(The Center Square) - Denver Mayor Mike Johnston laid out his administration’s top goals for the new year during a news conference Monday.
The goals range from reducing homelessness and crime to improving affordability and child care.
“Our strategies are proven,” Johnston said. “We will continue restoring trust between police and community, focusing intensively on areas seeing the most crime and the least joy. We will build more housing for people of all income brackets and ensure individuals experiencing homelessness receive constant and consistent support in making the leap to self-sufficiency.”
“Along the way we’ll also add more clean energy systems, think bigger on how we support working families with child care, and connect more young people with jobs. That’s how we’ll build a safer, vibrant, and more affordable Denver,” he added.
To make Denver more “vibrant,” Johnston said during the Denver press conference that the city hopes to fill 3 million square-feet of office and retail space downtown, which currently has an estimated 7 million square-feet sitting vacant.
And Johnston’s administration is looking to add 2,500 more housing affordable units and permit for 5,000 other units.
The city has added 5,600 affordable housing units since he took office, Johnston told reporters.
“What we know is that we have had success in stabilizing and even dropping rental prices in the city because we have added more units, and the more units we have, the more supply there is [and] the more we can keep control of pricing,” the mayor said.
When it comes to public safety and crime, Johnston said the city has seen a 57% drop in homicides and 55% drop in auto theft.
For 2026, the goal is to “decrease gun-related homicides by 10% and reduce shootings in high-risk areas by 20%,” Johnston said. He cited the La Alma-Lincoln Park neighborhood where the press conference was taking place as an example of a success story in the city.
“This site where we're standing has now gone 452 days since the last shooting,” he told reporters at La Alma Recreation Center.
Johnston said his administration has “reframed” the city’s goal on homelessness.
“Now we are at a place where, two years in, 45% reduction in street homelessness,” he said, with a goal at further reducing that number to 75% since 2023. “We think now it's a question of actually how far away are we from the end zone.”
As part of its climate goals, Johnston’s administration is seeking to install 5,000 clean energy systems, such as solar power or EV chargers, across the city to cut more emissions.
To make the city more “child friendly,” the mayor's administration is working to develop what Johnston calls “a comprehensive, citywide framework to expand affordable, reliable child care.”
