In a rare rejection of a mayor’s office proposal, the Denver City Council this week voted against renewing a contract with the Salvation Army over concerns the organization had failed to maintain safety at its homeless shelters.
Councilwoman Shontel Lewis referenced a double homicide and a recent alleged sexual assault by a Salvation Army employee when explaining her request to call out the contract — which was related to another program, not the shelters — for a separate vote.
“I have deep, deep concerns regarding the Salvation Army and their ability to keep folks safe within their care,” Lewis said during the meeting Monday. “I cannot, in good conscience, give the Salvation Army another dollar.”
After her comments, 10 of the 11 council members present voted against the nearly $3 million contract for services helping people find permanent housing. Councilman Kevin Flynn cast the only vote in support.
While the rejected contract wasn’t related to any of the nonprofit’s shelters, it could bode poorly for upcoming agreements with the organization, too. The Salvation Army operates five shelters in Denver, including three of the 11 shelters, including former hotels, that the city owns. There is a limited number of large organizations that offer services such as shelter operations, constraining the city’s options.
City officials hope to address the council’s concerns with the nonprofit group before it considers those shelter contracts, which serve about 1,500 homeless people, said Jon Ewing, a spokesperson for Mayor Mike Johnston’s office.
That could mean increasing the amount of monitoring and random drop-ins that city employees do at the sites.
“Accountability is critical to serving our community well, and we are actively working with council to address concerns and with the Salvation Army to ensure this never happens again,” Ewing said in an email.
A spokesperson for the Salvation Army called the council’s decision “surprising” and said the nonprofit hopes its members will reconsider the contract.
“The Salvation Army is pivoting and working on a contingency plan,” said Jennifer Forker. “We would love to work this out with the city and with (the Department of Housing Stability) to continue the contract.”
Through the “rapid rehousing” program, the organization helped 70 families find more permanent homes last year, Forker said.
Forker said the shelters have safety challenges only when extremely cold weather causes a surge in the number of people in them.
She added that the nonprofit is cooperating with the Denver Police Department’s investigation of Billy Johnson, 43, a Salvation Army employee who was recently charged with sexual assault after he was accused of attacking a resident of one of the shelters, according to 9News.
“The Salvation Army conducts background checks on job candidates offered employment consistent with federal and Colorado law,” she said. “This employee cleared the background check.”
The city and the Salvation Army said the contract rejection won’t force them to immediately cease the rapid rehousing program’s operation, but they have a limited runway to renew it.
This isn’t the first time the council has raised concerns about the contractors used in the All in Mile High Initiative. In January and February, Councilman Darrell Watson suggested he wanted the mayor’s office to consider other organizations beyond those most often used, like the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless.
“We need to have a strategic discussion on whether some of these large contracts are creating a too-big-to-fail situation,” he said during a Feb. 3 council meeting.
The mayor’s office brings contracts before the council every week, and they are often approved together as a block. While council members can call out individual contracts to delay or comment on them, it’s not typical for them to be rejected entirely.
Stay up-to-date with Colorado Politics by signing up for our weekly newsletter, The Spot.