Friday, March 29, 2024 -
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In Denver: the slow 
road home

Not only was it long overdue but it took nearly a year, once passed, to finalize the deal. But at long last, Denver City Council has completed the purchase of a former hotel that will be revamped into housing for the homeless.

We have critiqued the city time and again for not doing enough to address homelessness and the underlying reasons for it.

So kudos are in order when the city takes a significant step in not only providing temporary housing, but purchasing a building with the aim to transform it into stable housing with support staff that will be trained to provide social care, in the form of therapy and counselling, along with the nursing care that is essential to providing medical care, including treatment for mental illness and substance abuse.

We have long pushed for some of the many former hotels and motels sitting vacant in Denver to be repurposed in such a way. It is only a shame that we will have to wait another 11 months for this facility, on East 38th and Peoria, to start housing people. We hope that the city council, seeing that such a process, from inception to completion, takes nearly three years to achieve, will immediately begin securing other such properties for such purposes.

Copyright © 2023 by the Intermountain Jewish News




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