Police Records Show Significant Increase in Anti-Houseless Law Enforcement in 2024
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Since January of 2024, after Mayor Johnson touted “housing” over 1000 visible houseless people from Denver streets, we’ve experienced a significant increase in police, SET, and other “enforcer” enforcement of anti-houseless laws (otherwise known as “quality of life crimes”) across Denver. We asked the City for data on the enforcement of a list of these types of laws. In return we received enforcement data for 2022, 2023, and January through March of 2024.
Sorting through this data revealed that our on-ground experience of increased enforcement mirrors the police data. From January through March of 2023, there were a total of 694 enforcement actions for these anti-houseless ordinances. Those same three months in 2024 showed 1017 enforcement actions – an increase of over 45%.
You can see more key data showing a large increase of enforcement and ticketing of specific anti-houseless laws since January 2024 in our full report.
Earlier this year, Mayor Johnston encouraged use of the Clean & Safe reporting app for the public to snitch on people who appear to be camping for survival. We’ve coined the phrase “Johnston effect” to explain the paradox of Denver enforcing anti-houseless ordinances – including harassment, ticketing, & arrests – against poor people at all-time high rates despite Mayor Mike Johnston publicly claiming to be significantly reducing the number of unhoused people on the streets of Denver through initiatives/campaigns like “House 1000.”
In addition, a Street Enforcement Tea has been created — a group of civilians hired under the City Safety Department as a non-police enforcement team. While the original description & current marketing of SET try to claim their job is to conduct “outreach, facilitate service connection, & offer quality-of-life resources” & that they have a range of enforcement duties not just focused on houseless people, the records of SET work from 2023 prove otherwise.
