Denver moved 277 migrants from an encampment into shelter — as 443 more arrived

Marcelo Gonzalez held tight to a folded yellow sticky note scribbled with the number 49, his only proof that he was promised a bed inside the shelter.

But on Thursday morning, a day after city crews began cleaning up a migrant encampment where he had slept for weeks, Gonzalez had no spot inside one of the three shelters where the city is busing Venezuelans who are homeless after making the journey from South America to Colorado.

There is no longer enough room for everyone. 

A Denver Human Services worker explained that the shelter was full and handed Gonzalez a print-out of a Google map to find the Rescue Mission, a downtown homeless shelter known for its neon “Jesus Saves” sign.

Denver Human Services officials said 277 people were moved indoors as the city Wednesday and Thursday cleaned up the encampment that had stretched multiple blocks near Speer Boulevard and Zuni Street in northwest Denver. In the same timespan, 443 more migrants arrived by bus from Texas and other states. 

The encampment, outside a Quality Inn, was filled with single people who had to move out of their hotel rooms after they had reached the city’s 14-day limit. The hotel is one of seven the Denver Department of Human Services is renting to house migrants, who are arriving at a pace of 100 to 200 people per day. 

City crews, who put a chain-link fence around the encampment to keep out reporters and the public, crunched up tents and scooped left-behind clothing and furniture off the street and into trash bins. A mattress lay on 27th Avenue, and noodle cups and trash blew around in the bitter-cold wind. 

Buses took people from the encampment to one of three shelters: a church gym, a city building lined with mats and a hotel in another part of town. But as migrants were moved off the street, another bus arrived at the hotel-shelter in the middle of the night to drop off more people fleeing political turmoil and poverty in Venezuela. They filled the lobby of the Quality Inn, then boarded a bus for the city’s migrant processing center, where they can receive hotel assignments or one-way bus tickets to other destinations. 

Gonzalez, 26, didn’t get a bus ride from the encampment to the shelter inside a city building  downtown (human services officials have asked the media to keep the location secret for safety reasons). Instead, he walked the 2.5 miles, then stood outside the door and begged for spots for himself, his pregnant wife and 7-year-old daughter. 

Gonzalez, who said he slept outside the Quality Inn for about two months, said he was given No. 49 for a spot in the city shelter. But he missed the bus because his wife was hospitalized due to complications with her pregnancy. 

“We are not asking them to give us money. We are not asking them to give us anything,” he said in Spanish as he stood outside the city shelter. “We want work, and at least right now, we want them to let us in because snow is going to fall on the street.”

We left our country for a better future for our family. We are not from here. But we are not animals either.

— Marcelo Gonzalez, migrant from Venezuela

In a tense conversation with a Denver Human Services worker, Gonzalez begged for a spot. 

“What are you waiting for?” he asked. “To let one of us die of hypothermia? We left our country for a better future for our family. We are not from here. But we are not animals either.”

Diebye Curvelo, 24, his face covered in a fleece ski mask on a chilly, cloudy morning, was also begging for a mat in the city’s shelter near Civic Center park. Curvelo said he felt dejected by the city’s suggestion that he return to the Denver Rescue Mission, where he had already been.

For two nights, Curvelo slept in a building that was under construction, but he was asked to leave and went to the Rescue Mission. He said the longtime homeless shelter felt dangerous and was filled with people who have mental illnesses. Then he met a church pastor who told him to try the city’s shelter. 

The shelter, however, is for people who were living on the street near Zuni and Speer. A sign on the door says “Sleeping area. 200 occupants.” Inside, green mats are lined in straight rows on two floors of the cavernous, historic building.

Dabiana Moreno Morón and her partner, Esneyder Camacaro, who were moved to the city shelter Wednesday, said their first month in Denver has been chaotic. They were given a city-funded hotel room, but said they were “kicked out to the street” and their luggage put outside after their 14-day limit. They asked for one extra day, explaining that they were having trouble finding work around Christmas, but they were denied, they said. So they moved into the encampment, where they were signed up for mats at the shelter. 

The city shelter where they are now staying has a 30-day limit, and Morón and Camacaro are hopeful they can find work and an apartment before they’re asked to leave. 

“We are going out to look for work,” said Camacaro, who previously built closets. “We don’t even have money for a work permit. Without the work permit, we can’t do anything. Some will pay you without a work permit, but there are so many of us who are all over the place.”

Mayor wants other cities to help out

Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, who claims his city has received more migrants per capita in the past year than any other across the country, again called on Congress to speed up the work permit process for migrants. Some migrants he has met do not have immigration hearings until 2029 — which will be six years after they asked for asylum after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. 

Johnston said he keeps having the same conversation each time he talks to a migrant in Denver: “Mr. Mayor, how can I find a job? I just need a job.” 

More than 36,300 migrants have come to Denver since December 2022, with an unknown number staying in Colorado and thousands moving on to other cities. 

“It’s a huge crisis that we have 300 who are unhoused here,” the mayor said Wednesday as he talked to reporters next to the encampment. But, he said that “99%” of migrants who decided to stay in Denver “have gotten connected to housing, gotten connected to work, and successfully integrated into the city.”

“That’s a remarkable feat for Denver. But going forward, the volume is getting more and more difficult for us to handle so we need to have other cities that can partner with us.” 

Of those who lived in the encampment, about 380 have completed applications for housing and 95 others have already found apartments to lease, he said. From now on, he said, people whose time is up in the hotel will not be allowed to camp outside in front of it, and the city is working to find housing options earlier so people don’t get kicked out without a place to sleep. 

“This wasn’t safe for the folks living in the encampment,” Johnston said. “It wasn’t safe for the surrounding neighborhood. We can’t have this be a permanent solution.”

The work to house migrants is in addition to the mayor’s goal to shelter 1,000 people by the end of 2023, which his office said it accomplished in the final hours of the year. Critics, however, complain that many of the people were not “housed” but only temporarily moved to hotels or tiny homes.

The city has spent $34 million so far setting up emergency shelters for migrants, including renting rooms in seven hotels. The number of people in hotels surpassed 4,400 this week, the highest yet during the yearlong influx.

Colorado Sun photographer Olivia Sun contributed to this report.