Denver homelessness claim of 100 percent shelter acceptance demands records, not assurances

By Kevin Dahlgren | Commentary, Truth on the Streets

On October 13, The New York Times published an opinion piece titled “We Know How to Fix Homelessness. Look at Denver.” Written by German Lopez, the article opened with an extraordinary declaration: “Homelessness, all appearances to the contrary, is a long-solved problem. We know both the causes and the cure.” Lopez presented Denver as proof, crediting Mayor Mike Johnston with dramatically reducing street homelessness through shelter expansion, social services, and law enforcement. He went so far as to suggest that Denver’s accomplishments embarrassed other major American cities and that those cities no longer had an excuse.

Two days later, I flew to Denver to see for myself. During my visit, I spoke with approximately 100 homeless individuals, interviewed more than 50, most on camera, explored hidden encampments, and ventured hundreds of yards into underground drainage tunnels where people were living largely out of public view. I also helped a homeless man reconnect with his family after he told me he had spent months living in a park without assistance from outreach workers. What I found was not a city that had solved homelessness, but one where meaningful progress existed alongside serious failures and unanswered questions. The difference matters, especially when one of America’s most influential newspapers is telling the country that Denver has discovered the solution.

The Times highlighted impressive statistics. Denver’s unsheltered homeless population had reportedly declined by 64 percent since 2023. Active encampments had fallen by nearly half, while large encampments had declined by 91 percent. Perhaps most remarkably, Mayor Johnston claimed that nobody had declined an offer to move into one of the city’s new facilities. Those numbers deserve attention, and reducing the number of people sleeping outdoors is a legitimate accomplishment. But moving people out of encampments, reducing visible homelessness, and helping individuals achieve lasting stability are three very different measures of success.

Of everything reported in the Times article, nothing caught my attention more than Mayor Johnston’s claim that nobody had declined an offer to move into one of Denver’s new facilities. Anybody who has spent considerable time conducting homelessness outreach knows how extraordinary that sounds. Refusing assistance is an everyday reality. People decline services because of addiction, severe mental illness, distrust of institutions, previous negative experiences, objections to shelter requirements, or a preference for the independence of living outdoors. Others desperately want help but cannot navigate the very systems designed to assist them.

During my visit, multiple homeless individuals explicitly told me they had declined shelter or services. Others reported that outreach workers never approached them. It was easy to find a homeless person who declined services. I have been working with the homeless for over three decades, and the biggest challenge was never identifying housing, but getting the homeless person to accept it. To be fair, Johnston’s claim concerned offers to move into the city’s new facilities, not every shelter or service available in Denver. My interviews do not, by themselves, disprove that narrower claim. But they raise legitimate questions about how many people received those offers, how recipients were selected, and how refusals were documented.

Even Lopez’s reporting revealed the difficulty of obtaining universal cooperation. While accompanying Denver police on outreach, he described a homeless man angrily telling officers to go away. He also acknowledged that many people remaining outside struggle with addiction, mental illness, and resistance to treatment. Neither observation necessarily contradicts Johnston’s claim about specific placements, but both illustrate why a reported acceptance rate of 100 percent deserves independent verification. If Denver has developed a shelter model in which every person offered placement accepts it, that would be an extraordinary achievement. It should also be possible to substantiate through transparent records rather than relying solely on assurances from the officials promoting the program.

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