Denver Mayor Mike Johnston sat down with CBS Colorado on Thursday to reflect on his first two years in office and discuss what he would still like to accomplish in the next two years of his first term.
Johnston touted his work on homelessness: “There are no encampments in Denver. There are no tents downtown,” he said. “We’ve gotten 5,000 people off the streets. We became the largest American city to end street homelessness for veterans. Those for us are major milestones.”
At the same time, the mayor acknowledged there is still work to do. “Yes, we still have a couple hundred folks who are left on the streets. They are mostly our highest acuity individuals. They have the most significant mental illness, the most significant addiction. They’re not living in communities. They’re not living in encampments. They’re just wandering around and using, and sometimes passing out. The next phase of the work is really about those individuals and how we help connect them to services to get clean, to get mental health supports and then to get clean and get back up.”…