Homeless Residents of Aloft Hotel Must Move Out This Month

During much of that time, Mangrum, who turns 67 on April 5, has been studying to get his air-conditioning and heating service technician certification. “Right now, school is more important to me than anything,” he says, “and I want to be able to finish school so I can get my certification.”

After that, Mangrum wants to start working again in order to earn enough money to rent his own place. But now his plans face a significant obstacle.

By April 15, Mangrum must move out of Aloft. That’s because Denver’s contract on the building runs out at the end of the month, and it isn’t being renewed. So all 99 residents of Aloft — currently a “protective-action” hotel used to shelter older individuals and people with illnesses, which is run for the city by the Salvation Army — need to find new places to stay.

“We recognize that this transition is a difficult one, and we and the Salvation Army are working diligently in the final days of this facility’s operation to find the best possible outcomes for all of our guests,” says Sabrina Allie, a spokesperson for the Denver Department of Housing Stability. Some residents, including Mangrum, will have to move out by April 15; others will have until the end of the month.

According to Allie, HOST and the Salvation Army are screening residents for housing eligibility and attempting to get some of them into permanent housing or bridge housing. Otherwise, unless they can come up with their own places, the Aloft residents have the option of going into congregate shelters.

While congregate shelters house large numbers of people in the same space, increasing the likelihood for COVID transmission, individualized hotel rooms significantly reduce that risk; that’s why protective-action housing has been so important during the pandemic.

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Eldridge Mangrum isn’t sure of what his next stop will be.

Courtesy of Eldridge Mangrum

“As other protective-action hotels have shut down over the last two years, it’s continued to be a place where people who are displaced from those hotels — some of the sickest and most vulnerable of those —are put,” Terese Howard, an organizer with Housekeys Action Network Denver, says of Aloft. “So it’s definitely a collection of very sick, elderly, disabled people.”

Mangrum had returned to Denver in the fall of 2021 after working an HVAC assignment in Vail;  he ended up staying in a shelter. A staffer approached Mangrum about the option of moving to Aloft, since he was a senior citizen and at risk of getting COVID; Mangrum took the staffer up on the offer.

The arrangement worked out well: Mangrum was able to attend the air-conditioning and heating service technician school in the evening and not have to worry about getting to a congregate shelter by a certain time.

“It was perfect for me because of school coming up at that time and then for me to have my own room…It’s been great and it’s really helped me out tremendously,” Mangrum says. “I wish it could last a little longer, like, maybe three more months.” Mangrum has an important exam later this month and then finishes school in late May.

Class gets out at 9:30 every night, but the teachers let Mangrum leave at 9 p.m. But even that early release wouldn’t work for the shelters, which generally require people to check in by 8 p.m.

Denver has used emergency relief money from the federal government to reimburse dollars spent on these protective-action hotels. But city officials note that Denver’s pandemic response is winding down and with that, so are these hotel contracts. Right now, Denver pays for stays at just one other protective-action hotel: the La Quinta Inn off Interstate 25 northwest of downtown. The Colorado Coalition for the Homeless bought this property, which it calls the Park Avenue Inn, in December 2021, with a plan to turn it into affordable and supportive housing. In the meantime, the hotel is being used for sheltering people experiencing homelessness.

“HOST, the Salvation Army and the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless are working together to identify Aloft residents who are appropriate to transfer to vacant units at the Park Avenue Inn,” says Derek Woodbury, another spokesperson for HOST. “With the federal public health emergency for COVID-19 expiring May 11, federal funding for protective-action shelter at the Park Avenue Inn ends in May. We anticipated this funding would end with the conclusion of the federal emergency, and HOST has secured additional funding to support protective action rooms at the site through June 30, 2023. HOST is working to finalize another non-congregate shelter services contract for this site, beginning July 1, but details have yet to be finalized. These will not, however, be protective-action rooms because of the end of the public health emergency and related funding.”

Howard and others at HAND have been pushing HOST to find alternatives before Aloft residents are forced to go into congregate shelter or live on the streets.

“Either master lease apartments for all of them or, in lieu of that, secure hotel rooms for everyone to stay until they either find housing with their vouchers or secure housing in some way,” Howard suggests.

Mangrum isn’t waiting for the city to come through. “I’m trying to put something together,” he says, but then admits that another hotel lifeline “would help me out tremendously. It really would.”