A month after coming together to unanimously approve the final contracts that supported Mayor Mike Johnston’s House 1,000 initiative, a divided Denver City Council dug in its heels on Monday on a bill that — for now at least — will prohibit some city agencies from clearing homeless encampments during freezing weather.
The measure, which has been commonly referred to as the freezing sweeps bill, passed 7-6 on Monday afternoon. That’s two votes shy of the nine-vote supermajority needed to protect legislation from being overturned by a mayoral veto.
Councilman Darrell Watson implored Johnston to do just that during his comments in the council chamber. His district is home to neighborhoods like Curtis Park that for years have struggled with large encampments on sidewalks and side lawns.
The legislation has been in the works for months with ongoing negotiations between administration officials and the council members sponsoring it.
As written, the measure prohibits officials with the Denver Department of Public Health and Environment, the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure and the Denver Police Department from scheduling encampment sweeps if the weather forecast calls for temperatures to be 32 degrees or lower at the time that action would be carried out. Officials must check the forecast two days in advance, per the bill language.
Pointing to testimony from medical professionals about the heightened risks of hypothermia and frostbite to people who are displaced during cold weather, supporters described the restriction as a commonsense way to make enforcement more humane.
“There’s kindness and humanity in delaying a relocation a few days until the temperature is not life-threatening,” Councilwoman Shontel Lewis, one of the bill’s co-sponsors, said Monday. She emphasized the restrictions do not mean encampments will be allowed to stay in place for weeks or even months at a time during Denver’s winter months.
“It’s simply a pause to what we are talking about,” she said.
Opponents took the opposite view. At a time when Denver, spurred by Johnston’s massive expansion of the city’s non-congregate homeless shelter system, is seeing success in moving people from encampments into at least temporary shelters, putting new restrictions on when agencies can enforce the camping ban will mean more people living in unsafe conditions, they argued.
“It is still my preference that we rely on our public health experts and our safety experts to make these calls,” Councilman Kevin Flynn said. “The North Star to which all of our policies surrounding homelessness should be pointing to is that which helps people get indoors.”
Andy Phelps, Johnston’s director of encampment response, credited some of the administration’s strong success moving people from encampments into converted hotel shelters last year to the fact that those shelter offers were backed by camping ban enforcement. He called the cold weather limits a “dangerous experiment.”
Bill co-sponsor Sarah Parady introduced an amendment on Monday to provide more leeway for city agencies to carry out sweeps. In part, the amendment shrank the window when a forecast could deter an enforcement action to just the time when the sweep is scheduled to take place. The earliest iterations of the bill would have banned sweeps if the weather was predicted to drop below freezing for as long as four hours after the sweep was expected to end. The amendment also clarified language in the bill that empowers city officials to override the cold-weather ban if they provided a written rationale for a more pressing health or safety risk in an encampment.
That was not enough to convince Flynn, Watson and Councilmembers Amanda Sawyer, Diana Romero Campbell, Flor Alvidrez and Chris Hinds, who all voted no.
Asked Monday if the mayor was considering vetoing the bill, Johnston spokeswoman Jordan Fuja did not rule it out. Johnston’s priority is Denverites’ safety, she said.
“We know that cold temperatures pose a serious danger to people living outdoors and this proposal will limit the actions the can take to keep people safe,” Fuja wrote in a text message. “He will make a decision on the bill in the coming days.”
Homeless advocates rallied in front of the city hall Monday in favor of the bill and packed the council chamber during the debate. One group, Housekeys Action Network Denver, has shared a video of Johnston committing to stopping sweeps when temperatures are below freezing at a debate when he was running for mayor last year.
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Updated Jan 29, 2024 at 9:34 p.m. This story was updated to clarify that the bill already included language empowering city agencies to override the freezing weather ban for compelling health or safety reasons. The language granting agencies that power was updated via an amendment to the bill on Monday night.
