The city of Denver, Colorado has asked landords to start renting to illegal immigrants, Denverite reports.

A crowd of migrants gathered around a car to accept food and clothing items being distributed outside of a shelter motel on Zuni Street. Oct. 28, 2023.
Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite

On Tuesday, the city launched a program gathering information from landlords with property vacancies that rent for less than $2,000 per month. The city’s goal is to connect property owners with new immigrants in need of permanent housing.

Jon Ewing, spokesperson for Denver Human Services, said the city has already started hearing from landlords who want to work with the city on the effort.

The program was launched as the city continues to close temporary hotel shelters in an effort to scale back costs, which Mayor Mike Johnston announced at the end of February – a move he said could save the city some $60 million out of an anticipated $180 million in expenses related to the migrants.

According to city data, the number of people being housed in the shelters has dropped from 5,200 in mid-January to 2,000 at present.

“For ongoing housing, we’re trying to do more and better at the case navigation that gets people directly from shelter opportunities into housing, or into workforce options for normal travel, and so that continues to be our focus and it’s been successful for us over the last five weeks,” Johnson said at a press conference last week.

The migrants, mostly from Venezuela, have been looking for long-term housing in an increasingly unaffordable housing market. Complicating matters, many new immigrants lack work authorization that would allow them to secure legal employment in order to prove their income.

“We definitely need assistance in finding out what else is out there,” said Yoli Cassas, executive director of nonprofit ViVe Wellness, who says she opes that the city’s call to landlords will help open other housing resources that are currently unavailable.

“It’s been great because that means we’re gonna get more inventory to work with, which is what’s needed,” Casas said.