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Denver hopes to use DeGette proposed funding to buy hotel to house homeless
thedenverchannel.com ^ | May 06, 2021 | Blair Miller

Posted on 05/07/2021 4:24:43 AM PDT by real saxophonist

Denver hopes to use DeGette proposed funding to buy hotel to house homeless

By: Blair Miller

May 06, 2021

DENVER – The city hopes that a $2 million request for federal funds from Denver Congresswoman Diana DeGette will be approved so it can buy a 95-room hotel to use as a shelter for people experiencing homelessness.

The request was made as part of the newly-reinstated earmarking process, which Congress prohibited in 2011 but reinstated in February. DeGette on Friday made requests to the House Appropriations Committee for 10 so-called Community Project Funding projects, including the $2 million for the acquisition of the Travelodge on E. 38th Avenue.

The purchase of the 95-room hotel – 94 of whose rooms will go to people needing shelter – will cost $7.8 million overall, and Denver officials said at a news conference Thursday morning they are hopeful the DeGette requests comes through.

Britta Fisher, Denver’s Chief Housing Officer, said if the money is approved, the city believes it can close on the property and renovate it for use by the end of 2021.

The city said the motel would be used as a shelter for around the first 2 years, which could house more than 150 people, and then be converted into supportive housing. Fisher and Mayor Michael Hancock said Thursday that the supportive housing would have resources on site for behavioral and mental health support and to try to get people into jobs and permanent housing.

DeGette said at the news conference that all of her project funding requests were made for housing needs for Denver residents. The requests also include $10 million for Urban Peak’s shelter reconstruction project at 1603 S. Acoma Street and $2 million for the Stout Street project underway with the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless.

“Projects like this will provide our residents a safety net, giving those who need it a safe place to sleep and helping them get back on their feet as soon as possible,” DeGette said.

More than 4,000 people living in Denver at the start of last year were experiencing homelessness, according to the Metro Denver Homelessness Initiative’s 2020 survey. Fisher said at another news conference later Thursday morning that the city shelter network was providing shelter to more than 2,200 people every night – a 60% increase from before the pandemic.

She said that if the hotel purchase can go through, along with the hotel rooms provided during the past year, a new 46-bed crisis stabilization center and other large shelters coming online later this year, the city was on its way to providing more resources for people experiencing homelessness – the number of which has increased during the pandemic, officials estimate.

“I think it’s a win-win-win,” said DeGette. “This is what’s going to help solve these problems in the long run.”

The officials said they believe this is the first hotel the city will have purchased that will be used as a shelter. The site is walking distance from an RTD bus station and from the Peoria light rail station and has parking for people with cars, which Fisher said would be helpful for people sheltering there.

She said it is possible that people with partners might be able to share a room at the location if the purchase goes through, and that people with pets might also be able to stay there – two barriers often associated with people not using the city’s shelter system.

The city does not have a partner that will operate the motel site but will go through a procurement process to find partners – of which there are several the city has already been working closely with for years.

“This is the kind of partnership we need,” Hancock said, echoing statements from DeGette and Fisher that the “multi-governmental entity” could be a “transformational” path forward for the future of Denver.


TOPICS: Local News; Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: colorado; degette; denver
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Don't you love the new term 'experiencing homelessness'?
1 posted on 05/07/2021 4:24:43 AM PDT by real saxophonist
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To: real saxophonist

It’s like hunger.

The minute the public finds out what the functional definition is, they change the term. So hunger is now food insecurity.

Homelessness is now experiencing homelessness.

That way their butts are covered when the public finds out what that really means. In this case, lots of folks who just want a free ride instead of the mentally ill and/or drug addicted.

SNORT.


2 posted on 05/07/2021 4:30:18 AM PDT by mewzilla (Those aren't masks. They're muzzles. )
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To: real saxophonist

The more free stuff they give them, the more of them there will be. It is like giving candy to little kids. Word gets around and kids from all over everywhere will show up to get free candy. It is like Denver is competing with the other cities to see which city can have the most homeless people.


3 posted on 05/07/2021 4:33:36 AM PDT by Trumpet 1 (US Constitution is my guide.)
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To: real saxophonist

If they say 7.8 million it’ll be more like 15-20 mil. It’ll be a crime ridden roach motel a few days after it’s open.


4 posted on 05/07/2021 4:35:16 AM PDT by The Louiswu ((.....................insert tagline here.......................))
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To: The Louiswu

Yep.


5 posted on 05/07/2021 4:36:28 AM PDT by real saxophonist (Yeah, well, y'know that's just like, uhh... your opinion, man)
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To: The Louiswu

Austin has bought several hotels . Their last one was 9 mil. This doesn’t work.


6 posted on 05/07/2021 4:40:59 AM PDT by redshawk ( I want my red balloon. ( https://youtu.be/zNLpfEDliV0)
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To: The Louiswu
I just saw a story about people giving propane tanks to homeless camps, for heat and cooking.

The homeless are either selling them, or using them to cook meth.

7 posted on 05/07/2021 4:48:24 AM PDT by real saxophonist (Yeah, well, y'know that's just like, uhh... your opinion, man)
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To: real saxophonist

One local do gooder, who lives in an exclusive gated community, made a Facebook appeal to take gallons of gasoline to homeless who live under a very busy bridge. It was for their generators


8 posted on 05/07/2021 4:54:36 AM PDT by Josa
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To: real saxophonist

For many years, I have fought homelessness for me and my family. I got jobs and that seemed to work.


9 posted on 05/07/2021 4:57:45 AM PDT by Gnome1949
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To: The Louiswu

You can forecast a room-fire or two over the next twelve months....bedbugs as a continual problem...and Police being called out a minimum ten times a month. It’ll be torn down between two and three years from now. At least then, the property will have re-sell value.


10 posted on 05/07/2021 5:02:52 AM PDT by pepsionice
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To: Trumpet 1

“It is like Denver is competing with the other cities to see which city can have the most homeless people.”

Back in the nineties, St. Pete, Fl. literally exported their homeless to Clearwater. They did this by arresting them, “discovering” they couldn’t hold them, and then simply letting them go from the booking facility...which was miles from St. Pete, but right next to Clearwater. There was a lawsuit, and I don’t know how that worked out. But the result is a renaissance in St. Pete for downtown businesses. (Oh, and the tax base they represent.)

I live near Tallahassee, which has a huge homeless population, thanks to liberal policies that encourage homelessness. The result is that Tallahassee is one of the most dangerous cities in Florida. This could have been stopped, but it is a reliable stalking horse for Democrats who run on solving the homelessness issue. Somehow the voters never realize that the issue only gets larger. That’s because the voters are government employees and academics. There is no industry to speak of in Tallahassee because the city actively discourages it. (Industry would mean diluting the voters with common people who want entirely different things than government workers and academics.)


11 posted on 05/07/2021 5:02:57 AM PDT by Gen.Blather (Wait! I said that out loud? )
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To: real saxophonist

So, Denver buys one 95 room hotel, fills with homeless persons. Then they buy a second hotel because the first is full, fill it with homeless persons. This leads to a 3rd and 4th hotel purchase, then six more hotels..... where will this end? Never because politicians want problems, not solutions.


12 posted on 05/07/2021 5:11:19 AM PDT by Lockbox
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To: real saxophonist; george76

Denver is trying to become sanfransicko.


13 posted on 05/07/2021 5:28:51 AM PDT by dynachrome ("I will not be reconstructed, and I do not give a damn.")
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To: redshawk

Price is no object when it’s taxpayers money!


14 posted on 05/07/2021 5:38:54 AM PDT by The Louiswu ((.....................insert tagline here.......................))
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To: real saxophonist

Here’s hoping they attract a bunch of the bums (oops! i mean “homeless”) from Salt Lake City.

Build them (or buy them) and they will come.


15 posted on 05/07/2021 5:39:55 AM PDT by utax
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To: pepsionice

Spot on - but none of that will EVER make the news cycles.


16 posted on 05/07/2021 5:39:58 AM PDT by The Louiswu ((.....................insert tagline here.......................))
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To: real saxophonist

What could possibly go wrong?


17 posted on 05/07/2021 5:59:10 AM PDT by gunnut
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To: real saxophonist

95 doublewides would be a whole lot cheaper than a hotel.
No room service though, I guess.


18 posted on 05/07/2021 6:02:35 AM PDT by silverleaf (In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act)
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To: dynachrome; MileHi; Balata; backspace; bboop; Benito Cereno; bravo whiskey; Bruiser 10; ...

Colorado Ping ( Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from the list.)


19 posted on 05/07/2021 6:25:56 AM PDT by george76 (Ward Churchill : Fake Indian, Fake Scholarship, and Fake Art)
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To: real saxophonist

It’s akin to experiencing VD


20 posted on 05/07/2021 8:42:11 AM PDT by Vaduz (women and children to be impacIQ of chimpsted the most.)
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