Doors are now open at a new hybrid health care and housing facility, expected to help some 500 people experiencing homelessness each year recuperate after being discharged from a hospital. The new facility also includes 98 units of affordable and supportive housing.

Cathy Alderman, chief communications and public policy officer of the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, the project's developer, said there are more than 10,000 people experiencing homelessness on any given night in Denver.

"Providing 98 units of supportive housing is kind of a drop in the bucket," Alderman acknowledged. "It's still desperately needed, and it's one step closer to resolving homelessness for those individuals."

By late 2022, the Recuperative Care Center will provide 75 medical respite beds for people experiencing homelessness who, if housed, would be sent home, but who cannot be safely discharged to the streets or shelters not equipped to deal with medical needs.

Alderman pointed out Denver's "housing first" initiative -- targeting chronically homeless individuals who were high users of expensive services such as jail, detox and emergency rooms -- has demonstrated costs can be cut in half by providing housing and supportive services.

"And so through these units of housing and through this recuperative-care model, we'll be saving the city, and the hospital systems in our area, money that they would otherwise spend on emergency health care services," Alderman outlined.

Michael Hancock, mayor of Denver, hailed the project as "a beacon of opportunity for our unhoused neighbors for decades to come." The mayor also presented outgoing coalition founder John Parvensky with the city coin, the highest honor available, for people who make extraordinary differences in the Denver community.

Alderman contended any time you can use costly city land for multiple purposes, the community benefits.

"By building the recuperative care site with new market tax credits, and then building supportive housing above it with low-income housing tax credits, we're really getting the benefit of both housing and the provision of health care, instead of doing just one or the other," Alderman noted.

Once homeless and suffering from addictions himself, Joplin's mayor now leads a crusade to help others overcome the same hardships.

About 53,000 people live in Joplin, where a 2023 study found more than 600 individuals experienced homelessness, largely driven by the effects of the 2020 pandemic, high housing costs and mental health challenges.

Keenan Cortez, mayor of Joplin, has partnered with shelters and local nonprofits to offer support in response, which includes access to recovery services, job training and housing initiatives. Cortez said faith and determination led him from living on the streets to similar programs.

"I just got on my knees and I said, 'Help me,'" Cortez recounted. "I was able to get into a drug and alcohol treatment plan and then being able to be exposed to 12-step programs that, to this date, have been able to help me maintain my sobriety."

Between 2018 and 2023, homelessness in Missouri rose by about 22.8%.

Cortez expressed his excitement about partnering with Vita Nova Village, a Joplin nonprofit building affordable tiny homes. He emphasized the initiative will provide more than just a roof over people's heads. It will offer essential training and resources to help people address the root causes of their challenges and work toward stability.

"Do they need specific training so that they can get into a career that will offer them income?" Cortez asked. "Do they need mental health services, or do they need simple health services, so they can get healthy enough to get back into the workforce?"

Cortez added the city has recently approved a parcel of land so Vita Nova Village can purchase inexpensively from the city and the nonprofit has also raised money to begin building the tiny homes.


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Denver's homeless population hit an all-time high in 2024 but there is actually no shortage of available housing units, according to a new report.

Omar Ocampo, researcher at the Institute for Policy Studies and the report's co-author, said much of the housing built over the past two decades is not homes for people. Those units, many of which remain vacant, are being used by hedge funds and the wealthy as a safe and profitable place to park large sums of untaxed wealth.

"We have seen, over the past decade or so, a boom in luxury real estate," Ocampo observed. "Basically, the only people who can afford it are people who are ultrahigh net worth, or at the top of the income distribution."

The report showed how corporations and wealthy investors from across the globe have amassed large tracts of single and multifamily residential units since the housing market crash in 2008. The scale of the purchases has put upward pressure on prices, causing rents to skyrocket and putting homeownership out of reach for millions.

There are 16 million vacant homes across the U.S., which means there are 28 homes for every American experiencing homelessness.

Developers can apply for tax incentives to build affordable housing but the profit margins for luxury units are simply too large for all but nonprofit builders to resist. Ocampo pointed to the Homes Act, recently introduced in the U.S. House, as one way to turn things around for the vast majority of Americans who cannot afford what the marketplace is building.

"We need public investment and to establish a housing development authority, which authorizes hundreds of billions of dollars to develop permanently affordable housing," Ocampo contended

Corporations have also increased their earnings by converting rental stock into short-term vacation homes. Ocampo noted a shareholder report by executives at Blackstone, which now owns more than 300,000 residential units across the U.S., promising profits as rental stock went down.

"Chronic housing shortages meant their ability to raise prices and be able to extract more wealth from vulnerable working-class tenants," Ocampo added.


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A package of New York City bills can help preserve affordable housing.

The Community Land Act creates more pathways for communities to purchase and control land. Two of the bills would allow nonprofits and community land trusts to make a first offer on any multifamily property or public land up for sale.

Will Spisak, senior program associate for the nonprofit New Economy Project, said the bills help build community wealth and let people have control over their neighborhood's future.

"Renters are no longer kind of at the mercy of these slumlords that often neglect the building, extract wealth from the community, and don't reinvest in the living conditions of those properties," Spisak explained. "It creates a way for people to be directly involved in controlling their housing situation."

He added it also creates opportunities to develop permanent affordable housing. Some real estate developers and investors are opposed to the bills, primarily about the transparency measures of the legislation. Spisak countered tenants are tired of not being in control of their housing and feedback for the bills has been overwhelmingly positive. The goal is to have the New York City Council pass the bills in 2025.

Although opposition from the real estate industry has thrown up some barriers, other challenges loom ahead. Spisak noted aside from public education to ensure people know about the measures, there is also the challenge of providing resources to groups looking to take advantage of the bills.

"We need them to be really efficient with how they get the money out to groups," Spisak pointed out. "As well as making sure community groups have access to other resources such as technical assistance professionals who can assist with doing appraisals, doing inspections, and things like that as well as financial resources."

Another element of the Community Land Act is a resolution saying the city supports the state's Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act, which could give tenants the first right to collectively buy their building if and when the landlord sells it. Although housing advocates support it, the bill failed in committee during the previous legislative session.