Denver committee hears All In Mile High plan to shift contracts, wind down Radisson and expand housing supports

Denver City Council’s Safety, Housing, Education and Homelessness Committee received a briefing Wednesday on the city’s All In Mile High effort to reduce street homelessness, including planned contract changes, a March wind-down of the Radisson site and new staffing roles to connect people to housing and services.

Cole Chandler, deputy director of the All In Mile High work at Host, told the committee the city’s effort will shift in 2025 from clearing large encampments to ‘‘real-time coordination’’ across agencies and more intensive support for people with higher behavioral-health and substance-use acuity who remain unsheltered. ‘‘We are a national leader in this space, and have developed a system that has really been able to respond to the needs of people living on the streets and move forward to address large encampments,’’ Chandler said.

Why it matters: city officials framed the changes as a move from short-term emergency shelter spending toward investments that produce longer-term exits to permanent housing. Chandler said the city’s North Star is ‘‘to end street homelessness in Denver for all populations,’’ and described goals to bring 2,000 people indoors and help 2,000 people exit homelessness in 2025.

Key details - Scope and outcomes to date: presenters said the city has brought more than 2,200 people indoors, connected about 850 people to housing and recorded a roughly 45% reduction in 311 and…