A 62-year-old Denver man’s journey from home, to homeless, to a new apartment

Ronnie Hoover was snacking on cheese and crackers, watching the detective drama “In the Heat of the Night” on his very own couch. 

He had 2-inch-thick pork chops in the refrigerator, fresh spices he picked up at the grocery store, and a plan to make stuffed chops, in his very own kitchen.

For the moment, though, he was still letting it all sink in. 

It was only a few days ago that Hoover, 62, was living in a tiny home on a pallet in one of Denver’s Safe Outdoor Spaces for people who are homeless, fighting off the January cold with a space heater. Before that, he was in a tent, which was a step up from the men’s shelter that was so rough he had to stay on his “A-game” at all times. 

The lifelong chef, who began as an apprentice at the now-closed Writers’ Manor Luxury Hotel and had a long career in Denver restaurants, was homeless for more than two years after he lost his job during the pandemic. A series of heart and kidney problems kept him returning to the hospital, and for a time, Hoover could not walk after spending a month in a hospital bed.

Now, though, he is living at the new St. Francis Apartments West, in one of 60 units built for homeless adults older than 55 who have disabling health conditions. 

“I’m still kind of in shock that this is really happening,” said Hoover, who was one of the first tenants to move in last week. “Putting a key in your own door and opening it up, and there’s your own refrigerator and stove, your bed and your bathroom. It’s a huge bathroom. 

“It’s such a beautiful feeling.” 

“Not asking for anything”

Hoover has lived on the same ground before. But last time, he was in a tent.

St. Francis Center, which for four decades has operated a day shelter with showers and lockers in downtown Denver, built the new apartment complex on land that previously held one of the city-sanctioned tent communities for the homeless. St. Francis bought the land at West Second Avenue and Federal Boulevard in 2022, first setting up a Safe Outdoor Space and then building the apartment complex. Hoover lived in one of those tents until the site was vacated to make way for construction. 

Hoover’s financial condition took a dive when he lost his job as a grill chef at the restaurant inside Porter Hospital. When the pandemic hit, food service was scaled back and about half of the employees lost their jobs, he said. He found a job at Blackjack Pizza, traveling between four restaurants to chop pizza toppings and prepare fresh salads. He delivered pizzas, too. 

LEFT: People watch as Ronnie Hoover packs up his belongings from his pallet shelter at the Safe Outdoor Space managed by Colorado Village Collaborative. RIGHT: A man walks past tents at the Safe Outdoor Space on Jan. 13, 2025. The outdoor shelter closed and moved the residents to a micro-community with hard-sided buildings. (Michael Ciaglo, Special to The Colorado Sun)

Hoover moved in with his daughter and her family and was getting by — until his heart and kidneys started to fail. He spent 30 days in a hospital bed, and by the time he was well enough to go home, he could hardly walk, even with a walker. 

“I had to get on a blanket, and they would drag me to the toilet and help me get on the toilet, and just drag me back,” he said. “That was rough. After a while, I started getting onto a walker, and I was wobbling and struggling.”

Hoover was behind on his bills and sold his Dodge pickup truck to his daughter because he needed the cash, and it was too high off the ground for him anyway. Physical therapists visited him at his daughter’s house to help him get stronger, but Hoover felt like a burden. The house was full and he felt like he was in the way. 

“I’m no small person, you know, and the kids, God bless them,” he said. “Even my grandbabies were like, ‘Did you take your medicine, Grandpa?’ It just got to be too much.” 

That’s when Hoover walked into the Denver Rescue Mission, next to the neon pink cross that says “Jesus Saves.” They gave him a bed at the Salvation Army Crossroads shelter, north of downtown, but Hoover didn’t feel like he belonged there, either. The men were rough; he was uncomfortable.

When Hoover met an older man who was also homeless, and learned the man was living in a tent facility, Hoover asked him to take him there. Hoover soon met a caseworker from St. Francis, and moved out of the men’s shelter and into tent No. 33. 

When Hoover was well enough, he worked odd jobs, including as a parking attendant at the National Western Stock Show. But his health problems kept sending him to the hospital. 

Living in the tent was hard with his health struggles, but Hoover was grateful for the staff and volunteers who tried to help, he said. They brought in heated blankets, sleeping bags — “whatever you needed to stay warm, they had it,” he said. They were well fed, with nightly dinners carried into the tent town from Panda Express or Golden Corral, and even a family from the neighborhood who put on a smoked pork barbecue and volunteers who poured in with cornbread and beans. 

“That’s where I got blown away, because I got to see this side,” said Hoover, starting to cry as he sat near his pallet shelter on the day he moved out of the camp. “I was already on the other side, you know, the working man. But when I came here, that’s when I really saw the hand of God working in these people’s lives, and it was such a beautiful thing to see the people on their own time, working people, taking the time just to make lunch for me, not asking for anything.”

“It was a Ronnie and God thing”

On the day Hoover moved out of his tiny house on a pallet, he wondered whether his years being homeless were meant to happen. The struggles of the past few years were a part of his life’s journey, proof that he could make it through hard times and not lose his faith. 

“I had to do it,” he said. “It was a Ronnie and God thing. I had to prove to myself that I could do this. Even though I had a lot of support from my family, and they wanted me to move back, I didn’t.” 

Hoover, wearing sweats and a sweatshirt, had packed up his belongings into a few cardboard boxes and used duct tape to close the door of the tiny refrigerator that his daughter had brought to the camp. He still had a handwritten list of channels taped to the wall so he could find what he wanted to watch on the television that sat between the refrigerator and the bed in his tiny home. 

The entire camp, the last of Denver’s Safe Outdoor Spaces operated by the Colorado Village Collaborative, is packing up. The camps opened because of the pandemic, an alternative to crowded, indoor shelters where people sleep in rows. Most of the residents were headed to a “micro-community” on Steele Street, a village of manufactured homes. 

Garbage bags and boxes were loaded into the backs of trucks. A cat in a cage was meowing loudly. Residents were dismantling the blue-and-white all-weather tents lined in rows. 

Hoover, walking slowly in cushioned sports sandals, carried small boxes and sacks out of his pallet home, one of a few white, box-shapped manufactured houses in the camp. Site manager Zachary Hall used a dolly to haul the appliances and boxes of food and clothes that were too much for Hoover to manage.

In his two years in camps, Hoover spent his days watching television or listening to gospel or blues. When he felt depressed, he prayed. His family picked him up sometimes and took him to the grocery store or to church on Sundays. They washed his laundry and brought it back. Hoover made some friends, but that was hard. 

“Most of these people that’s out here, they’re on survivor mode,” he said. “They’re actually going out there every day, coming back with the little junk pile, separating it, going to the recycle place. It’s a lot of struggle, a lot of mental health things that goes on around here. I pray for them, ‘Please bring their families back. Please bring their daughters, their sons, their mom, their dad, their aunties, their nieces, their nephews, their uncles, bring them back into their lives.’” 

Hoover was one of the few leaving the camp for an apartment. He met the criteria because he’s an older person, and because he has health problems and has dealt with mental health and substance abuse struggles. His go-to was a shooter of liquor and a 24-ounce beer, but he’s not drinking now and doesn’t miss it, he said. Hoover cried several times as he talked about what he’d been through. 

But he was ready to leave. 

Hoover dreamed of taking a hot shower in his own bathroom, instead of walking in the cold to the shower trailer parked on the other side of the camp. He also began to daydream about what he could whip up while standing in front of his own stove.

“I love a nice Bolognese, and especially when you have those fresh carrots in it, garlic, a touch of rosemary and oregano,” he said. “Oh my gosh, a touch of pepper, sea salt. And ground veal, ground beef and good ground pork goes into it. Some good olive oil. Some nice Italian bread.”

“Time to start a new journey”

Ronnie’s daughter brought him a pot of green chili and beans soon after he moved into his new apartment. He went shopping for spices, meat and bread, and as the temperature in Denver dipped into negative degrees, he relaxed on his couch. That first hot shower was the best. 

New neighbors are trickling in, a handful each day. 

St. Francis Center now has 220 apartment units and four apartment complexes, part of its mission to house older adults with disabling health conditions. The nonprofit, part of the Episcopal Diocese of Colorado, financed the new, $25 million complex with a federal low-income housing tax credit, loans, grants and housing subsidies from the city and state. 

Residents, who get help with medical and mental health care, nutrition and exercise, pay 30% of their income in rent, while the rest comes from federal HUD vouchers. Residents can live there for the rest of their lives if they want. 

For Hoover, the new home on the west side of Denver is about 5 miles from where he was born at Presbyterian St. Luke’s Hospital. His recent good fortune, he said, prompted him to relive many of the memories of a life spent in Denver. 

Hoover grew up with his parents and three brothers in Park Hill, and in the 1970s, was bused out of his neighborhood to a new elementary school when Denver was forced under court order to desegregate. He went to George Washington High School, where he ran track and played basketball and football. Two of his brothers joined the military, and Hoover almost followed, but his brothers talked him out of it and he decided instead to become a chef.

He was married to an “outstanding woman” for more than a dozen years and had five daughters and one son. Hoover and his wife divorced years ago, but they still talk and she reminds him of family birthdays. He has 10 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. “We didn’t have to invite people over to our house,” he said, laughing as he recalled how full his life was. “I mean, they came with their husbands and stuff, but our house is full, and it’s that way to this day.”

Hoover quickly shifts from laughing to crying. The new apartment stirs up his emotions and he can’t stop the flow of tears. He closes his eyes in the middle of his story and starts to pray. 

“Thank you, Jesus, for everybody that God has put in my life to help me through this journey I’ve been through,” he said. “It’s just been a long journey, and now it’s time to start a new journey. I’m very grateful. I’m very thankful.”