Denver, CO. City Council Votes Down Shelter for Families – SHAME

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Yesterday, Denver City Council voted 5 to 8 to NOT fund shelter for houseless families. This vote is leaving HUNDREDS of little children and babies on our streets, in cars, and the like. Because of this vote, we will continue to be approached by countless families desperate for emergency shelter – and now stuck in their cars on freezing nights as cold as 26 degrees as the cold weather shelters don’t open until 25 degrees. We, and all the houseless families of Denver, are devastated by this vote. 

Thank you to Councilwoman Parady and Gonzales-Gutierrez for sponsoring this budget proposal! Thank you to Councilman Kashmann, Councilwomen Lewis and Gilmore for voting YES for family shelter! Y’alls support does not go unnoticed! 

Shame on Councilmembers Sandoval, Flynn, Torres, Romero Campbell, Sawyer, Alvidrez, Watson, and Hinds for voting to keep babies on the streets. 

How did these Councilmembers justify such a vote?? Here are some of the justifications given by Council members voting no. (Put in our own words).

• I don’t know if $9milion is the right number, it might take more to get all families in shelter, so I’m gonna vote for $0.
• If we make a new shelter, we might have an overabundance of shelter for families. (While the proposal would fund shelter for about 150 and there are over 250 families on the waitlist.) So I’m gonna vote for too little shelter ‘cause that’s better.
• We can pass this funding this year, but I just don’t know how it will be sustainable in coming years. Will we have to keep coming back year after year to pass funding to keep the shelter open? If it’s not long-term funding, I’m just gonna vote for no funding. 
• Only a small portion of the houseless families on the waitlist for shelter are on the literal streets, many of them are in cars or crashing on a friend’s house for a time. That’s not desperate enough to deserve shelter. So I’m not gonna vote for shelter for these families. 
• And of course… My constituents like police more than caring about shelter for families so I’m gonna vote to give the police more money instead of family shelter. 
• And…The police need more officers (increasing their recruiting budget by over 100% since last year) and weapons and definitely a helicopter (despite having drones!)! So I’m gonna vote for that instead of reallocating those funds for family shelter. 

Throughout the hearing it was clear the Mayor had been pushing in the background to not pass this. He has told us in multiple meetings that he won’t fund family shelter. The director of HOST was a perfect spokesperson for the Mayor’s office instead of standing by the houseless community she supposedly serves, acknowledging the existence of families on the streets and the growing crisis surrounding migrant families, yet saying that she simply wouldn’t know what to do with $9million extra dollars to help these houseless families at this point, and expressing her guilt at taking that funding away from the police – pinning the nail in the coffin for this vote (and who know who else…). 

At the same time as Council voted against funding family shelter, we are currently paying for four families who have been living in their cars to stay in hotels as they seek long-term housing. We fronted the funds to put them indoors for a week, but that week is up TOMORROW MORNING and they will be back in their car in the cold nights if more funds aren’t raised. If you can pitch in to keep these families safe in hotels for another week, that would make a big difference for these parents and their kids! As much as the City Council and the Mayor want to let these families suffer on the streets with no shelter option – we do not! Donate on Paypal here: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=HHEMK4XX5UAM2 (@HousekeysAction – note ‘for families’)