Denver is facing a migrant surge and officials have opted to slash $5 million from public services funds following the falling apart of the border deal.
During Mayor Mike Johnston's first six months in office, he managed to get more than 1,200 homeless people off the streets and into housing. That development seemed like a fitting feat for a city that prided itself on its compassion for people.
Denver's Migrant Surge
However, it would turn out to be a footnote compared with the humanitarian crisis that the city would soon face. This was as thousands of migrants flooded the region, many of whom were bused from the southern border by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. Nearly all of them are in need of shelter and support.
As of last month, Denver, which has a population of 750,000, had received nearly 40,000 migrants, which is the most per capita of any city in the United States. This comes even as the flow of migrants slowed in the deep chill of winter, as per the New York Times.
Furthermore, the city has begun to feel the same sort of strains that have confronted New York and Chicago as they contended with their own surge of migrants. Denver, which is the state capital and the center of a sprawling metropolitan area of more than 3 million people, has already spent over $42 million on asylum seekers.
If expenditures continue at their current rate of $3.5 million per week, the crisis could cost the city nearly $180 million this year, which is 10% or more of its annual budget. Officials have started to discharge dozens of families from hotels that they rented to house them temporarily.
This created fresh hardship for those who were being displaced, as they no longer had shelter of their own. This week, the city will also start imposing a first round of budget cuts unrelated to migrant services, the first being with reductions in parks and motor vehicle services.
Slashing Public Services Funds
A Denver public school teacher said that they are already 100 students over projection, adding that new students are coming in weekly. She said that they are already past the October count, which means that every new student that they get, they do not have funds to provide them with resources, according to Fox News.
The city's mayor laid the blame for the situation on Republican lawmakers and former United States President Donald Trump over the failure to pass the latest border deal. He said that the decision by GOP members in Congress to kill the bipartisan border deal will have a devastating impact on his city.
Johnston's latest announcement follows another decision last month to divert $25 million from the city budget to the migrant crisis. That particular plan included pulling $10 million from a contingency fund and $15 million from a building remodel.
He said that he is incredibly proud of how city team members have stepped up over the last year. However, he noted that it was clear that the federal government was not going to support his city, said Yahoo News.
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