Days after a report revealing homelessness spending in Denver is about $65 million over budget, Mayor Mike Johnston’s office announced he will travel to Paris to speak at the International Conference on Homelessness. 

Beginning Friday, Johnston will join leaders from around the world to discuss “innovative solutions to addressing homelessness” according to the mayor’s office. The conference, which is hosted by the mayor of Paris, convenes local leaders from around the world to discuss those solutions and share “best practices.” 

“Cementing Denver’s national and global leadership on addressing homelessness, Mayor Johnston will be a featured speaker during a plenary session highlighting local innovation on the issue,” the mayor’s office said in a news release. “He will speak to Denver’s All In Mile High model, which has successfully helped more than 1,600 Denverites get off the streets and into transitional housing in less than one year and connected more than 500 people to permanent housing.”

The press release did not include the trip’s potential cost to Denver taxpayers or who is accompanying the  mayor.

Johnston’s announcement comes on the heels of City Council and the public learning the true cost of Johnston’s efforts to tackle Denver’s homelessness crisis. During a presentation to a committee, staffers from the Department of Finance and the Department of Housing Stability confirmed the city is poised to spend $155 million in about 18 months. 

That equates to about $8.6 million per month. This is well above what the mayor said his campaign to curb homelessness would cost. In 2023, the city budgeted $45 million, followed by $39 million for 2024.  

The city’s spending is occurring amid an anticipated reduction in Denver’s sales tax revenue and an ongoing illegal immigration crisis that has cost the city $71 million so far. The Johnston administration estimated the illegal immigration crisis will cost taxpayers $90 million this year.

The spending worried two councilmembers at Monday’s meeting, when Amanda Sawyer and Stacie Gilmore voted against a $5 million contract for homeless services. Sawyer, who is particularly concerned that residents will have to give up programs given the potential revenue shortfall, said taxpayers don’t care about where the funding source is — they care about the final costs. 

“(Residents) know we have two huge programs that we are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on while they aren’t getting their street paved or their trash picked up on time,” she earlier said. “While we can think of the dollars in these programs in silos, that’s not the way our residents feel.” 

A previous report by The Denver Gazette shows that, broadly speaking, metro Denver area officials successfully found permanent housing solutions for only 21% of those exiting homeless programs in 2022, well below the 33% rate that was the average that year for the 48 most populated metro regions, according to federal data.