AURORA, Colo. — Denver Mayor Mike Johnston says the city is out of space to house migrants, so the city is setting them up in Aurora's long-term hotels. At the same time, Denver is closing a hotel shelter used to house migrants arriving in Colorado and instead converting it into a shelter to house people experiencing homelessness.
The Radisson Hotel in Denver will soon switch over from being a migrant shelter to being a homeless shelter. It will become part of Johnston's House1000 plan to get 1,000 people off the streets and into housing by the end of the year.
On Thanksgiving, Denver leased rooms at the Quality Inn in Aurora to house 400 migrants who arrived in Colorado on a bus sent by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, according to Johnston. People like Joe Sauceda, who'd lived at the Quality Inn for nearly a year, were kicked out of the hotel to make room for the migrants.
"The housing cost is so high it’s hard for us to find a place to live because it’s so expensive," Sauceda told 9NEWS on Monday. "Our family, we’ve been sleeping in the car for a couple of days."
On Tuesday, a day after the initial 9NEWS story ran, the City of Denver said it called the hotel manager and told them to allow everyone who was kicked out back in. Sauceda says he was told he's allowed to move back into the hotel and will get a week free there.
"When we have to have 300 units in 24 hours, we have to look wherever we can to add our next set of units. We’ll reach out to hotel partners across the metro area. We were delighted to find a partner in Aurora that was available to offer us rooms," said Johnston in an interview with 9NEWS on Tuesday. "We’re really grateful to Mayor Coffman, the county commissioners there for being open to being partners on this project. We brought those rooms on to be able to house people immediately. They were great partners on this project."
While Denver doesn’t technically need Aurora’s cooperation to rent rooms from a private hotel, it doesn’t sound like Aurora is on board with the plan like Johnston says.
Johnston said he spoke with Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman and county commissioners about the decision. He admitted city councilmembers may not have been told about the plan.
Republican City Councilwoman Danielle Jurinsky told 9NEWS she was never informed that Denver was sending migrants to her city.
"Maybe talk to the city council," Jurinsky said. "Maybe talk to the entire governing body, because I can tell you none of my colleagues knew about this either. None of them."
Republican Councilman Curtis Gardner also said he was never told about the plan to send 400 migrants to Aurora. He says Johnston is making Aurora deal with Denver’s problems.
"Playing games like this with people’s lives makes it really hard to trust other jurisdictions and gain that regional cooperation," Gardner said.
Even an official statement from the City of Aurora refuted Johnston’s claim that the city is a willing participant.
“Denver’s decision to transport migrants to a privately owned hotel in Aurora was Denver’s decision alone. While Denver provided a general heads up to Aurora about this possibility over the last several weeks, they have not communicated how they will provide resources to the migrants,” the statement read.
"When we have this emergency and you get 300 or 600 people in two or three days, we have to bring on units as fast as we can where they’re available. We go to those units wherever they’re available. We’re thankful for their partnership," Johnston said.
Johnston has pledged that none of the migrants in the Radisson hotel shelter that is closing down will be sent to Aurora unless they want to.
Still, Jurinsky wondered what will happen to the 400 migrants at the Quality Inn after they are kicked out of the shelter after 14 days if they are there alone without kids.
"He’s not fixing the homeless problem and now the migrant problem. He’s adding to it. He is creating homeless people. Maybe he doesn’t care because he’s creating homeless people in Aurora, not Denver. But I care very much," Jurinsky said. "Those same buses that dropped these migrants off, are they coming back in 14 days? Are they coming back to pick them up? Or is this going to be 400 migrants homeless in Aurora on top off whatever families were thrown out to begin with out of the Quality Inn?"
Gardner noted that housing the homeless at the Radisson hotel in Denver would get Johnston closer to hitting his goal of housing 1000 people by the end of the year. Housing migrants there would not help that goal.
"To address one problem and create another problem, you’re really just shuffling people around at that point and playing games with people’s lives," Gardner said.
Johnston called it a better long-term use of the hotel.
"The numbers were decreasing at that site and so we were looking at a better long term potential use," Johnston said. "That owner and we were interested in converting it into a site for unhoused neighbors going forward."
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