Only One LGBTQ-Inclusive Shelter to Remain in Denver

The Denver Housing Authority has recently announced that they will be shutting down the Rodeway emergency homeless shelter. Rodeway was one of only two homeless shelters in Denver which provided gender-affirming services for transgender residents. This means that, once Rodeway closes, the only remaining LGBTQ-oriented homeless shelter in the city will be The Delores Project.

According to the Denver Post, Rodeway was a product of the pandemic, a former hotel that the Denver Housing Authority bought in 2020 and then leased to the city for $10 a year to become an emergency, non-congregate shelter. That meant that each guest had their own separate room to mitigate the spread of COVID. The city then partnered with nonprofits The Gathering Place and Salvation Army to staff the shelter. Rodeway accepted women and transgender people—including nonbinary people—who were unhoused. Despite the fact that the Salvation Army is a notoriously homophobic and transphobic organization, it seems that Rodeway served as a positive place for trans people.

Sabrina Allie, a communications and engagement director for the Denver Department of Housing Stability, told the Post that the shelter was being shut down due to concerns about the property and, while they have purchased two more hotels to turn into non-congregate shelters, the timing will not line up to allow current Rodeway residents to transition to the new shelters at the time of the closing. Allie also failed to mention if the new shelters would be equally inclusive and affirming towards LGBTQ.

According to a press release sent to us by The Delores Project, their shelter provides “shelter, housing, and behavioral health services to women, transgender, and nonbinary individuals experiencing homelessness. Above the 50-bed 24/7 shelter, which was built from the ground up in 2019, sits a 35-unit permanent supportive housing community for chronically homeless people living with a disability. Also on site are 95 one, two, and three-bedroom apartments for people earning 30-50% of the area median income (AMI).”

While that’s certainly a great program, The Delores Project only has a limited amount of space, and the homeless population in Denver is quite large. According to a press release from The Gathering Place, in a 2020 survey 26% of men and 19% of women were unhoused, but 32% of transgender and 53% of gender-nonconforming people were. According to a 2023 survey reported on by the Colorado Sun, 9,065 people are unhoused in the seven-county metro Denver area, marking a nearly 32% increase from the year before.

While only 0.6% of that population surveyed identified as transgender and the same percentage reported being gender non-conforming, 1.2% of 9,065 still comes to a little over 100 unhoused transgender or GNC people in the metro area. The Delores Project, just like Rodeway, accepts cisgender women as well, meaning that there’s bound to be more people needing services from The Delores Project than they can handle at one time.

Image courtesy of the Denver Post’s Twitter page