This week, the City announced plans to sweep the migrant encampments at 26th and Zuni on Wednesday January 3rd. There are nearly 400 people at this site along streets surrounding Quality Inn.
After announcing a protest of this sweep yesterday, December 28th, City officials gave us more information about resources being offered. Today, December 29th, outreach workers came to the Zuni camp and began to connect with camp residents, supposedly about employment and housing resources. While we are glad for these needed resources, they will not meet the housing needs of all camp residents, much less the hundreds more that are coming every day.
Here is what we have been told so far about resources being offered to Zuni camp residents.
The City has secured around 100 apartments which landlords are agreeing to rent. For people who have legal work, they can move in and the City will pay the deposit and first month’s rent. For people who do not have legal work (that is, the majority of the population), they can supposedly move in and the City will pay the deposit and rent for anywhere between 3 to 6 months. It also sounds like the City will offset (or subsidize) the rent for these units, but we do not know for how much, nor for how long.
This is a great step toward securing housing with public assistance that may work for many of these folks!!! We are glad the City is moving in this direction. However, there are many outstanding questions and concerns…
- How long will this last before these people are back on the streets due to not being able to find legal work to pay rent?
- Will the City be subsiding this housing at the level needed, or still leaving rents too high to afford?
- Can anyone get this opportunity, or only those who are working?
- How will they prioritize recipients of this opportunity, given the limited number of units that doesn’t meet the demand?
- How long will it take for people to sign leases and move in?
- And if it’s not right away, where are they expected to be if the camp is closed until the housing is open?
If there are only 100 or so housing units available through this, but there are roughly 400 people at the camp – that leaves around 300 people currently at this camp without this housing option… Let alone the estimated hundreds to join them in weeks to come
The second option that the majority of residents of the Zuni camp are being offered is to go to a “soon to be opened” congregate shelter. The City has told us they plan to open one or two new congregate shelters for migrants. Numbers for these sites could be between 220 or 470 beds. Depending on how many beds are available, this may or may not be enough for all Zuni camp residents.
That being said, congregate shelter is not a place many people feel safe living. Congregate shelter means everyone is stuffed in the same big room with beds inches apart – no privacy, no personal space, and everything is shared. This will be quite a rough transition from the hotel stay folks are accustomed to that has provided their families with safety and privacy.
Today city officials arrived at the camp and attempted to get names for a “by-list” for shelters at one side of the camp. When residents asked what shelter/where, the officials said “I don’t know”, so people at that side of the camp did not feel safe giving their names. City officials then switched up the strategy and went to the other end of the camp and said that they were offering employment opportunities… Suddenly residents crowded them to give their names. This manipulative strategy is bound to leave many camp residents off the “by-list” to get shelter or housing. Furthermore, giving people no information about the shelter, including the fact it is a congregate shelter and not individual rooms, and expecting them to sign up to go is unhelpful and disrespectful.
So while these new congregate shelters may work for some, they will not work for many.
Most significantly, congregate shelters are not an option for families with children… So where are the hundreds of families expected to go?!
The City’s policy around hotel stay for families was 37 days, then the City temporarily extended it indefinitely, but now we hear families have still been kicked out for supposed “behavioral” reasons, and will start being kicked out at the end of their time allotment again sometime in January. If this is the case, if there is no camp outside for these families to go to, and they can’t go to the congregate shelter, where are they expected to go?
Furthermore, even with the stated policy allowing families to stay without time limits, a survey we recently conducted with 30 migrant individuals and families tells a far different story:
- 77% of respondents had been kicked out of the hotel early – before their allotted time.
- The average number of days kicked out early was 21 days – meaning their time was cut short by 21 days.
- Only 20% of respondents were allowed to stay their full allotted time in the hotel.
This points to an extremely flawed, dysfunctional hotel shelter system where the majority of residents are getting kicked out early – often for insane reasons such as having food in their room, flying a sign outside the shelter to ask for money, or accepting resources given out at the camp outside.
As long as the hotel shelters are kicking families out at this rate, regardless of the policy, families need a safe place to go. Having an emergency camp to turn to has been key. Families must not be timed out of hotel shelters and should not be kicked out for any but the most severe reasons. Until the City can commit to and prove the ability to do this, the one emergency backup space people have – the tent camp outside Quality Inn – should be there for them to turn to.
It is also significant to note that our survey found that 97% of respondents (all but one) want to stay in Denver. Some added with a caveat “if able to find work,” and some listed other places they might go, but 97% prefer to stay in Denver. This indicates that the City should be focusing more on creating viable housing and pathways to work, as opposed to transportation out of Denver. This requires federal and state support with laws and funding, but it is our responsibility as Denver to be a home for people in desperate need of a new home – not keep passing people on to the next city to do the same.
Today, the 29th, Mayor Mike Johnston also visited the Quality encampments and received plenty of questions from migrants. One person asked, given the limited housing and shelter options for people and the continued time limits for sheltering, what will happen to hundreds of individuals and families set to arrive after the 3rd of January? The Mayor retorted that that’s why they’re buying people bus tickets out of town, and that he had talked to other Mayors in other cities who are ready to receive people… Our migrant population knows this is certainly a lie, after many of them have already been bussed across the U.S. from city to city numerous times… Our Mayor should not pass the buck any more, but instead keep focusing on opening doors here in Denver.
With the sweep of the Zuni camp of 400 people planned for Wednesday, we would love to be able to call off protests as all residents happily move into housing… However, this is only possible if everyone at the camp has an opportunity to move into viable housing or alternative safe spaces, and if the next 100 migrants who land on the streets next week after arriving to Denver or being kicked from the hotels have a safe and viable place to be too. We are glad for additional housing and shelter resources being provided, but unless these are enough to match the need, sweeping this camp will leave hundreds of people with nothing and nowhere to be – in the middle of winter in a strange City. We ask the City to prove us wrong. Please show us that you do have the housing and safe viable shelter needed for all Zuni residents now and the up to 100 new folks arriving daily. Until we see that, we demand Zuni camps be kept in place as a backup safe space with access to regular community support for migrants in desperate need.
A NOTE ON EMPLOYMENT:
We understand that the City is attempting to appeal to federal entities to change the laws in place that prevent migrants from legally obtaining employment, however we also know that there are some methods by which the City could do more to bridge that pathway for individuals, right now:
- Currently there is a $545 application fee for people to apply for a temporary work permit. Obviously this fee is insurmountable for most people, let alone people who have sacrificed much to be here and cannot earn money legally in the first place. The City should find ways to support individuals with this fee. We have heard that the City attempted to reach out to partner organizations, such as the Salvation Army, for support with this process… Salvation Army declined the City’s ask for support
- There is also the matter of applying for an ITIN (Individual Taxpayer Identification Number) which opens many doors to employment, housing, and taxation for migrants. This would require experts to sit with individuals and work through the process – less of a financial burden but still very helpful in navigating bureaucracy
- It is also possible for non-U.S. citizens to attain an LLC. This process is also one that requires bureaucratic support and involves having an EIN, which can also act as a social security number
Ultimately, the City has methods by which it could support migrants more with legally working, and we should pursue these options while waiting for federal-level change. There are organizations – such as Centro Humanitario – who have traditionally been involved in creating access to employment for migrants, and the City should strengthen their understanding of the issue through partnerships with the groups and people that have been supporting this need. With employment being the number one priority for migrants – even beyond housing support – we must follow migrant leadership and streamline these pathways!
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