Mayor Mike Johnston’s latest pending pratfall on homelessness — having ex-cons staff Denver’s most troubled, city-run homeless hotel — is starting to look even worse.
It turns out the San Francisco nonprofit that will employ offenders to run the city’s homeless shelter in the former DoubleTree Hotel at 4040 Quebec St., has an awkwardly close relationship with housing officials at Denver City Hall. As The Denver Gazette reported last week, contractor Urban Alchemy’s former “chief growth officer” is now, in fact, one of those officials — the city’s deputy director of shelter and stability. He’ll be working hand in glove with his former employer, presumably overseeing its work on Denver taxpayers’ tab.
That official, Jeff Kositsky, also was named alongside others in a complaint for failing to register Urban Alchemy as a lobbyist in Portland, Oregon, in 2022, just before that city awarded the group a $50 million contract to run a shelter. As The Gazette also reported, Portland’s city auditor withdrew the complaint only to avoid “a protracted dispute” with Urban Alchemy “about the interpretation of the lobbying code.”…