DENVER — The City of Denver is ending its lease at one of the hotels used for temporary shelter for the unhoused.
For about one year, the City of Denver has leased the former Radisson Hotel in Globeville, using it to house more than 200 people who were homeless.
However, now the city is opting to end that lease and shift its strategy to providing more permanent housing to those in need.
"One of the key shifts that we're making this year is really shifting away from some of our short-term hotel sites to longer-term investments in permanent housing," said Cole Chandler, the senior advisor on homelessness with the city. "The first example of that is the Radisson, which is a hotel that we've used to shelter people coming from encampments over the last year."
Among those impacted by the closure is Joel Davis, who's called the former Radisson home for the past year.
"The staff has been great," Davis said. "If you need information, they've been trying to help you with the information and everything."
Ever since learning his current home would be no more after March, Davis told Denver7 staff at the site have been helping him and others navigate what's next.
"They said they're gonna make sure that none of us are back on the streets," he said. "They're trying to get us permanent housing."
In order to make sure the more than 200 people who are currently living in the former Radisson have a permanent home once the site closes, Chandler said additional case management staff have been placed at the site to help those living there.
"We've amplified the team of case managers that's at the Radisson and then as soon as soon as someone moves out, they're connected to a long-term housing stabilization case manager for the next 12 months, so that we can really work on stabilizing them in the community," Chandler said.
It's help Davis said he's taking advantage of and has seen others living at the shelter site do, too.
"I'm waiting for one of the case managers to open up so I can go talk to other case managers and see what they can do for me," Davis said.
The lease for the hotel costs the City of Denver approximately $10 million. It costs another $3 million to $4 million to operate.
Chandler told Denver7 once the site closes, that's money that will go back to the city budget and toward permanent housing for those currently living there.
"This is happening through rapid rehousing, which is a intervention that we use to get someone into a permanent unit that they can lease and provide case management to them over the course of a year," Chandler said. "At the end of that year and throughout the course of the year, we work to connect them to behavioral health services and workforce services so that eventually they're able to take over a portion of that rent themselves, and we pay less over the course of time for that."
And while Davis' time at the shelter site is coming to an end, he said he's appreciative of the time he's spent at the hotel shelter and is looking forward to what comes next for him.
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