Three Denver hotels that served as temporary immigrant shelters will close by the end of the week, leaving only one that can provide beds for 800 people as the city continues to face a strain on resources and a $120 million budget deficit. 

The single hotel, which is in northwestern Denver, as well as a congregate shelter in a church, can provide beds for about 800 people if necessary, Denver Human Services spokesman Jon Ewing said on Monday. The city also has some “bridge housing” available to help families with children as they make the transition from hotel to apartment living, he added.

“We’re moving along at a pretty good clip, getting people out of shelter, getting them with the nonprofits’ assistance, getting them into housing, and so we simply don’t need the shelters as much,” Ewing said. “It’s an added expense we don’t need to keep.”

Closing the three hotel shelters is projected to save Denver $60 million, bringing the total cost of housing immigrants in 2024 to $120 million.

“We’re still in a budget deficit,” Ewing said. “We’re still in a budget gap. The trade-off here is we know that we won’t have women and children living on the streets of Denver, and that is what we are trying to do here.”

More than 40,000 immigrants, mostly from Venezuela, arrived in Denver in less than a year in desperate need of basic services and housing. City officials have been struggling to help the new arrivals but admitted it has come at the expense of taxpayers who are also dealing with a housing shortage and sky-high rents. At its peak, thousands of immigrants were living in city-funded rooms at seven hotels and three other buildings. 

Denver has received more immigrants per capita than any other city in the nation. It set up emergency operations to welcome new arrivals, opened city buildings as shelters, and worked overtime to organize clinics to help people apply for work authorization. Volunteers and nonprofit groups donated food, clothes, toys, and tents, but the sheer number of people arriving in the city has been too much to handle and has sparked resentment from some residents. At the beginning of the year, Denver was paying to house nearly 5,000 people. 

About half of the 40,000 immigrants who arrived in Denver since December 2022 have sought shelter in city-funded hotel rooms. Adults are allowed to stay for two weeks, while families have 42 days. Many of the area’s nonprofit organizations have helped cover the first month or security deposit for rent. 

The city has also been actively encouraging those coming from Texas to Denver to seek shelter elsewhere. The city has purchased 20,000 one-way bus tickets to other cities and has made clear to immigrants that conditions for them will only worsen if they stay. 

“New York gives you more,” Andres Carrera, political director for Democratic Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, recently told immigrants at one of the city’s shelters. “Chicago gives you more. So I suggest you go there, where there is longer-term shelter. There are also more job opportunities there.” 

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“You don’t have to walk anywhere. We can buy you a free ticket. You can go to any city. We can take you up to the Canadian border, wherever,” he added. 

In recent weeks, the mayor has had to make a series of difficult decisions involving the immigrant crisis in his city. He has reinstated limits on how long they can stay in shelters and announced cuts to the city’s services to help balance the budget.