DHA does more than develop land or create housing. We cultivate opportunity, equity, and connection. And lastly, and I am going to end with this, and thank you for allowing me this space and the time to provide this this this update.

Phase one is just the beginning. With carefully curated amenities and wind space, we are creating a dynamic hub that promotes health, play, culture and inclusion. This is what our collective impact looks like, aspirational, equitable and community powered. This is a project that entails around five acre site located between West 9th Avenue and West 11th Avenue. The city is contributing $3,000,000 $2,000,000 through the Elevate bond funds and $1,000,000 of City Capital Improvement Program funds, and DHA is contributing $5,500,000,000 DHA is committed to effectively managing the associated funding, including the $2,000,000 allocation from elevated funds that we know must be spent by 2027.

But we are on pace to do that way before that. The city's Department of Parks and Recreation is to manage, operate, and control the park facilities and will coordinate with BHA on design, construction, and installation of park improvements. Some of the highlights are, for example, a cultural plaza and ethnobotanic garden and, of course, providing a bird's eye view from our Zon Valley neighborhood developments. The goal is to complete design and achieve permitting to deliver this very much needed space to Sun Valley residents in 2026. And as you know, residents at Sun Valley, they have historically black such amenities.

And this will be another promise fulfilled by DHA and our ecosystem of partners. So Momentum is on your on our side, and we are choosing to lean in, not standing still. Our commitment is to move with urgency, creativity, and courage to ensure that every Demba right has access to opportunity stop dignity. Thank you again for the opportunity and your time this morning. And with this, I am happy to take any questions that that you may have. And, of course, my team is ready to response respond as well.

Thank you so much. And thank you for for sharing all of the successes and and all of the work that is being done by the housing authority. We have a few folks in the queue, so I'm gonna go to them. Councilwoman Torres, followed by Council Pro Tem Romero Camp.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Joaquin, to the team. Always a joy to work with. Curious about future renovation projects, so large site renovation projects. I saw in the addendum of your slide deck kind of a glance at federal bills, federal funding bills, and wanting to see because I think there was a large infusion for Mariposa to be started, a large infusion from the Choice Neighbor or the Neighborhood Grant for $30,000,000 for Sun Valley.

Is a site renovation possible without that kickstart? And two, do you foresee any challenges in getting new money in order to do future projects? I know Westridge and Quick Newton are kind of next on the list.

Do you want to

Oh, sure.

Is it Okay if I do that?

Okay. Go right ahead.

So yes, you are exactly right on where our current pipeline is. And we are so it's you the bottom line is we're all of this that we're doing, looking at revenue bonds and other are to diversify our revenue streams so that we can get some more money in that we control. And that's leveraging our existing tools to generate our own revenues and, as we like to say, control our own destiny in a lot of ways. You're exactly right. Those larger, what I call our neighborhood scale redevelopment efforts of larger public housing sites at West Georgia Creek Newton.

They don't move without an initial influx of capital. You know, we're able to sit for Sun Valley. That $34,000,000 from the Fed helped us work with you all for the d three and ultimately then to bring in partners to develop it all out. So that is very much top of mind in terms of future bond initiatives, things like that, because that is absolutely what seeds these types of redevelopments. And I think part of our message here is also that we have such a huge pipeline.

So we just need to be able to corral the resources to work on it. But that's existing within our city. So our message in DC has been, keep these types of programs like Choice Neighborhood and other things. Please keep those things going because that is a way to leverage existing federal dollars to then bring in private dollars and local dollars and state dollars. That is absolutely essential.

But we do want to work in partnership with all of you here as well to figure out what are ways that we can create some of those tools ourselves because we all know that it is not clear.

Guaranteed. Yeah. Got it. And then my only other question I appreciate the map. I think slide 11 are dispersed properties.

So these are properties throughout the city that DHA is the landowner you are the property owner for. Is that right? One of the conversations that's been raised is DHA's kind of feasibility of adding an ADU to any one of these properties of thinking about I know, Ghosha, you're working on tri and quadplexes. What's the realistic kind of capacity for DHA to do that if the rules now allowed for all of the things? EADUs are obviously allowed.

I can try to take that. Yes, I don't think anybody is more excited about this dispersed portfolio than myself. Also, it's really great to see the alignment of the unlocking housing choices. We were just here talking about it. So I think that ties really great with the community responsive design because the city is going to do outreach that we can kind of partner with and learn from what the residents are seeing.

We're still in the stages of evaluating this portfolio. So as you saw, it's over 1,000 properties. And I'm working closely with Rene Martinez Stone to understand what properties are well positioned for possibly additional IDU or a tandem home and then all the way to higher density. We have about 30 sites that are half an acre or larger. So those are well positioned for higher densities.

And then there's a whole bucket of this kind of missing metal, property. So we're trying to understand how the policy is gonna advance and evolve to allow us to bring in these four plexes, six plexes. Another encouraging element is the bill at the state allowing up to five stories served by one stair case. So in certain contexts, that might be also appropriate paired with the elimination of parking requirements. So it's really exciting to see all the policy stars align.

I don't know that we're at the point to talk about financial models, but we're studying peer cities. Minneapolis did very interesting pilot project related to dispersed portfolio on this kind of missing metal. So we're still in a research basis.

Okay. Just for the legend of that, how many units define mid scale and then how many define multifamily?

Good question. I know that Citi is going to be focusing on two to nine units. Sorry, just

on the map. You've marked some as mid scale and some as multifamily. I

so it's that for us, it is, like, one to three and then kind of four to nine, and then multifamily is 10 and above.

10 and above. Okay. Roughly. Similar to to ours.

Okay. Yeah. Okay. And we always look for alignment of those things too. It doesn't make sense to create our own specialized definition. We're just like if something already is out there, let's leverage that. But I think what's also in addition we're so grateful to have, Ghosha on board at this particular time as we're doing this work. And so, yeah, three Yeah. Former and current, planning board members, we're like, oh, this is such a great sandbox that we can say, look at all of these properties. This gets us immediate geographic breadth across the city.

These are properties that are already in neighborhoods. We're not looking to acquire something new and create something brand new. So ultimately, we envision this going is that we kind of create buckets of opportunities. And some things we look to develop, some things we'd look to kind of put out to the development community. But the community responsive planning and development approach would be us absolutely working with every one of you on understanding what are those opportunities in each of your districts as well and making sure that we're clear on what the potential is so that we're setting forth what the for the city and within each of your districts of the types of housing, target populations, who are we serving, all of those things, so we can be really thoughtful about how those move forward.

But that does feel really exciting because it's not us going out to buy new properties. It is leveraging to make sure that we have highest and best use happening across.

Thanks, Erin. Thank you, madam chair.

Thank you. Next up is Council Pro Tem Romero Campbell followed by President Sandoval.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you for the presentation. I'm pretty excited. You asked a lot of the questions that I had. And so I feel like some of my questions have already been answered.

But I do want to go back to the slide I think it's eleven that talks about the portfolio for assessment planning and repositioning. I noticed in District 4, there is a property off of Quincy and Syracuse that maybe isn't reflected in this map. And I'm just wondering if that's something it's a multifamily development. And so I'm just wondering if that what does that mean? Where does that sit in this process?

This map is fairly outdated. It's a good graphic to just kind of show illustratively the scale of our potential impact. But not every property is reflected, and probably a lot of properties are not reflected correctly in the sense of the color.

We also want to thank you for the question. We also want to do this on a tier based approach. Of course, we want to focus on the housing stock that we directly manage and what are the opportunities there to to develop or redevelop.

Mhmm.

For example, single family homes sitting on a site that allows for increasing that density because of the zoning that we have there and many other opportunities. Right? So leveraging from there, proving the concept, ensuring that we can replicate this in other opportunities across the different neighborhoods that may not be part of the current DHA portfolio, but how DHA can replicate this practice and model to support other potential opportunities to develop land or repositioning different types of housing stock across the board.

And if I can add one quick technical piece here, just that some things might not show up at this particular Zoom scale. But when we talk about repositioning, it's all of the scattered sites. For us, we have two key federal programs. Right? Public housing and vouchers. That's the direct money coming from HUD. So this scattered site portfolio started with everything in public housing. We've already repositioned some from the public housing portfolio to the voucher portfolio. So that can speak to how some of these are showing up on

the map as well. Oh, okay.

Specifically with regard to your question, I think you're asking about our Syracuse Plaza property, which is the high rise. Right. So, the the assessment and repositioning that we're looking at now is focused primarily on our dispersed properties, not on the high rise properties. So that's what that's the reason it's not showing up on the map. And Syracuse within the relatively recent past did undergo a full rehabilitation and so is in actually really, really good shape at this point.

Thank you. That's helpful to understand. Just was like, wait a minute. I don't see it reflected there. That's, I think, a really good site. And then if I understand correctly, the housing choice voucher properties that was in the addendum map, What do you forecast? Like, does this continue? And is that the HUD funding that you currently receive? Yeah. Any thoughts of kind of future moving forward or or what that means?

Absolutely. So so let let me start by saying that the position that KJ is establishing, number one, considering the level of disruption and uncertainty, we are remaining grounded on the objective truth, the state of law, the language of state programs and funding that we are managing and administering, but reading between the lines about all of the things that are happening and most significantly, the continuing resolution that was passed for which we set a slide providing context about the different programs and the funding that was approved. So what we are doing proactively is getting into a process of understanding the programs and or specific populations that may be impacted because of the public policy expressed or the executive orders, including the DEI topic and everything that we believe may be at risk because of considerations of sex, race, gender, things like that. How can we then support, you know, our current program participants in a way that we remain in compliance with the federal regulations or what we believe are going to be those regulations in the future so we can maximize the current and existing count of postures into transforming some of those into specific programs that may be a fit in alignment not only with the needs that we have in the in the community, but the expressed priorities that HOT at this very specific moment in time is is expressing.

I think that there is nobody that will be against housing for people with disabilities, housing for our better than homeless population, housing for our youth aging out of the foster care system. I mean, we we are taking a look at the different populations in a in a very following a data driven approach, understanding what is the percentage that those populations represents across the board in comparison with the whole community and how our programs can be a reflection of just that. So we cannot have only a safe way to keep providing those housing opportunities that are necessary. But when the time comes in which we will need to have more conversations on to to strengthen the partnership with HUD, they can understand the basis from where we are coming and how we're validating with the needs of our community, the creation, the adjustment within the voucher programs that that we have in place.

So just real quick, because we still have three more members in the queue. And we're a little a little over time on this topic, and we still have another presentation. So I just want to be mindful of that.

Yeah. And thank you. I appreciate that. I think it's not only my concern, but other council members' concern when especially you see just concentrated voucher use in our district. So thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you.

President Sandoval, followed by Councilman Hynes.

Thank you, Madam Chair. This presentation is great. I I particularly for me, looking at well, for me, selfishly, having 47, 45 federal on there is huge. Like, that I'll never forget the day I got this call that the city with the DJ was acquiring it. It was I was at Party City for my daughter's graduation party, and

it was COVID. And she

was the class of 2020, and her scholarship got to be with me. I was a newly elected council person with a mask on in party city buying graduation gifts for my daughter who was gonna have people drive by and wave to her from graduating from high school. So this has been, like, huge in my life. It's a and it's in my I live not far from there as Joaquin knows. Just wanna say, Joaquin, thank you for letting me have the opportunity to have you go for a quick drive in Northwest Denver and let you see Northwest Denver from my eyes and see Quig Newton and see 47th And Federal and see the one on 32nd And Shoshone, see my family's restaurant right in between all of that and where I'm positioned on the Platte River.

So thank you for taking the time to do that. I always love giving people an opportunity to drive by and look at the sidewalks because of redlining, look at the investment after the across the street in my same neighborhood that did not have redlining. And I love slide 10, the driving progress towards our strategic objectives. Specifically for me, community responsive planning, I feel like that's something that Denver has been talking about for a really long time. Not to criticize community planning and development, CPD, but sometimes I just don't feel like they have the community in community planning and development.

And thinking I took a snapshot and sent it to my staff because I feel like some of the overlay work I've had to do and some of the ADU leading is that was me being elected and being a land use commissioner. I heard that, and so I made tools and developed tools to be able to do that. And then the defining development concepts, looking at the five critical elements of focus in, like, the site, specific use, the market, thinking, going through that when we were in the near Northwest neighborhood plan. That is what we did with Clayton. We actually changed Blueprint Denver because we've used that type of concept, the community responsive planning and the defining development concepts.

And we actually made a recommendation in our Near North Northwest plan that was in conflict with Blueprint Denver. And so when we up that forward, we actually up updated Blueprint Denver based on a lot of the work that was based on the Quig Newton site, but we Renee helped us be able to use those concepts. So I love when we are able to with our development partners, you all can be a little bit more community, right, than the bureaucracy of Denver. So just really appreciate that. And I've I've never seen the map on page 11, the dispersed housing.

I know we have lots of dispersed housing in Northwest Denver. And I really to go ship's point, I really look forward to the unlocking missing middle or housing options, whatever you wanna name it. And what a phenomenal time to have Renee, Aaron, and and Joaquin all together, thinking about how complicated our zoning code is and how people when we updated it in 2010, we thought we were making it easier. And then when we updated it, and then when we did blueprint number in 2019 with comp plan, we thought we made it easier. And all these things that, quote, unquote, make it easier actually sometimes make it harder, the unintended consequence of that.

And so I think being able to look at this more holistically, Gosha, I was thinking about when I met with you years ago, how do we can we have a blue like a

a

a

a letter book?

A pattern book? Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. A pattern book and how can we could actually implement a pattern book for Denver Housing Authority for your properties, and then how once again, you could be a leader in the realm and we could follow. And so I just really look forward to that partnership and look forward to working on that with all of you and look forward to how much Northwest Denver has a lot of dots on there. Looking forward to partnering on that with you and how I once again, as the land we, as land use commissioners, how can we also lead those conversations in those space where community planning and development may not want to be. Yep. We can you can lean on us to step in and say, no. We're gonna be a little bit

more bold

Yeah. And go a little bit more further. I remember the first overlay I had when we talked about capping square footage. I was told no, and I was like, well, you could tell me no. I'm still gonna do that if I could get the votes. And the Harkness Heights, we did. Mhmm. And then we used that same overlay in Sunnyside to help with the market and the gentrification that's happening. And so I hope that we can partner with you all and just thank you all for your work. And you don't do this because you're making big bucks and you're you could go in the private sector and the and make a lot of money with all of your expertise.

All of you could. And instead, you're working for a development authority to provide affordable housing, and that's such my value in being a member. Right? So I just wanna say thank you, and you have a partner in me. I mean, whenever you need help and you need to push and you need that, political will, just know that I am absolutely blown away by this presentation. So thank you all.

Thank

you so much. And I know

that we're gonna throw it

on the tie. I just wanna put on the table that we're working on a development toolbox. And so I want to grab your invitation that we partner in how these things come together because we do wanna be viewed as a way to, you know, use us for pilots. Use us for and what we're doing with this is saying, this is how we can work through these approaches for site planning, for everything, and Right. Throughout the process. And so, you know, that that's a document that we're trying to produce by the end of this year, and so we would love to work with you and get your feedback as well.

That follow-up.

Perfect. Thank you.

In time to work.

Thank you. So I have Councilman Hines and Councilwoman Gilmore left in the queue. And I know that Councilman Torres has indicated that we'll be asking you all to come to the South Platte River committee as well. So if there are still burning questions and and you're able to ask them there, that's great. We are, like, ten minutes into the next, and we only have until noon. So I just wanna make sure we have enough time. So councilman Hines, councilman Gilmore. Are you guys Okay? Or do

you want to

ask your question?

Well, just a comment. Slide 11 is a bunch of dots. There aren't many in District 10. I know that there's a plan that didn't make state funding last year they're in the process of resubmitting, they provided another letter of support. So I'd love to work with you to get more adoption. You.

You. Councilman Gibbons.

Just a very, very quick thank you. I appreciate you digging in deeper to your mission and the longevity of your work. And I'm very excited to get some more dots on the map fountain B11. So thank you so much.

You. More than opportunity. Everybody wants

more

dots. More dots. All right. Thank you so much. This is great. And we'll have to have you all back again, because obviously there's a lot to talk about. And we want to be able to continue these conversations. So we'll take a brief moment to transition over to our partners from public health and environment. Thank you.

You could have mentioned that Joaquin and I were dressed very I was going to say that actually when I got in

Great. Thank you you so much for joining us. We have our friends from Department of Public Health and Environment. If you two would like to introduce yourselves and then proceed with your presentation.

My name is Nathan Keffer. I work at DDPHE. I'm the Community Assessment and Improvement Planning senior analyst.

And good morning, everyone.

My name is Paige Andrews. I'm the senior population health epidemiologist at DDPHE. Great.

Well, this morning, Paige and I are pleased to have the invitation to present to you some of the work that, we collaborate on with several of our colleagues at DDPHE and our partner agencies across Denver. We work on a project called the Community Health Assessment, CHA or CHA, and the Community Health Improvement Plan or the CHIP. We wanted to start off by offering a definition of what exactly the Community Health Assessment and the Community Health Improvement Plans are. So think of the CHA as Denver's health report card. It looks at factors such as disease rates, health disparities, social factors, access to health care, and other issues that affect the health of people in Denver and their communities.

We do this by gathering data and community feedback to paint that picture of what health and well-being looks like in Denver. And we do this through systematic and comprehensive data collection and analysis. As we work through the community health assessment process and develop that report card on Denver's health, we then carry those findings forward into a process called the CHIP, the Community Health Improvement Plan. The CHIP is where the action happens. This is where we set goals and strategies and metrics to improve health outcomes in Denver over time and measure those health outcomes and health improvements.

We do this with a network of partners, so community based organizations, fellow city county of Denver departments and agencies, residents and health care partners all work together on this health improvement process with us. And this entire CHA CHIP process is important for us. It's required by the state of Colorado, so local public health authorities complete this every five years across the entire state of Colorado. We are a nationally accredited public health organization, so we complete this CHA CHIP process as part of our accreditation process. And this year, we'll be tying the results of our community health assessment and health improvement plan into DDPHE's, newest three year strategic plan.

For the health improvement planning cycle, we follow a nationally recognized planning framework. The planning framework has been in existence for about twenty years and has recently undergone, redevelopments to increase community engagement and a focus on health disparities. The reason that we follow this particular framework is that it's research based and, focusing on community health. It emphasizes both community engagement and data driven assessments for health and well-being. And there's a focus on improving inequities and a focus on cross sector collaboration.

The process map on this slide is sort of a high level overview of exactly what the entire CHAT ship process entails. The square that's highlighted in orange is where we are currently in this process. So to date, we began by recruiting community partners about a year and a half ago. We engaged on our newest five year cycle. With our partners, we designed the assessment process using the framework but tailored to Denver's specific needs.

We collected and completed data analysis and interpreted that data in order to come up with health findings, health issues. What are the biggest things that are sticking out to us through data analysis and community feedback that's affecting Denver? And our current process, something that we're working on this week, in fact, is prioritizing those health issues. So narrowing down the scope of what we wanna work on from the full breadth of all of Denver's health priorities to the couple that we want to move forward with and see improvement on over the next five years. When we talk about health for this process, we aren't just talking about the absence or presence of disease, but we're talking about the full social determinants of health.

This may be a phrase that you've heard of before, but if it's not the social determinants of health are the conditions in which people are born, grow, work, live, and age, and the wider sets of forces and systems that shape the conditions of their daily life. In other words, these are the nonmedical factors that research has shown and we know influences people's health and health outcomes over time. There are several different frameworks for the social determinants of health. The one that we use at DDPHE for our process is from Healthy People 2030. This is a health improvement initiative from the Federal Department of Health and Human Services, and they identify five domains with the social determinants of health.

This includes, people's economic stability, education access and quality, health care access and quality, the neighborhood and built environment in which people live, and social and community contexts. That last category are people's relationships with one another, with their communities, and with systems of power like political institutions, financial institutions, education, etcetera. What we know and the reason we focus on social determinants of health is that these are the upstream causes of people's downstream health outcomes and health disparities. So when we talk about health and when we talk about health improvement, we're really focusing in these social determinants of health. Because what we know as public health practitioners is that when we focus upstream, we have the ability to positively influence downstream health outcomes.

We have the opportunity to disrupt what leads to health disparities. So most of our work, we come to the point of setting goals and strategies for health improvement, are going to be in these domains of social determinants of health. Community engagement is one of the major philosophies that we've adopted with this community health improvement process. We don't wanna be doing work that isn't going to be accepted by Denverites, that isn't going to be reflective of people's lived experiences. And so we've taken every step that we can, to incorporate community voice, along our planning process.

We wanted to highlight a couple of ways that we're getting community involved in our health assessment and health improvement planning process. One of those is with our steering committee. The steering committee is a body of 18 partner organizations, and they are the engine of this process. They are a group of mostly nonprofit community based organizations, but also some health care institutions and some fellow city and county of Denver departments That helps, DDPHE make the best strategic decisions that we can on every step of the health assessment and health improvement process to ensure that the work that we're doing is what the community needs from us as their public health department.

Another example of how we've engaged community in this process is with our assessment design team. So these folks were specifically recruited for their expertise and experience and survey methodology and community based participatory research. And they also were in staff both in DDPHE. So we had seven staff in DDPHE across multiple divisions, as well as nine different partner organizations. So we had five community based organizations, two universities, one hospital, and one government agency represented. And their purpose was really to design our entire assessment process, which we'll get into a little bit, so that we felt that not only our findings, but how we got there was cocreated with community.

We have institutional partners in this process, but we also have individual Denverites, involved in advising us in this work. And so our community advisory group or our CAG, our Denverites, they are not working at our partner organizations or in health care, but they're leaders and passionate advocates in their community for health and health improvement. We've worked with them to plan town halls in their respective neighborhoods. They help us to ground truth this work, making sure that we're not engaging in this esoteric public health analysis exercise just for our own benefit, but that the work that we're engaging in and the findings that we produce through this process are reflective of their lived realities and that of their communities. And one of the biggest ways that they've helped us is also to strengthen the relationship between DDPHE and the community.

What we've heard from our town halls, what we've heard from some of our research focus groups is that people are interested in collaborating with us on health improvement. So our CAG members help us to strengthen that relationship, across Denver.

And finally, data collection, which I'll explain a little bit in more detail in the next couple slides. But we wanted to make sure that community were not only engaged through the assessment design team, but that their voice were primarily heard, in the data collection process as well. So I'll go through a little bit about what that looked like. So I'm gonna spend a little bit of time on this slide, so I apologize in advance. But this truly is our assessment process of the community health assessment, and we're really excited to be able to share what we did and some of the findings that we've had so far.

So we'll start on this first column, community involvement. What did our data collection look like that did involve community? So first and foremost, we designed a survey that went out to all Denver residents called Thrive in the Mile High, and we wanted to just do a quick thank you because we know that you and your offices were involved in helping spread the word for that survey. So thank you very much. We also sent out postcards.

We did wide public relations campaign and press releases and did distribution at various community events and resource centers, and we had over 2,000 responses, which we were really excited about. And these responses spoke to how Denverites define health to themselves, like what it means to them to be healthy. It also defined what they thought they needed both at the individual level and at the community level in order to thrive. The next aspect of data collection that we directly heard from community went deeper. So these were our 12 focus groups.

We heard from a 100 different community members, which wasn't even on purpose. That beautiful number just happened. From very different populations across the whole city. And this really took that survey and then went much, much deeper. Right? So now we wanna know, hey. What does it really mean? What services have you tried to access? What's going well? What's going not well? What are we missing? You know, what does it mean to be healthy? What does it mean to be safe? We really just opened up the floor for those more in-depth discussions. And then the third opportunity for community involvement in our data collection phase were town halls.

So the community advisory group that Nathan just mentioned, they actually held these town halls. So it was put on by community members for community members. It explained, you know, what's going on with community health assessment and invited opportunities for feedback and collaboration from folks otherwise not involved through the various groups that that we just spoke about. Now the quantitative assessment arm of data collection, this is where I get the most excited and nerdy. But this was very, very cocreated with our assessment design team.

So we reviewed several different national models of how people define community health and population health. Then we worked with our assessment design team to narrow down, even though this seems like a large number, this was narrowed down, to about a 100 data indicators, quantitative indicators, that looked at all of the social determinants of health that Nathan was talking about and also, you know, health outcomes such as cholesterol, diabetes, you know, things that people experience in their daily life, both mental and physical health and well-being. So we tried to really span the whole spectrum of upstream, current, and downstream. I mean, one of the indicators, for example, was life expectancy. Shared with us or internal to DDPG.

Then we have we had our list of our 100 indicators? We try to understand them. So temporally, is this an increasingly prevalent measure? Is it getting better? Is that true across our different demographic groups? What about the city? Let's map it. Let's see. Are there areas where there's higher prevalence, where there's lower prevalence? Really tried to do a deep dive into you know, based on data availability into these 100 indicators.

So that was our quantitative arm. And then finally, we really wanted to also make sure we were capitalizing on the incredible knowledge already within DDPHE. So DDPHE has more than a 130 programs, scanning environmental health, community health, everything in between, and they work with community members and partners daily and have such knowledge about what's working well, you know, what are some challenges, and we wanted to make sure that was capitalized in this process as well. So we reviewed all reports that we could find and, did a big call without the department and conducted interviews with programs and made sure to bring that knowledge and those strengths and and gaps, into the process as well. So how we actually did this was the assessment design team then, after we had the results from these various health assessments that were completed I mean, this was a deep dive over, like, six to eight months.

At the conclusion of that phase, of that learning phase, we all came together and we had a workshop where we looked at every single piece of information from these arms and talked about what five things. Well, four things, really. The scope, so how many gun rights are affected by this. The impact, so would changing any of these measures have a significant impact on health and well-being? Disparities, are there differences we're seeing across populations or areas in Denver that we need to take note of?

And opportunity. So can we address this over the next five years? So we were looking at all those things, looking at all these data, and drum roll, our goal, which we were able to achieve, which was amazing, at the end of our workshop was identifying 10 health themes or issue statements that this doesn't represent all of the important aspects of health in Denver, but it does represent the 10 that people felt were important in terms of scope and impact and disparity. And here they are. So as you can see, we'll walk through them just really briefly, and then we're very open to questions at the end or whenever.

Some of these are very broad categories. And that's because the assessment design team saw them across so many different indicators of health. They were like, this is really just an overarching issue that we wanna raise. And then others are very, very specific based on the data and trends that we were seeing. So these are just listed in alphabetical order for now.

Nathan will get into our prioritization process in a bit, But they are access to health care, belonging among transgender transgender, excuse me, identifying high school students, firearm related homicides among men of color, food insecurity, income, overdoses among people experiencing homelessness, racism, school dropout rates among select vulnerable populations, safe and affordable housing, and transportation access. So

what comes next? As Paige highlighted, we found 10 issues that really rose to the top based on a cross section of all of the data that we saw. Trying to address all of those issues over the next five years means that we're going to move fast and probably not get a whole lot done. So the next step in the community health assessment is called prioritization. We need to narrow the scope of what we are working on to make it actionable, to make it measurable measurable, and to make it resonate.

So with our prioritization process, we've engaged, our steering committee, our community advisory group, the public health expertise among DDPHE staff, and our board of health, and environment, in order to engage in a voting process to narrow the list of issues that will carry forward into the chip to probably three that we're going to land on. We're doing that this week. And so within just a little bit of time here, we'll have our three priority health issues that we're going to continue forward into chip planning. We'll publish those three priority issues, and in fact, we'll publish the full 10 health profiles in our community assessment, and that'll be available, in mid April. So as soon as that is finalized and published, we'll make sure that, all of your offices are are notified of when it's available as soon as it's available.

We'll be working on that in the next couple of weeks. After we publish the CHA, then we'll begin to recruit work groups. So these are cross sector, cross disciplinary work groups of DDPHE staff, City County Denver staff, partner organizations, and residents to focus on one of each of the three issues that will move forward. This work group will be tasked with developing those shared long term goals, measures, and strategies for health improvement. As the public health department, we facilitate this process, but we don't own it.

So a lot of these goals, are overlapping with the work that other organizations do. As I was hearing DHA present this morning and I heard how they're not just focusing on health, they're also focusing on economic stability, and they're focusing on environmental justice. Through that same similar kind of process, we are going to be partnering with organizations to develop these shared goals and strategies for improvement. We'll publish our chip towards the end of this year. So what will be included in the chip is our plan, for the the upcoming four to five years of what we plan to do.

And then we spent the rest of the time of this process implementing our plan, monitoring it, evaluating it for success, and revising it as necessary to make sure that the work that we're doing is actionable, that it's measurable, and that it's what Denverites want us to be doing for them. So what we've done with this process to date is to build scaffolding or to build an infrastructure for community health improvement planning moving forward that we, as the public health department, facilitate, but it doesn't live solely with us. That there's institutional knowledge and institutional power in this process that resides with our partners, and it resides with Denver community members. So it's more than just the work that Paige and I do. It's more than just the work that DDPHE does, but we're looking at health from a full community perspective and that we're trying to make strides to improve health with people's best interests and their feedback in mind.

So thank you for the opportunity to talk about our CHA and CHIP process. We would greatly appreciate continued connection with you and your offices as we move forward. So we've got our contact information up here. You know, we'd appreciate any questions that there are this morning, but also continued engagement. As as we move forward on these goals, we'll look to city council, and your staff and your constituents to help us make the best decisions. So, we appreciate the time today and continue work as we move forward.

Great. Thank you.

Thank you so much. This is amazing. So many questions. But I'm gonna go to my colleagues first, starting with council president Sandoval followed by councilman Gilmore. Thank you. My long time ago,

when we worked on the global plan that that was adopted in 2015, We actually used the community health assessment as the basing of our plan, and I wish that we did that more with our Near Northwest with our NPI process. I wish, actually, there was a better partnership that this work went in first, and this was the foundation of all of our neighborhood plans because the social determinants of health education access if that's a whole neighborhood plan. Right? That's a whole that's the whole neighborhood. At one time, we were doing that, and we've gotten away from that.

So if you read the Globeville neighborhood plan, it's based in the in the health assessment that you that d d p it wasn't called d d p h e at the time, but that you all did. So thank you for doing that because that's what I when I think of planning initiatives, the social determinants of health are what we should actually be planning for, in my personal opinion. Another thing is city council just had our, like, big budget goals. It's not a retreat. I'd I'd wanna call it something different because I know I'm Trump.

I don't know exactly what it's called. Retreat. I don't like it's not retreat. I'm like, I wanna go to the mountains and go to retreat. But interestingly enough, on page 14, I was I took a screenshot and sent it to my staff that the CHA preliminary findings were actually the whole conversation that we had at our health health day working session.

And a lot of the conversations, the goals that we actually came up with for the the big b budget in 2026 are this, food insecurity, income, access to health care, racism, transportation, safe and affordable housing. So I think if I it it's nice to be reassured that this body is not far off from the work that you are all hearing in community as well and that we, as a body, our values that we're gonna put forward to the mayor are not far from what you're hearing in this as well that also go back to the social determinants of health that oh, that's actually a lot of the foundation that we're doing at city council. So I'll be interested to see when your the CHA comes out because we have our big policy retreat in May. So I would love to use that as some of the guidance because we already have goals built out in this way. So just trying to build, like, thread everything together on all the work we're doing.

So super interested

in

the work that and I would love to have, if madam chair, if possible, once the chip is published, I think having that come back around to reinforce, hopefully, because that will be in the fall when we're actually doing the budget amendment process to make sure that we're actually following from the beginning all the way to the end. That's something that would be really important to me. And although this I love planning and, like, zoning, and people always say it's dry toast with no butter and honey on it, but it excites me. Thank you for doing this work because I'm sure when you go out to the community, sometimes people are like, what? What are you doing?

Like, why are you doing this? And it's so important. So I just wanna say thank you. Thank you for your service to Denver because these these foundations and this data, if I can get it, I it can help me make really informed decisions in my council district that has seen gentrification, has a lot of access to opportunity, but at the same time, the neighborhood and the built environment have led to gentrification, which have other outcomes in my neighborhood as well. So thank you all. Thank you, Madam Madam Chair, this is a great presentation as well. Thank you.

I could just make a quick follow-up comment. I know we're a little short on time perhaps, but thank you for those comments. I think it's really reassuring to hear that. I've our our hope with this current CHA report is that it's similarly used as a basis for other planning and other visioning projects around Denver. We'll share it widely with other city and county of Denver agencies, with our community partners.

That is they're looking to set their own vision and their own mission and their own programmatic goals for the future that this work can be a basis for that. So I'm I'm newer to DDPHE, so I wasn't involved in the last process, but, I hope that this will serve a similar, role as our previous child did, around the city. And, you know, we're we're faced with a bit of a chicken or the egg scenario. Do we do this planning first and then present it to partners to share, or do we go to these partners and say, hey. We're gonna do this work, we'll give it to you when we have it.

Mhmm. So I I think that's why this meeting, it sounds like it's it's quite well and that you'll be able to use the work that DDPHE is doing in 2025 for budgeting, for policy, for visioning. So, yeah, please let us know how we can support that work with what we've done.

Thank you.

Yeah. And one thing we're really excited about is when we do publish the CHA, we've heard so many times from partners, and folks that the the data indicators that we put together would be helpful to many. So we're trying to do, like, a overall increased capacity for the city, and we'll be publishing a dashboard with all of those indicators at the same time. So it'll be ready for anyone to look at. And then if there's any follow-up questions, we can always go deeper as well. So

Awesome. Thank you. Great. Awesome.

Thank you. Councilwoman Gilbar is up next, followed by Councilwoman Torres.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you so much for this presentation. And with your preliminary findings on slide 11, I'm really, really interested because we've had presentations as well from the public defender's office around in school bullying. And so I would imagine that the second bullet around belonging among transgender youth aligns there as well. And so this seems like so important for us to look at.

And I would wonder, council president, if maybe when we get together in May that we would look at these because there's been work and data collected around them and look at them from our inclusivity lens of how when we ask for budget amendments for the 2026 budget or decide what we're gonna push on that there's some sort of thread to these specifically to value the voices and the involvement of folks. And so just put that out there on it. And then I always would depend on the Office of Children's Affairs reports that I I think we had a staffing change. And, you know, like, those reports were based off of the American Community Survey data, which I always kinda was like, is that accurate? Because it was like landlines that they were using.

Have we as a city, and this is a policy question, have we maybe organically moved into utilizing your data sets for that work? And if so, if the answer is yes, I'm not going to ask you to say yes or no. But if the answer is yes, then it would be awesome to have some sort of bridge to the last office of children's affairs report that was in 2019 before the pandemic and redirect community members. Because, like, I need to know for my nonprofits when they're writing a grant what the high school graduation rate is, what the access to education is, what the teen pregnancy rate is. And that got that info.

And so we'll just ask as maybe a follow-up to the committee that you look at the data indicators on the Office of Children's Affairs and where there's alignment, and I'm sure there might be some gaps. And so then we can figure out who is addressing that. And so less of a question, but more of this is great, amazing work, and hopefully, we can continue to partner.

Agreed. Thank you. Great. Thank you.

And maybe to that point, it is looking at where are there all the intersectionalities between, like, all of these areas with other departments. I know you kind of mentioned it, but maybe at that point when we maybe come back in the fall, just kind of having a better understanding of where those exist. Next up is Councilwoman Torres followed by Pro Tem Romero Campbell.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you so much. And thank you to DDPHE. This, I think, is so powerful that this needs to be the mayor's blueprint for the next five years. Like, this seriously right?

Yes. Yes.

We're all

saying yes.

This hits so many different areas. And it wasn't thought in a room at the Webb Building. This was out with residents. And so you're presenting to us. Here is a portrait of what this city is saying it means. And we need to put the funding behind making real change in this real. So, like, I'm looking at the mayor's 2025 goals. I need a 2025 to 2028 plan that includes all of these things. Right? And the areas that we, as a city, and our funding and networking streams can help transform.

Because if we're saying this is what the community is telling us is important, but we're focused over here at other things that the community is not really caring about, they're going to think we're totally tone deaf to what's impacting their daily lives. And so my plea is for the administration to take this as seriously as I think we are right here. Because this is already speaking to things that we're prioritizing in our goals. And if our those things are misaligned, budget, we're not gonna be speaking the same language. And so I just wanna give my thanks to you all.

I wanna be responsive to the things that are on this list. This is also what we're hearing in our community meetings. So that is just, I think, my emphasis. We need to be aligned on this. And I hope that the mayor's administration takes this as seriously as we do because I think we're prepared to try to transform those areas over time. So I really appreciate the work that went into this. And I want to value all of those people's time and energy to tell you what would really make a difference in their lives. And so thank you so much.

Thank you.

That's why she's counsel Torres. Next is counsel pro tem Romero Campbell followed by Councilman Haines.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I will just go quick because some of my questions have been answered, and I think it's been well stated by my fellow council members. My my and question is looking at this for citywide, and I'm thinking dashboard, how might we also have a drill down of what it looks like in our specific districts? And my wondering is, are there those other 10 priorities, but might there be something that was more elevated in District 4? Or is there something that's more of a topic and a priority in other districts so that we can have that nuance within the data that's being shared.

So it may not drill down to one of the top four that you mentioned, but still a value, still recognized, and I think something that could be built upon. So not to lose it in that narrowing down of those top priorities.

Yeah. And I think there's the opportunity to do that. I'm wandering into your territory here a little, Paige. But a lot of the data that we collected, the standard that that Page set was to collect at the census track level. And so I think we should be able to align that to district level as well. So that's good food for thought as we move forward into this is to to think about is there some additional analysis that might be more helpful to you all in your specific districts.

Yeah. Yeah. And I get that it's a lot of data crunching and number, you know, mixing. And I think so incredibly valuable as I think about what priorities I have just within District 4. And there are a lot of things. Oh, round table. I'm sorry. I'm like budget roundtable.

So ADHD. No, no. I was like budget roundtable.

That's a new name

for it. But anyway, I think that they have a lot of well, she was saying the name. But I think that the idea of being able to just take that data and look at it and be nuanced and specific around the city would be of tremendous value. So I'll leave it there. Thank you very much. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you.

Thank you. Councilman Haines, you're wrapping us up.

Thank you, committee chair. Thank you so much for the presentation. I think Council Torres is 100% accurate on your thought and estimation. I'll just say it in a slightly different way. I think for too long, particularly in Colorado and particularly in Denver considering our past, we've relied on police to be our everything as opposed to treating true causes of why crimes happen.

And so these 10 findings are are demonstrating a way for us to shift resources and and, you know, get police out of the business and responding to things that don't need police and really tackling the true causes of why people can't survive or succeed in our cities. So it's always weird to express ignorance on the record into a camera. I see in slide five, the social determinants of health, conditions in which people were born and live specifically. And I'm thinking of two things that I hear time and time again about the city of Denver. One is white communities succeed more than communities of color.

And I see that in the preliminary findings on slide 11 in racism, just calling that out. The thing that I don't see as much is the inverted L in redlining. So again, slide four says where people are born and live. I see that that's redlining in slide four. My question and again, this is ignorance.

Perhaps I see the red line in food insecurity and income and the the areas outside of the inverted L have more food insecurity, have less income. But I don't see explicitly where someone is born or lived. Is it that that would be captured in these findings?

Do you want Sure.

I can start.

We can just go

to tag team.

I think that's a great question. I think that if we go back to our different findings, I think one of the reasons why racism rose the top is that we were seeing disparities among almost every single indicator that we reviewed.

It it should be the top,

but I'm not disputing that.

Yeah. So I think, in terms of, like, where you're born and where you live, I think racism also speaks to just the structural and societal differences and opportunity and access that contribute to many of the disparities that we saw. So when we say racism, it's not you know, we're not only speaking of, you know, individual biases, but we're talking about, like, institutional, like, systematic societal differences in opportunity. And so I think that kind of gets to, you know, where you're born and where you live because if you have different opportunities when you're born and where you live, that is a form of racism. It does vary by race and ethnicity. It's kind of how at least I was thinking about it. What do you think, Nathan?

Yeah. Agreed. And I think it it you know, it's hard to capture in the title of the 10 health issues, but we have our supporting data that led our assessment design team partners to these conclusions, if you were to flip through a lot of the maps and a lot of the spatial data that we have on health disparities, you see the inverted l appear time and time again. And it I think it's it's more rare to find a map on health disparities or social determinant of health disparities where that isn't present. And so I think to your point, perhaps, it's it's hard to reflect maybe the you know, where people are born in Denver in these preliminary finding titles.

But I if it's some reassurance, we we do see that in the data that we've collected. And so it is sort of top of mind. So when we narrow this list of 10 down to three or four and we move forward, specific goals will have as appropriate a geographic metric in mind too. So as we think about those neighborhoods, inverted L or not, where we see those disparities, we'll try to name those the best we can. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you.

Great. Thank you so much. This has been such an important topic, and I am excited to invite you all to come back once the chip is ready to be released, and we can continue this conversation. I do wanna echo what councilor Ventura said about this being kind of a guidance for our city's budget. And just just pointing out the fact that we keep talking about equity in all of our work. We talk about the inverted l. We've been talking about that for decades. Right? And and we're still talking about it. And so this is this serves as a great tool and opportunity for us to really, you know, not only talk about it and recognize it, but perhaps to invest and do something about it.

So thank you so much for this. We really appreciate it. I love DDPHE. You guys do amazing work. And with that, we have two items on consent. Those will go forward to the full council and appreciate everybody's time.

We are adjourned.

Thank you all. Yeah. Thank you.