Walk through downtown Denver today and the change from just a few years ago is hard to miss. The large homeless encampments that once dominated sidewalks, parks and underpasses have largely disappeared. Blocks that were once filled with tents, trash and disorder are clearer and more usable.
For a city that spent decades debating homelessness with limited visible improvement, Denver has shown that street homelessness can be reduced when the city focuses on funding shelter capacity and outreach.
But those successes are blunted by the nexus of connecting phases of homelessness services. Denver has become better at moving people off the streets and into shelters, but it hasn’t reduced homelessness…