Denver, CO. Updates from HAND and Community Meeting This Week

Hello Fighters for Rights and Housing!

Our outreach on Housing continues! This past four weeks we have and will host three community forums to gather priorities for housing from houseless people. We started with a giant forum with all houselss people where 58 people showed up. Our forum last week was specifically with black houseless people where 22 people showed up. Our forum this week is with LGBTQIA houseless people. Next week our forum will be with Spanish speaking houseless people. These forums have given strong insight and direction for housing needs in our community. Our outreach team has done an amazing job inspiring folks to turn up and speak up!  

The week of May 9th through 14th we helped hold down a sustained week of action in collaboration with 7 community groups to call out the Decade of Doom for 10 years of Denver’s Camping (aka Survival) Ban. We sent plenty of updates on this week of action so y’all know this already! 

This Wednesday our bi-monthly Housekeys Action Network Denver Community Meeting! These meetings happen every 2nd and 4th Wednesday at 4:30pm at 1420 Ogden St in the basement. There is food. All are welcome! Especially inviting all who are houseless, formerly houseless, or on the edge of being houseless!

The Towing Protections Bill that we were supporting at the state capitol passed! This bill creates important protections against towing companies’ ability to tow and steal your car. In particular it keeps the title in the owners name instead of giving the towing company a ‘possessory lean’ on your car the minute they tow it. We are grateful to Colorado Eviction Defence Fund, UNE, 9to5 and others for their work on this bill! 

In case you could not make the Sanctioned Encampments Webinar that happened last month, here is a recording of that webinar. 

This is a critical conversation about the ways sanctioned encampments are used to further justify the criminalization of anyone who is not in these “sanctioned” spots. 

The “Expanding Housing Affordability” proposal is headed to City Council on June 6th. While this legislation does the important thing of requiring developments to limit rents based on income, this legislation does nothing for our community as it requires no housing under 50% AMI. Read our full statement on this legislation attached. 

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Onwards towards right, dignity, and housing for all!

Housekeys Action Network Denver