Denver Homeless Crisis: Sweeps, Budget Squeeze, and Migrants

The Denver homeless crisis eased slightly in 2026 after years of growth: the city’s January count found 6,411 people experiencing homelessness, a 12.5% drop and the first decrease in nine years. The seven-county metro total fell 8% to 9,950. Those numbers still sit far above pre-pandemic levels, chronic homelessness has hit record highs, family homelessness is climbing, and the mayor’s signature program is under audit for roughly $20 million in costs the city council was not told about.

How Many People Are Homeless in Denver

Homelessness in the Denver metro area nearly doubled between 2019 and 2025. The Point-in-Time count, conducted each January by the Metro Denver Homeless Initiative across Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Broomfield, Denver, Douglas, and Jefferson counties, recorded 5,755 people in 2019 and 10,774 in January 2025, an 87% increase.¹ Within Denver proper, the 2025 count found 7,327 individuals, up 86% since 2019.²

The 2026 count brought the first real relief in nearly a decade. Metro-wide, 9,950 people were counted, down 8%.³ In Denver proper, 92% of the 6,411 people counted were in shelters, with just 518 living unsheltered, the lowest unsheltered figure since 2017. Newly homeless and chronically homeless individuals each dropped about 30%, and youth homelessness fell as well.⁴

Not every trend is improving. Chronic homelessness across the metro reached an all-time high of 3,351 in the 2025 count, a 189% rise since 2019 and 31% of the regional total.¹ Child homelessness in Denver hit a 10-year high: at least 1,380 homeless minors were counted in January 2026, up from 259 in 2017, and advocacy groups believe the real number is higher because families often avoid detection.⁵

One caveat is worth carrying through the rest of these numbers. The Point-in-Time count is a single-night snapshot and is sensitive to weather. Cold nights push more people into shelters and can make unsheltered counts look lower than they would on a mild evening.⁶

What the City Is Doing: All In Mile High

Mayor Mike Johnston’s administration launched All In Mile High in 2023 with the goal of ending unsheltered homelessness. Rather than relying on traditional congregate shelters, the city purchased and leased hotels and built micro-communities of tiny homes, giving people individual rooms with lockable doors, heating, and on-site support services. By the end of 2023, Denver had created and filled 1,100 new non-congregate shelter beds.⁷

The city credits the program with a 45% reduction in unsheltered homelessness since 2023, a 98% drop in large encampments of more than 20 people, and an 89% drop in medium-sized encampments of 10 to 20 people.⁸ Since launch, Denver says more than 8,500 people have accessed shelter and roughly 7,700 have transitioned to permanent housing.⁴ Johnston has said the city is on track for a 75% reduction in street homelessness by 2027.

Critics note the total number of homeless people kept growing even as the unsheltered share shrank, meaning the program moved people indoors without stopping the inflow. The Common Sense Institute reported in June 2025 that the unsheltered share fell from 29% in 2024 to 20% in 2025, but the overall population hit its highest recorded level.¹

Micro-Communities and Hotel Conversions

Micro-communities are clusters of hard-sided tiny homes operated by the Colorado Village Collaborative, with sites including La Paz, Monroe, and Steele. Each unit has a bed, desk, and window; shared buildings house restrooms, showers, a kitchen, and laundry. Sites are staffed around the clock with case managers and peer counselors, and meals are provided daily.⁹ A tiny home costs $25,000 to $30,000 to build, and zoning rules limit these sites to four-year stints.¹⁰

The administration shifted its primary focus toward hotel and motel purchases and leases, which can be deployed faster and house more people. Hotel conversions run about $100,000 per unit.¹⁰ Some have already turned over. The city terminated leases for the Radisson and Comfort Inn hotel shelters and closed the Monroe Village micro-community, saving nearly $11 million.¹¹ The Stay Inn in Central Park, bought for $9 million in 2023, sat unused and was listed for sale at $10, with the condition that any buyer operate it as transitional housing for 99 years and fund an estimated $5 million in renovations.¹² Four shelters total are set to close between 2025 and June 2026.¹³

The Auditor’s $20 Million Finding

In March 2026, City Auditor Timothy O’Brien released an audit of All In Mile High that found the city had spent about $178.1 million on the initiative between July 2023 and June 2025, roughly $20 million more than the $158 million the mayor’s office had reported to the city council in October 2025. The audit also found no formal planning documents, no needs assessment, no documented policies for tracking expenses across agencies, and insufficient evidence that competitive procurement rules were followed for contracts.¹⁴

The mayor’s office pushed back, calling portions of the audit “willfully misleading.” Cole Chandler, the mayor’s advisor on homelessness, said the $158 million figure covered the start-up, acquisition, and operation of the eight original shelter sites, while the auditor had “simply drawn a wider circle” by including expenses like rental assistance that the city considers outside the program’s scope.¹⁵ The office accepted 7 of the audit’s 12 recommendations and rejected 5, including the call for a formal needs assessment, stating: “We do not plan to spend crucial city dollars conducting a needs assessment to determine whether addressing street homelessness is necessary.”¹⁴ The city council’s Independent Audit Committee held a hearing on the findings in March 2026.¹⁶

A separate Urban Institute evaluation commissioned by Denver’s Department of Housing Stability confirmed the encampment reduction figures. Samantha Batko, a senior fellow at the Institute, said whether the chosen shelter models represent the “best use of those resources is a question that remains to be seen.” The full evaluation is expected to continue through at least 2027.⁸

The Money and the Budget Squeeze

Denver’s Department of Housing Stability (HOST) oversees the city’s homelessness and housing programs. Its 2025 total budget was $226.3 million, drawn from the general fund ($71.7 million), a dedicated Homelessness Resolution Fund supported by sales tax revenue ($51.5 million), affordable housing funds ($60 million combined), and other grants.¹⁷ All In Mile High’s 2025 operating cost was projected at $57.5 million, down $84 million from the prior cycle, which had been boosted by one-time federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) money used to set up the shelter infrastructure.¹⁸

With ARPA funds exhausted and the city projecting a $250 million budget shortfall over two years, HOST’s proposed 2026 budget was cut to $206 million, a $24 million decrease. The city also expects to lose roughly 300 housing vouchers because of federal and state funding reductions, and HOST is shifting toward “performance contracting,” paying shelter providers based on occupancy rates and case management outcomes rather than simple compliance.¹³ Separately, the 2025 budget allocated $60 million for affordable housing (creating or preserving nearly 1,400 homes), $20 million for temporary rent and utility assistance to prevent homelessness, and $2 million for eviction legal defense.¹⁸

Family Homelessness Is Moving the Other Way

While street encampments have become less visible, family homelessness is growing worse. At least 1,380 children were counted as homeless in Denver in January 2026, and the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless has suggested the true number could be as much as 2.5 times higher, since families often go to great lengths to avoid being identified by authorities.⁵

The city’s primary family facility is the Tamarac Family Shelter, with 205 rooms operated by Bayaud Works under a $14.2 million contract running through 2027.¹⁹ As of October 2025, roughly 890 people representing about 240 families were on the city’s shelter waitlist. Denver expanded hotel voucher capacity by 15% and, for the first time, allowed walk-up shelter access for families during cold-weather emergencies, while investing more in rapid rehousing to shorten shelter stays. The city has said it has no plans to build additional family shelters with individual rooms.²⁰

What’s Actually Driving the Crisis

The Metro Denver Homeless Initiative has identified a lack of attainable housing as the primary driver of homelessness in the region. Home prices in Denver rose 138% between 2005 and 2023, from an average of about $260,600 to $619,500.²¹ The ratio of home price to income in the metro grew from 2.5 in 1990 to 7.1 in 2022, and roughly 400,000 households in the region were cost-burdened as of 2020, spending more than 30% of their income on housing.²²

On the rental side, statewide data shows a deficit of more than 114,000 homes for extremely low-income households, meaning only about 29 affordable units are available for every 100 such households in Colorado.²³ Within Denver proper, the estimated housing unit deficit ranges from about 13,000 to 31,000 units. Closing that gap and keeping up with population growth would require between 5,100 and 8,100 new permits per year, a pace that current building trends and rising interest rates make uncertain.²¹ Meanwhile, 30% of private-sector jobs in the region pay less than $40,000 to $43,000 a year, well below what is needed to afford typical housing.²²

Encampment Sweeps and the Courts

Denver’s practice of clearing homeless encampments has been in and out of court for a decade. The 2016 lawsuit Lyall v. City of Denver challenged the city’s camping ban and was resolved in 2019 through a settlement that established protocols for enforcement and released the city from liability for related claims.²⁴ In 2020, Denver Homeless Out Loud and individuals experiencing homelessness filed a new class-action lawsuit alleging that three encampment sweeps conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic violated due process rights, particularly regarding the seizure and destruction of property without adequate notice.²⁵

A federal district judge initially sided with the plaintiffs and issued a preliminary injunction requiring Denver to give seven days’ written notice before any sweep. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated that order in May 2022, ruling that the broad release language in the earlier Lyall settlement precluded the plaintiffs from bringing these particular due process claims.²⁵

Migrant Arrivals and the Strain on Services

Beginning in late 2022, nearly 40,000 migrants arrived in Denver, straining a shelter system already stretched thin. At peak, the city was housing about 4,500 migrants in emergency shelters, with more than 300 arriving daily at one point in early 2024.²⁶ Denver spent at least $76 million assisting migrants, forcing cuts to recreation center hours, motor-vehicle offices, and other city services.²⁷ To manage costs, the city reinstated shelter time limits, purchased over 2,000 bus tickets to send migrants to other cities (primarily New York and Chicago), and by September 2024 had closed all migrant-specific shelters. The 2025 budget for newcomer support was cut from $90 million to $12.5 million as the city transitioned out of emergency mode.¹⁸

State Laws and Federal Cuts Coming Next

Colorado’s legislature has moved to address the structural housing shortage. In 2024, Governor Jared Polis signed HB24-1313, which requires communities near transit hubs to zone for higher-density housing (averaging 40 units per acre) and created a $35 million transit-oriented communities infrastructure fund.²⁸ SB24-174 required local governments to conduct housing needs assessments by the end of 2026 and adopt housing action plans by 2028, backed by $15 million in technical assistance funding.²⁹ The 2025 session added measures banning algorithmic rent-price-fixing software, requiring upfront disclosure of all rental fees, and streamlining modular and condo construction.³⁰

At the federal level, the direction is reversed. The Department of Housing and Urban Development announced in late 2025 that it would redirect more than half of 2026 Continuum of Care program funding away from permanent housing and toward transitional housing with work or service requirements. Internal HUD documents estimate the shift could put 170,000 people nationally at risk of homelessness, and the current 2026 permanent housing allocation of $3.3 billion would drop to roughly $1.1 billion.³¹ For Denver, where permanent supportive housing has been a cornerstone of the strategy, the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless has warned that these federal cuts make it harder to secure long-term housing placements.⁵

1
Common Sense Institute. Denver Metro Sees Record Homelessness in 2025
2
Common Sense Institute. Denver Metro Sees Record Homelessness in 2025 (Report)
3
Metro Denver Homeless Initiative. 2026 Point-in-Time Count Results
4
Denver7. Denver Records Decrease in Overall Homelessness for First Time in 9 Years
5
Denverite. Denver Homeless Data: Families
6
Denverite. Denver Point-in-Time Homelessness 2025
7
Governing. Denver Cut Street Homelessness Nearly in Half
8
Denver7. All In Mile High Initiative Reduced Large Homeless Encampments by 98%
9
Colorado Village Collaborative. Micro-Communities
10
Denverite. Denver Overland Micro-Community
11
Colorado Politics. Denver’s Homeless Plan Cost $20 Million More Than Previously Reported
12
Denverite. Denver Motel Sale for Ten Dollars
13
Axios Denver. Denver Housing Agency Funding Cuts
14
City and County of Denver. All In Mile High Audit Report
15
9News. Denver Audit: Mayor’s Homelessness Initiative Cost
16
Denver7. Denver Auditor Finds $20M in Underreported Costs
17
City and County of Denver. HOST 2025 Budget Submission
18
City and County of Denver. 2025 Adopted Budget
19
Denver City Council. Tamarac Family Shelter Contract
20
Denverite. Denver Family Homelessness Growing
21
Common Sense Institute. Denver Housing Affordability Report
22
City and County of Denver. Denver Metro Regional Affordable Housing Study
23
Colorado Coalition for the Homeless. Colorado Affordable Housing Crisis Strategic Investment Report
24
Colorado Bar Association. Denver Homeless Out Loud v. Denver, Colorado
25
Law Week Colorado. 10th Circuit Vacates Denver Homeless Camp Sweep Order
26
Colorado Sun. Denver Migrant Crisis: Shelters and Services Scale Back
27
ProPublica. Denver, Colorado: Migrants and Unhoused
28
Colorado General Assembly. HB24-1313: Housing in Transit-Oriented Communities
29
Colorado General Assembly. SB24-174: Sustainable Affordable Housing Assistance
30
Colorado Newsline. Housing Policies Passed by the Colorado Legislature
31
Politico. Trump Admin Looks at Deep Cuts to Homeless Housing Program