Denver has been slapped with a lawsuit by a local housing advocacy group that alleges the city has denied the use of homeless shelters and services to people with disabilities.
The suit, filed Tuesday on behalf of Housekeys Action Network Denver, says Denver violated state and federal disability laws by not providing relevant services to people with disabilities at contracted shelters. Allegations include inadequate wheelchair access and staff confiscations of medical supplies.
The lawsuit’s six plaintiffs argue that they were not only left homeless but also suffered medical complications and weren’t compensated for their lost property.
“Shelters continually treat people with disabilities as an extra burden they shouldn’t have to deal with and do not give accommodations for their disabilities,” HAND’s Terese Howard said in a Wednesday news release. “It is the shelter’s purpose to provide shelter for those in need, yet disabled houseless people who are particularly vulnerable are continually kicked to the streets in extreme weather and other dangers.”
Jordan Fuja, a spokesperson for Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, directed a request for comment to the city’s Department of Housing Stability.
“The City and County of Denver is always working to improve the shelter system and meet the needs of our unhoused neighbors,” said spokesperson Julia Marvin. She directed further questions to the City Attorney’s Office.
On Wednesday, about a dozen people gathered in front of the Denver City and County Building downtown for a press conference in the early afternoon. Speakers included the plaintiffs, organizers from HAND and their representation — Disability Law United, the law office Newman McNulty and Brooklyn Law School’s Disability and Civil Rights Clinic.
They listed several shelters that they claimed were guilty of discrimination, including the Denver Rescue Mission, the Salvation Army Crossroads Center, the 48th Avenue Women’s Shelter and tiny home villages. Several are operated by nonprofit providers, at times through city contracts.
Ana Miller, an organizer at HAND, shared her experience as someone who has experienced homelessness, saying some shelters are infested with pests.
“My own brother has had to sleep in the streets in his wheelchair in the snow, in extreme cold, due to curfew at 8 p.m.,” Miller said, her voice shaking with emotion.
The lawsuit is the latest of many to challenge Denver’s homelessness reduction strategies over the last decade. Johnston, since taking office in mid-2023, has made moving people off the streets a priority, resulting in the addition of several hotels and tiny homes in micro-communities to the network of shelters provided by the city and its partners.
Anecdotes cited throughout the new lawsuit included a plaintiff’s claim that, in order to move around shelters lacking elevators and ramps, he had to crawl on the stairs.
Another plaintiff, Mindy Polson, alleged that shelter team members took the scissors needed for her colostomy bag and threw away her related doctor’s note, so she resorted to using nail clippers to change it. She said she was hospitalized for infection and pain as her colostomy bag filled with blood.
She alleges that she was later expelled from the shelter for being physically incapable of picking up her sleeping area; back on the streets, the colostomy bag froze to her skin.
“I managed not to get frostbite and survived, but I don’t want anyone to be treated this way again,” Polson said Wednesday. “I don’t want disabled people to suffer and die.”
Plaintiff Christopher Haworth alleged that his wheelchair was relocated without his permission in late 2022 at the Denver Rescue Mission’s Lawrence Street Community Center, further restricting his movement. He was born with cerebral palsy.
“It is my only form of mobility,” Haworth said on Wednesday. “The staff said it was in the way of people walking to the beds. And it took me almost an hour until I got somebody to pay attention and help me.”
HAND said it communicated these problems to Denver officials, but they went unresolved, even after an October proposal by the nonprofit to work with the city on a new process.
The group says it had to step in and book hotel rooms for unsheltered people with disabilities. At the time of the news conference, Howard didn’t provide a specific figure for how much the nonprofit had spent over the last three years.
“While the mayor raced to house 1,000 people for the cameras, he was ignoring the pleas of Denver’s disabled houseless residents who were repeatedly being forced out of shelters and onto the streets simply because of their disabilities,” lawyer Andy McNulty said in a statement.
“Denver’s repeated refusal to provide our houseless and disabled neighbors with shelter because of their disabilities not only violates the law; it runs counter to basic human decency.”
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