Denver Extends Contracts for Shelter, Services, and Rental Assistance for People Experiencing Homelessness

By Robert Davis

In an abbreviated session on Monday, Denver City Council approved three contracts that provide additional shelter and services for the City’s unhoused through the summer. 

One contract with the Denver Health and Hospital Authority will provide evidence-based treatment for people experiencing homelessness and individuals recently released from detox. It expires on June 30, 2021. 

The $175,000 contract will fund the Comprehensive Housing and Residential Treatment Services (CHARTS) Program, which provides case management and therapy for program participants. Denver will use the Denver CARES community detox unit as a point-of-entry to determine program eligibility and needs. 

Denver also extended its Emergency Occupancy Agreement with Keys of Denver Hospitality, LLC – a Kansas-based real estate company – that currently provides 145 hotel rooms for unhoused people during the pandemic. 

The agreement was only extended until the end of February, but Denver has the option to renew on a month-to-month basis until the end of June. At $60 per night or a total of $8,700, the City is paying $1,405,000 upfront in exchange for the additional two weeks of use. 

Denver’s first agreement with Keys was for just 70 rooms and expired just after Thanksgiving in 2020. After the amendment, the total contract value currently stands at $2,489,050.

City Council also approved an agreement with Brothers Redevelopment to administer more than $1.5 million in federal Temporary Rental and Utility Assistance (TRUA) funds. The funds will be distributed citywide with concentrations of funds in southwest and far northeast Denver, according to the resolution request. The program is scheduled to sunset on December 31. 

Last week, Denver drew $22 million from the U.S. Department of Treasury’s $25 billion Emergency Rental Assistance Program. Officials said these funds will complement the City’s TRUA efforts as the need is clearly growing. 

During the first three months of 2020, Denver’s Department of Housing Stability, which receives the funds from the feds, drew in 522 TRUA applications. However, that number more than quintupled between September and the end of 2020. 

Those in need of rental or utility assistance can contact organizations like the Northeast Denver Housing Center and the Del Norte Neighborhood Development Corporation to apply for TRUA benefits.