My fellow Denver residents and neighbors: I’m going to ask you today to take a moment, to lift your head, and look around. From this vantage point overlooking Civic Center park, the signs of recovery are all around us. People have returned to downtown Denver. Jobs are available. Construction is picking up. We successfully hosted Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game and nearly a week of events leading up to it. And I’m sure you’ve noticed, there’s a lot of traffic again. The state of our city is resilient. We’re turning the challenges of the past year, and there were many, into opportunities – opportunities to transform our city into a model of equity and inclusion that is sustainable for years and even decades to come. The Denver Central Library, where I am standing this morning, exemplifies that.Thanks to Denver voters, the library is undergoing renovations and modernizations that will improve access and resources for the 1 million people who visit this iconic building every year. It’s an example of how public institutions can adapt and transform to meet the changing needs of the communities they serve. Without question, the past 16 months have been a time of loss, hardship and change.The stress of folks losing their jobs; of losing loved ones or friends; of losing a sense of belonging and connectedness after months and months of staying at home – has taxed all of us. Unfortunately, that stress may be with us for a while longer. As much as we might like to think COVID is over, it’s not.That’s why we’re allocating another half-million dollars to continue bringing vaccines into neighborhoods and communities with low vaccination rates. Yes, the uncertainty and the challenges are all very real.They also represent opportunities. I often think about the vision of past mayors – Federico Pena, Wellington Webb, John Hickenlooper and Bill Vidal. When faced with extraordinary challenges, they mustered the courage to lift their heads and think beyond current circumstances.Today, we are the beneficiaries of their efforts: DIA, the Convention Center, reclamation of the South Platte River, sports venues, and amazing systems of libraries, parks and recreation centers. Today, we must heed the same clarion call to lift our heads and invest now to create opportunities for tomorrow. I want to turn now to some of our priorities for the next year, starting with homelessness. We should all be proud of the care we provided to our unhoused neighbors during the pandemic, and over the past 10 years, we have helped transition more than 11,000 people out of homelessness and into housing. But clearly
and without question, there is so much more to do. Even before the pandemic, homeless encampments were appearing in cities across the country in numbers not seen in almost a century. You have my word – we are going to continue to deploy every tool available, with a goal of lifting thousands of people out of homelessness over the next two years, including those who are living on our streets in the most unsafe and unhealthy of conditions. Let me tell you about a couple named Smokey and Mary.They who lived on the streets for 12 years without accessing shelter.They were staying in an encampment in the Uptown neighborhood when a Safe Outdoor Space opened across the street last December.They moved into the Safe Outdoor Space, connected with outreach workers, and last month, they moved into housing. We know what works, and we’re going to do even more and even better. Hundreds more hotel and motel rooms. More tiny home villages, more safe outdoors spaces, and even safe parking spaces. Housing vouchers, wrap-around services and programs that will keep people from falling into homelessness in the first place – rental and utility assistance, eviction-protection programs, and of course, creating new and preserving existing affordable homes. For every unit of affordable housing that’s built, two jobs are created.That’s why I am proposing to infuse funding from the American Rescue Plan into our Affordable Housing Fund. And to get affordable housing built sooner, we will be creating a specialized team to prioritize these projects for permit review and approval. As I said, we know what works. Our innovative Social Impact Bond program, which has kept hundreds of people housed, was recently hailed nationally as a “remarkable success.” Housing with supports works. And we are going to do more of it. We recently opened new state-of-the-art shelters to serve hundreds of men and women in 24-hour facilities. Our new Solution Center is providing a muchneeded option for folks experiencing a behavioral health crisis. And to our partners at the state and regional levels – thank you to metro mayors and to Gov. Polis for stepping up and leaning in. You know, back in March, we initiated work with our regional partners to eliminate the tragedy of veteran homelessness.The successes we see here will guide us to better serve other vulnerable groups, such as children, women and the chronically homeless. While we’re doing our part, today I am calling on the federal government to join us. Cities cannot do this alone. It’s long past time for a stronger nationwide push to address homelessness.There is a moral, economic and social imperative to correct these most extreme cases of poverty in our country.
Denver Urban Spectrum — www.denverurbanspectrum.com – August 2021
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We must also address another crisis in cities nationwide: a post-pandemic spike in violent crime. In Denver, that spike is being compounded by the release of violent criminals too quickly from custody, putting them right back in the community to reoffend.This must be corrected.There must be a balance between reform that keeps low-level non-violent folks from going to jail in the first place, and our residents’ safety. One cannot come at the expense of the other. And we must look out for one another. It’s been a tough year. For some, it has pushed their mental and behavioral wellness to the breaking point. I have felt it throughout this pandemic many times myself. I urge everyone – educate yourselves, learn to recognize the signs of a person in crisis, and be there to help. Once someone has lashed out or reached their breaking point, it may be too late. For their safety and the safety of others, be there for them, ask for help – because no matter their circumstance, it can get better. Our children also absorb the stress, and the consequences for them can be life-altering. We have prioritized our new Youth Violence Prevention initiative, which is well underway. We are engaging our youth to guide those strategies. And the Denver Police Department has embarked on a new collaborative crimeprevention initiative, bringing more patrols to hotspot areas and delivering more resources to help these communities address the underlying factors that can give root to crime. We’re also seizing the opportunity to hire new officers who can meet the challenges of policing in America today, and training them to better meet the needs of the communities they serve.The social and cultural fabric of our nation has been built by people who stood up and engaged when they saw unjust laws and actions by the system.They marched and protested, but they didn’t stop there. Refusing to sit on the sidelines and expect others to bring the change they hoped for – they got involved. They became a part of the solution.They ran for office. Many were elected mayors of their hometowns, to congress.They applied for and joined law enforcement departments around the country. So, here’s my invitation I want to issue to the young people who have called for better accountability in law enforcement: be the change you want to see by running for office or applying to be a Denver police officer, sheriff’s deputy, firefighter or paramedic. We’re hiring, and we would be honored to have you. Denver has become a national leader in alternative police response, and we’re committed to staying on this path. In the first year of the pilot, the STAR Program has responded to more than 1,300 calls for people in a crisis. Not once – not one time – did those responding need to call in a uniformed officer for backup.We
