Polis Asks Hotel Owners To 'Rise To The Challenge' By Offering Temporary Homeless Housing Amid Pandemic
DENVER (CBS4) - Gov. Jared Polis has a message for hotel and motel owners in Colorado: if you have vacant rooms, please allow the state to rent them so they can be used to house the homeless during the COVID-19 pandemic. This comes less than a week after the city of Denver opened up the National Western Complex as a mass homeless shelter, a move which Polis said he did not support.
In a letter Polis wrote Monday, the governor said, "I am not willing to use the Colorado National Guard (CONG) to support a large consolidated shelter as it conflicts with the social distancing guidelines contained in the state's updated Public Health Order and would be very dangerous for some of our most vulnerable Coloradans, putting them at greater risk of contracting COVID-19."
Sunday night, officials said the shelter at the National Western Complex was at full capacity.
A better solution to house the homeless, Polis said during a news conference Monday, would be for hotel and motel owners to offer up their vacant rooms as temporary housing, which would allow for better social distancing.
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The governor wrote a letter to hotel operators Monday asking them to "rise to the challenge" to help stop the spread of the deadly virus.
"The need for non-congregate rooms is urgent as there is a real potential for currently sheltered people to be forced into large scale, dangerous facilities or back onto the streets," Polis wrote in the letter. "Additional capacity to the shelter system is needed in order to lessen the spread of this contagious virus."
The governor said this could be a win-win, a "match made in heaven," because the government would pay for the rooms, creating more business for the hotels, which aren't currently seeing a lot of visitors, and homeless folks would have a chance to self-isolate.
"If you want to stay in business, you should pursue this opportunity to provide some housing," Polis said. "It's very important our hotel and lodging community take these opportunities."
However, last week, some homeless advocates said hotels weren't quick to offer up their rooms for homeless housing. So, some groups are calling for the governor to commandeer those rooms.
Asked about that option during Monday's news conference, Gov. Polis shied away from committing to that, and instead said he's hoping more hotel owners will volunteer their spaces.
