Denver continues to make progress with downtown improvement projects, like the 16th Street Mall renovation, but Mayor Mike Johnston told a room full of business leaders Wednesday his “first priority” remains solving the city’s homelessness issue. 

Alongside Downtown Denver Partnership CEO Kourtny Garrett, Johnston talked about future city improvements during the Partnership’s 23rd Annual Meeting at the Paramount Theatre.

Downtown developments range from building projects, park landscaping, Speer Boulevard developments, Skyline Park improvements, and the $150 million investment into a revitalized 16th Street Mall — all mentioned briefly at Wednesday’s meeting.

But with these developments comes the nagging problems of homelessness and public safety issues, Johnston said.

“We do believe that the activation of downtown, the resurgence … does start with a focus on addressing homelessness as a first priority and addressing public safety as a second priority,” Johnston said.

The mayor pointed to his three homeless encampment sweeps so far since he’s been in office, citing the strategy of “getting people off the streets and into housing,” he said.

The 8th Avenue and Logan Street sweep, which occurred Tuesday, housed 88 homeless people, according to Johnston.

Assuming 88 were housed, that would be just over 83% of what Johnston has accomplished in his first 71 days in-office towards his 1,000-homeless-housed pledge. A reported 106 homeless people were already housed as of Wednesday, according to a city-made homeless housing dashboard.

The mayor vowed on July 18, his first day in office, to house 1,000 homeless people by year’s end.

The seven-county metro Denver region saw a 32% jump in homelessness this year, based on the Metro Denver Homeless Initiative count. Point-in-time counts are estimates taken on a single night and are understood as undercounting the true scale of homelessness in a community.

As of Jan. 30, the region had 9,065 homeless people, compared to 6,884 the year before. The time-in-point count is an annual, unduplicated survey of people who are literally homeless on a single night in January of each year.

Between 2022 and 2023, the number of “unsheltered” people — those who specifically sleep in public places, such as on the street, in tents or in cars — grew by 33%, from 2,078 to 2,763.

The city has poured significant resources into reducing homelessness, spending $152 million in 2022 and, at the time, authorizing $254 million to address the problem in 2023.

Johnston allocated up to $52 million to combat homelessness throughout the rest of 2023. The city looks to potentially spend $242 million in 2024 to combat homelessness, according to the proposed 2024 budget.

Johnston previously laid out plans to revitalize downtown by earmarking $58 million from his proposed $1.74 billion 2024 budget towards that goal.

Despite money being spent on homeless initiatives, the city is also looking forward to finishing some other downtown developments — particularly the $150 million 16th Street Mall renovation project.

“No other downtowns can say they have that magnitude of an investment in a public space,” Garrett said Wednesday.

The 16th Street Mall project will create wider sidewalks, a new “amenity zone” and center-running free mall ride shuttle services, according to the Regional Transportation District.

The project will also allow more space for new entertainment, restaurants, and the transportation services into what is seen as downtown staple.

“This is the anchor of Denver,” Garrett said of 16th Street. “Infusing the new vision and new entertainment within 16th is one of our number one priorities.”