Mutual Aid Monday Has Served Denver’s Unhoused Community for Five Years. Now City Officials Want It Gone.
Denver is attempting to move a long-standing mutual aid protest that serves hundreds of unhoused people each week from the municipal government building.
Mutual Aid Monday, an activist group, has been providing food and supplies for people who are homeless in Denver for the last five years. The group sets up a makeshift distribution area at the municipal building every Monday, where people can receive a hot meal, clean water, food, clothes, and even a haircut on occasion.
The group began distributing goods and services to the unhoused community during the COVID-19 pandemic in protest of how the city was “failing to meet basic needs,” according to a statement the group shared.
“Our community continues to show up to provide food, supplies, and care that is necessary,” the group wrote. “While we do the work to keep our community fed, resourced, and connected, City leadership (including Mayor Mike Johnston and supporting officials) continues to create barriers instead of solutions. We are calling on the Mayor’s office to listen to people directly impacted and to stop creating further obstacles for communities seeking care.”
“Above all, we will continue to prioritize protecting our community,” the group added. “That means choosing spaces that are safe, accessible, and rooted in dignity; and pushing back when decisions put our people at risk.”
The statement followed recent requests from city leaders asking the group to move locations. Some of the proposed new sites include Civic Center Park, which is directly across the street from the municipal building, and a location near the Denver City Jail, which is about two city blocks west of the Civic Center.
Either location poses a significant risk to Mutual Aid Monday, activists told local news outlet Denverite. They worry that moving locations would require them to get a permit, which would give the city more leverage to shut down their distributions.
“What difference would a permit make?” Kimberly Miller, a volunteer with Mutual Aid Monday, told Denverite. “If we have a permit, then they own us. Then, if one thing goes sideways, they can kick us out. And we don’t want them to have that kind of control over us.”
When the City Built a Fence Instead of a Solution
Some of those worries came true over the Memorial Day weekend. Denver officials built a temporary chain-link fence around the front of the municipal building, forcing Mutual Aid Monday to set up across the street at Civic Center Park. In response, Denver Parks and Recreation deployed four park rangers to the site, one of whom wrote a $100 ticket to a Mutual Aid Monday volunteer for not moving their car fast enough while setting up the distribution.
Denver officials told Denverite that the Mutual Aid Monday protest has become “too big” and needs to be scaled back if it is going to continue at the municipal building.
“It’s gotten bigger,” John Ewing, a spokesperson for Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, told the outlet. “It’s gotten a little more out of hand. We’re trying to reel it back in to something we can all get behind.”
The Numbers Tell a Different Story Than City Hall
That battle is happening at a time when homelessness is growing across the Denver metro area. The Metro Denver Homeless Initiative’s latest State of Homelessness report showed that rates of homelessness for families with children, senior citizens, and youths have increased significantly. That’s despite Denver’s efforts to reduce visible homelessness through All In Mile High, a rapid rehousing program that was supported by federal pandemic aid dollars.
Denver has claimed its efforts through All In Mile High helped reduce homelessness in the city by about 45%, a claim that is belied by recent snapshot data. While there may be fewer encampments and RVs in downtown, rates of homelessness are still growing for several groups.
Over the last year, family homelessness increased by 6%, and now represent 37.6% of all persons served by homeless services and 69% of homelessness prevention programs, according to the report. Youth homelessness increased by 10.3%, and hundreds of senior citizens became homeless as well, according to the report.
Denver Isn’t the Only City Pushing Back Against People Who Help
The tension between Mutual Aid Monday and Denver officials also speaks to the growing animosity between groups that help homeless people and the broader community.
In Tulsa, four members of the local Food Not Bombs group, which hosts weekly food distributions like Mutual Aid Monday, were arrested after failing to obtain a permit to continue their operations. The members were arrested for allegedly obstructing a police officer and for lacking a special event permit. One of the members claimed officers told them they were sent by the mayor’s office to break up the distribution, according to a report by NonDoc.
A spokesperson for Tulsa Mayor Monroe Nichols claimed that they told Food Not Bombs “at least 20 times” about the permitting requirement.
Meanwhile, protests continue to pile up against new homeless shelters and other means of helping homeless people get off the street. In Staten Island, New York, community members told the local Community Board that they plan to protest the construction of a new family shelter, Staten Island Live reported. The four-story building plans to serve about 100 families, mostly women and children.
Midland Beach Civic Association Co-President Sal Monforte called on local officials to kill the planned shelter project and instead return the site to its former glory as a senior housing complex.
“You don’t belong in our community anymore. You’re not a good neighbor,” Monforte said of the people who would live in the shelter. “I can tell you right now, on July 1, if the shelter opens, the protest will start.”
How You Can Help
Now is not the time to be silent about homelessness in the U.S. or anywhere else. Unhoused people deserve safe and sanitary housing just as much as those who can afford rent or a mortgage.
Poverty and homelessness are both policy choices, not personal failures. That’s why we need you to contact your officials and tell them you support legislation that:
- Streamlines the development of affordable housing
- Reduces barriers for people experiencing homelessness to enter permanent housing
- Bolsters government response to homelessness
Together, we can end homelessness.
