Homelessness in the seven-county Denver metro region appeared to grow in the 12 months before the latest point-in-time count early this year, according to results released Wednesday.
The overall number of homeless people counted over two days in January was 10% higher than last year’s count, and the total also increased within Denver city limits. But the city saw a modest decrease in unsheltered homelessness — more than 10% — as new Mayor Mike Johnston’s administration began moving people living on the street into hotel shelters and temporary micro-communities late in the year.
The annual count was performed by the Metro Denver Homelessness Initiative and its partners across the region on Jan. 22 and 23. Metrowide, they tallied 9,977 people either staying in different types of shelter or living unsheltered in cars, tents or other places considered not fit for human habitation. The sheltered population included those in emergency shelters, transitional housing and safe-haven shelters for people fleeing domestic abuse.
The total represents a 10% year-over-year increase. On Jan. 30, 2023, when the last count was performed, the organizations recorded 9,065 homeless people across Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Broomfield, Denver, Douglas and Jefferson counties.
Still, while point-in-time counts are among the few comprehensive gauges of homelessness, the Homeless Initiative cautions against using them for measuring trends. Counts are only snapshots of homelessness and results are influenced by variables that include weather, methodology and volunteer engagement.
A county-by-county breakdown of the 2024 count released Wednesday shows that the city of Denver once again had the largest portion of homeless people recorded during the count — 6,539, or almost 67% of the metro total. The city also has the most homeless service providers of any jurisdiction in the region and the most shelter space.
Denver’s homeless population increased by more than 12% from to the 2023 count. In early 2023, there were 5,818 homeless people counted in the city.
The Denver-specific data did find a drop in the number of people living outside on the city’s streets. In January’s count, the number of people who were considered unsheltered was 1,273, down from 1,423 in the 2023 count.
That’s a drop of 150, or 10.5%. Offsetting that was a nearly 20% increase in the number of people living in shelters and transitional housing in Denver — including the facilities that are part of Johnston’s temporary sheltering initiative.
In a new release, the mayor’s office noted that Denver’s decrease in unsheltered homeless was on par with cities viewed as leaders on reducing street homelessness, like Houston, and better than rates seen in cities including Seattle, Chicago and Atlanta.
“We have always believed that homelessness is a solvable problem, and now we have the data to prove it,” Johnston said in a statement. “In just six months we were able to achieve transformational reduction in unsheltered homelessness while building an infrastructure that will allow us to attack this issue for years to come.”
The release noted progress since the January count, including a marked drop in the number of tents spotted in the city.
This is a breaking news story that will be updated.
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