Dive Brief:

• The Denver City Council approved a $10.42 million contract with the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless to support the coalition’s recent acquisition of a nine-story Clarion Hotel, which it plans to convert to housing for those experiencing homelessness. 
• The Clarion Hotel is the largest hotel in Denver to date to be converted for homeless shelter or housing purposes. The property, to be renamed Renewal Village, will have 108 income-restricted rental studios and 107 single-occupancy units. Renovations will begin later this year. 
• The conversion project follows several similar developments in Denver, part of the Department of Housing Stability’s strategy to leverage hotels for homelessness emergency response and affordable housing. Other cities across the country, including Los Angeles, are taking action to utilize hotel space for similar purposes.

Dive Insight:

The Clarion Hotel is the latest in a slew of properties Denver’s Department of Housing Stability, or HOST, has funded to provide housing for the approximately 28,000 individuals experiencing homelessness in the city annually. 

HOST previously provided $5 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding to support Colorado Coalition for the Homeless’ (CCH) acquisition of a former La Quinta Inn. The hotel began providing emergency shelter to those experiencing homelessness during the pandemic and continues to do so following the acquisition. CCH also plans to redevelop the La Quinta into approximately 200 units of permanent supportive housing.

Additionally, HOST provided about $980,000 to local nonprofit organization The Fax Partnership to acquire two Denver motels for family sheltering and affordable housing.

Existing hotel structures are being selected for these redevelopment projects, in part, because conversion is a cheaper and faster alternative to ground-up construction, Cathy Alderman, chief communications and public policy officer for CCH, said in the city’s announcement. 

In Los Angeles, city officials are working to utilize hotel space for shelter and affordable housing purposes as well. But rather than converting shuttered hotel properties, the city is proposing a mandate that would require hoteliers to make unoccupied hotel rooms at normally operating hotels available for those experiencing homelessness. 

Those proposing the ordinance argue that hotels can often burden a city’s social services and exacerbate its housing crisis because they can crowd out sites that are equally suitable for housing development. Last year alone, Los Angeles County experienced an affordable housing shortage of nearly 500,000 units. 

But some industry players don’t think hotels should be the solution to a city’s housing shortage. American Hotel & Lodging Association President and CEO Chip Rogers called the L.A. policy harmful, while Laura Lee Blake, president and CEO of the Asian American Hotel Owners Association, said in a LinkedIn post that “turning hotels into partial homeless shelters without training, resources, and wrap-around services will only create problems and safety concerns.” 

The Colorado Hotel & Lodging Association did not respond to Hotel Dive’s request for comment on the Clarion Hotel conversion project.