Mayor to help vulnerable areas
City considering economic challenges facing citizens and companies
Denver is forming a team spanning city government that will go into gentrifying neighborhoods and work out tailored strategies to reduce economic pressures on residents, businesses and community groups, Mayor Michael Hancock will announce Monday.
The second-term mayor, who plans to seek re-election next May, says the initiative comes as his administration puts a steppedup focus on an issue that long has challenged the city — and its elected leaders — amid a sustained population boom.
“Gentrification and displacement are not something that happen overnight — they’re a systemic result of a myriad of things happening in and around a community,” Hancock said in an interview. “What we’re trying to do is intercede in that process along the way. And if we can … help protect some of the vulnerable residents, that’s what we’re hoping to do.”
He plans to announce the new Neighborhood Equity and Stabilization Team during his State of the City address. The annual public speech is set for 11 a.m. at the Carla Madison Recreation Center, a showpiece among city rec centers that opened in January at East Colfax Avenue and Josephine Street.
The city last week advertised a job opening for the team’s coordinator. The team will be overseen by the Office of Economic Development and will draw on the
Department of Public Works, Denver Human Services and other departments. Hancock said Denver Public Schools, the Denver Housing Authority and outside organizations also likely would participate.
In 2016, the city released a gentrification study that identified all or part of dozens of neighborhoods as vulnerable to displacement pressures based on several metrics.
Hancock said the city will use that study as a starting point but will also seek an outside adviser to produce detailed assessments of the needs in each targeted neighborhood. Each strategy will include local input, too, and could draw on existing programs or spur new initiatives.
The outside assessments “will give us a sense of what kind of needs are going to be required as we deploy these resources,” he said. “So we’re not just running in without having a sense of where the fire is occurring.”
The new initiative bears resemblance to another one Hancock announced in his address two years ago that also involved a team-deployment approach in distressed neighborhoods. But he said the new effort will be more comprehensive and data-driven, with a broader focus on addressing community challenges.
In a large sense, the new team will follow the money — looking for places where both private investment and publicly funded projects are setting the stage for rapid block-by-block change.
The city has started other programs to address residents’ financial challenges. Some initiatives have zeroed in on the displacement of hot neighborhoods’ longtime residents, often Latino or black, when redevelopment results in higher market rents and home prices — while drawing an influx of new people, often higher-income and white.
The highest-profile effort has been the North Denver Cornerstone Collaborative. Hancock formed that office in 2013 to coordinate with communities in north and northeast Denver as farreaching projects, including the National Western Center and the Interstate 70 expansion, began unfolding.
But against this decade’s forceful currents of urban change — some of the strongest in its history — the city has a mixed record.
For Five Points, Highland and some other neighborhoods, an intensified focus by city leaders likely comes years too late. Gentrification, one might say, is nearing completion.
And that has made Hancock a frequent target of anger and frustration in the past year, especially as community activists question the city’s priorities as it invests billions of dollars in big public projects. That dynamic reached a climax in November after a coffee shop in Five Points put out a sign that stated it had been “happily gentrifying the neighborhood,” sparking street protests.
But Hancock says he believes there still is time to help residents, small businesses and nonprofits in areas such as Sun Valley, Westwood and Montbello as they struggle with rising rents, concerns about school quality and other issues.
Monday’s speech marks the start of the final year of Hancock’s second term. Already, candidates are filing to run for mayor in the May 2019 election.
This time around, Hancock is preparing to lay out new plans as he recovers from a sexual harassment scandal involving a former security detail officer. He apologized after the officer, a Denver police detective, spoke out in February about text messages she received from Hancock six years ago.
But Hancock is looking ahead. He says the theme of Monday’s address is the search for ways to expand equity in Denver.
“I say it in some speeches, but it’s a chance to say it to the city as a whole: We may never see this kind of economic expansion again in Denver’s time,” Hancock said, evoking periods in city history when mayors made investments that changed the city forever. “We need to harness this.”