Survey Shows Constant Sweeps in Freezing Cold
In January and February of this year (2025) we surveyed 97 houseless people about sweeps as part of a regional survey we did in California, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, and Colorado with Western Regional Advocacy Project. The full findings of this regional survey can be found on WRAP’s site here.
A sweep in brief means being forced to move from where you are staying outside, usually including both yourself and your property.
The surveys we did here were significant not just as part of the regional outreach, but also because they were done on extreme cold days in Denver and tell us about sweeps happening in cold weather in Denver.
The days we did this outreach had lows of -14 to 22, and barely got above freezing in the highs. The whole month of January the low did not get above 32, and the low only got about 32 three days in February.
Of the 97 people we surveyed on these cold days in these cold months –
19% had been swept in the past 24 hours
21% had been swept in the past 3 days
23% had been swept in the past week
60% had been swept in the past month.
This means 100% of these people had been swept while low temperatures were below 32degrees, even if the time they were swept was slightly warmer. Many people spoke of it being freezing when they were swept. Given how cold it was much of January and February it is clear most of these people were swept at least once in the extreme cold.
When asked how many times they had been swept in the last 6 months, answers ranged from 1-100 – with “all the time”, or “too many to count”, also being common answers. The majority had been swept between 5 and 10 times in the last 6 months.
We asked people more detailed questions about the most recent time they were swept.
71% of people were not given advance notice prior to being swept. 62% of those who did get notice only got 24hour notice, and only 8% got more than 4 days notice.
49% of these sweeps affected more than 6 people at a time being swept. 42% were individuals alone.
The most common entity to be swept by was police at 78%, with the second being Park Rangers at 28%, and the their being Private Security at 15%.
People were threatened with the following things when swept:
45% Arrest
34% Citation
39% Warrant Check
6% Violence
25% were not threatened with any of these things
In these sweeps, the large majority of which were in cold weather and all of which during times when the lows were below 32degrees, 54% had their property thrown away in the sweep.
75% of people ended up still on the streets after the sweep. 18% ended up in a shelter. 5% stayed with friends.
93% of people did not receive a referral for service or housing offered to them before, during, or after the sweep. 5% were given a referral to shelter and 2% for a treatment program.
This is extremely disturbing and significant as these surveys were done during cold weather shelter activation. Anyone who is being swept in cold weather should have been offered a ride or at least given information about the cold weather shelters. But 93% of the time this was not done and people simply moved to another spot outside on the streets.
For example, one person surveyed explained he was swept the day before, January 21st which had a low of 0 degrees, at night with a group of friends in a hidden area of a park under a bridge. When asked if the park rangers gave them information about the cold weather shelters he said, no he did not know anything about them. This group of people simply moved to a different area outside in the middle of the freezing cold night without even a referral to the cold weather shelters.
This is what happened for the large majority of people swept in this cold. They were told to move by police, park rangers or private security and never even told about the cold weather shelters.
It is of note that while we were doing these surveys on these cold days we bought people meals at a restaurant to sit in the warm and do the survey. Each of these days, we met many houseless people who had been staying outside in the extreme cold. We offered rides to the cold weather shelters if people wanted to go and about 20% of people did take the ride, with 80% not feeling comfortable to go to a shelter even in the extreme cold. This is significant in understanding how unusable shelters are for many people – for totally legitimate reasons. It is also significant in understanding the numbers of houseless people in Denver. On the highest night there were 786 individual adults and 392 families staying just at the cold weather shelters. To get a more accurate count of houseless people this already large number must be added to another large, though uncountable, number of houseless people staying outside – mostly in hiding.
It is also striking to note that 40% of those we surveyed were born and raised in Denver – many making note about growing up right in the neighborhood.
Also of note 44% of survey respondents were disabled.
In closing people shared what is important for the community to better understand sweeps. Common sentiments shared include:
We have nowhere to go
It is hard to move when its freezing
Really disrespectful, mean to us
They are brutal, not helping us
Out of sight, out of mind
It causes more problems than it solves
This survey makes the reality and prevalence of cold weather sweeps in Denver clear. While this survey was not intended to be about cold weather sweeps, by doing it on these cold days in these cold months we can see that people are continually being swept in cold weather, over half the time having their property taken, just moving to another place on the streets, and not being given any referral to shelter or services.
A sweep under and name is still a sweep. Forcing people to move and taking their property in freezing cold can never be deemed humane.
Here are the days and their temperatures when we did this outreach:
January 20th Low temp -14 High temp 10
January 21st Low temp 0 High temp 41
January 22nd Low temp 20 High temp 30
January 27th Low temp 10 High temp 50
January 28th Low temp 19 High temp 50
January 29th Low temp 22 High temp 50
February 10th Low temp 10 High temp 32
February 11th Low temp 5 High temp 15
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