Denver will restore rec center hours after revamping migrant strategy

Denver is overhauling its approach to serving migrants in a major shift announced Wednesday — along with revised budget impact projections that will allow the city to roll back some cuts, including reduced hours at city recreation centers, in coming months.

Mayor Mike Johnston said the city would discontinue the costly practice of sheltering newly arrived migrants from the southern U.S. border in hotels for several weeks. Instead, the new strategy calls for renting apartments to house roughly 1,000 asylum seekers at a time for up to six months while city partners help them file paperwork to assist them with obtaining federal work authorization.

Starting this month, new arrivals initially will have access to an overnight congregate shelter for just a few days — rather than hotel rooms where, until now, families could stay for up to six weeks.

The shift comes as the flow of migrants on buses into Denver has slowed in recent months. Johnston portrays the new approach as prioritizing the quality of services offered over the number of people served, and he says it will significantly drive down the projected city budget shortfall in 2024 to just half of what was once estimated.

During a news conference Wednesday morning, Johnston estimated the new Denver Asylum-Seeker Program, along with all other migrant response spending, will cost just shy of $90 million this year. The sources to cover $44 million of that already have been identified.

The remaining $45.9 million would be made up from a package of cuts the administration plans to bring to the City Council for consideration this month. It would include nearly $20 million saved by not filling some open city positions and nearly $10 million saved this year by deferring capital projects, among other trims.

Johnston emphasized that core public services would be preserved.

The current budget projection is a far cry from the $180 million hole the administration warned the city could fall into during the earliest days of this year, based on worst-case-scenario projections. Most city departments will now face budget cuts in the range of 2-4%, not 10-15%.

That was the forecast in early January, when the city was sheltering upwards of 5,000 migrants per night.

“Three months ago, we found ourselves stuck in the same trap, with continuous waves of newcomers, no federal support (and) challenges for access to work authorization,” Johnston said. “But we knew that serving our newcomers well could also mean serving the city well. That’s why today we are here to announce the next phase of this program that we think positions ourselves to serve the newcomers who arrived here best — and to serve the residents of this city best.”

It’s a pivot that soon will impact many Denver residents.

Previously enacted cuts in hours at recreation centers and at Department of Motor Vehicles offices, which have had rolling closures, will be reversed, Johnston said. Normal rec center hours will resume on June 7, and the city also will restore disrupted Denver Parks and Recreation programs and permitting.

The city still won’t be planting many flowerbeds at parks this season, administration officials said. The planting window has closed, though some parks will have blooms thanks to the efforts of volunteers.

Less short-term support, more intensive help for some

For newly arrived migrants in Denver, which has seen some of the heaviest numbers among U.S. cities that aren’t on the border, the new strategy comes with downsides for those who might have the expectation of short-term support.

The city has spent more than $68 million supporting the more than 40,000 migrants who arrived in the city since December 2022, many of them fleeing economic and social strife in Venezuela. A vast majority of that spending has been dedicated to providing shelter in hotel rooms at the cost of $90 or more each night.

Until now, the limit on stays was 14 days for single adults and 42 days for families with children.

The hotels, which gradually have been closed down, will be replaced by congregate shelters. Newly arrived people will get just two or three days to figure out their next move.

From there, if there is no capacity in the new asylum-seeker program, those migrants will have to leave the city’s overnight shelter, either to move in with family or friends locally or to continue on to another location with Denver’s support.

The administration has dispatched two Denver Human Services staff members to El Paso, Texas, many migrants’ first stop in the United States, to spread the word that longer hotel stays will no longer be offered, according to the mayor.

“They’re already talking to newcomers there, talking to nonprofit partners and others — because again, many folks came to Denver because they knew about a 42-day stay opportunity,” Johnston said.

He suggested the change could prompt some migrants to head elsewhere.

City officials cited a capacity in the Denver Asylum-Seeker Program of anywhere from 800 to 1,200 people. It will start with a cohort of all the people currently in the city’s hotel shelters, city officials said.

As of Wednesday morning, that number was 801 people, according to the city’s migrant dashboard.