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Council committee advances HOST contract package including TRUWA and property tax relief to full council
Summary
The Community Planning & Housing Committee voted to send eight HOST contracts — funding for TRUWA, property tax relief, foreclosure assistance and housing navigation — to the full Denver City Council; HOST reported program budgets and interim research findings showing reduced homelessness risk among TRUWA recipients.
Denver — The Denver City Council’s Community Planning & Housing Committee voted Tuesday to advance a package of contracts from the Department of Housing Stability (HOST) that fund rental and utility assistance, property tax relief and related housing navigation services.
Melissa Tati, director of Stability and Prevention at HOST, told the committee the Temporary Rental and Utility Assistance program (TRUWA) provides up to six months of rental assistance and one utility payment and may include relocation assistance when a household cannot be stabilized. HOST reported $16.1 million available for TRUWA in 2025 and about $15.1 million for 2026, and said it had served more than 1,500 households as of Nov. 24.
Tati also discussed interim results from a randomized control trial run with Harvard’s The People Lab (with providers Brothers Redevelopment and Community Economic Defense Project). She described early, non‑definitive findings that TRUWA recipients had lower enrollment in the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) — a proxy the study used for literal homelessness — at three months (the presentation cited a roughly 83% lower likelihood) and at six months (about 78% lower). Tati emphasized the results are preliminary and research is ongoing.
The committee packet included several contract amendments and new awards: a $1.25 million, seven‑month addition to Jewish Family Service for the DPS/TRUWA pilot (projected to serve roughly 90 additional households), an amendment to Brothers Redevelopment (the packet lists $3,001,384 to serve an estimated 335 households), and awards for housing resource navigation to East Colfax Community Collective and two other nonprofit providers. HOST staff said the department expects to continue monitoring outcomes through six‑ and twelve‑month check‑ins for the pilot.
Council members pressed HOST for more granular data. Councilor Jamie Torres asked for district‑level and comparative numbers. Becca Channel, program manager for TRUWA, said DPS pilot case management runs for the duration that households receive rental assistance within the pilot and noted the program will include check‑ins at six and twelve months.
The committee moved and seconded the package and gave unanimous committee support to forward the eight HOST items to the floor on consent.
What happens next: The contracts will be considered by the full City Council on the consent calendar unless a councilor pulls an item for separate consideration.
