DENVER — A Denver shelter that serves people experiencing homelessness is set to close and be rebuilt as affordable housing, leaving current residents worried about where they will go.
The Park Avenue Inn shelter initially opened as part of the City of Denver’s COVID-19 homelessness emergency response, with the goal of putting affordable housing on the property eventually. Since then, it’s come to serve dozens as a non-congregate shelter and unofficial transitional housing.
“It’s served as a pathway to people to get other housing options,” said Cathy Alderman, chief communications and public policy officer for the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, which owns the property. “Sometimes that takes a little longer because we’re in a really high-cost housing market here in Denver, and there’s not a lot of housing resources to move people into.”…