DENVER — A Denver shelter that serves people experiencing homelessness is set to close and be rebuilt as affordable housing, leaving current residents worried about where they will go.

The Park Avenue Inn shelter initially opened as part of the City of Denver’s COVID-19 homelessness emergency response, with the goal of putting affordable housing on the property eventually. Since then, it’s come to serve dozens as a non-congregate shelter and unofficial transitional housing.

“It’s served as a pathway to people to get other housing options,” said Cathy Alderman, chief communications and public policy officer for the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, which owns the property. “Sometimes that takes a little longer because we’re in a really high-cost housing market here in Denver, and there’s not a lot of housing resources to move people into.”

Denver7 reporter Danielle Kreutter spent some time Monday afternoon listening to residents at Park Ave Inn.

“We were both homeless together for a few years now,” Aaron Dawson said about him and his wife, Michelle Pasco.

A few months ago, they were told the shelter would be closing in January 2026. It’s set to be demolished to make way for an affordable housing project.

“It’s like dire straits around here right now,” Dawson said.

“We’re just hoping to get housed,” Pasco added.

Of the 36 residents currently staying at Park Avenue Inn, six have found other housing. Several others have been referred to Renewal Village, another property owned by Colorado Coalition for the Homeless. The single-occupancy studio apartments are in what used to be a hotel near West 48th Avenue and Bannock Street in Denver.

“There’s like 25 people still here that don’t know what they’re doing,” Dawson said. “Some of them never got offered Renewal Village, even.”

CCH acknowledged that some Park Avenue Inn residents may not have been offered housing at Renewal Village due to new tenant eligibility requirements.

“Renewal Village has certain referral pathways that we are obligated to, in terms of accepting people from certain programs or who’ve gone through certain assessments,” Alderman explained. “We will move some people from Park Avenue Inn into Renewal Village, but not everybody. But we will work with everybody at Park Avenue Inn to make sure that they have a safe place to exit to.”

CCH said it is optimistic that it will be able to place the rest of the residents into housing before the shelter closes.

“I think we have more time than we’ve seen with some shutdowns of spaces before,” Alderman said.

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Park Avenue Inn is set to close in January 2026, around when the City of Denver plans to close a large homeless shelter and a tiny home community.

Alderman called the timing an unfortunate coincidence, as the plan was to always transform the property into affordable housing.

“I think we’re always concerned when we lose resources in the homelessness response system because we know that we have a growing population of people experiencing homelessness, and we need more, not less, resources,” Alderman said. “But I think from our perspective, we also need more housing, and so this is really a critical step for us to provide that lasting solution.”

CCH has stopped referring people to Park Avenue Inn in order to minimize the impact of the closure.

The building will be demolished in January or February 2026.

“We’ll be breaking ground sometime next year on our first 60 units of affordable housing,” Alderman explained. “Some of those units will be supportive housing, and then probably a year or two after that, we’ll be able to break ground on our second phase, which could bring up to 160 potential new units of housing to the city of Denver, which is so needed and is the long-term solution to homelessness.”

Residents told Denver7 they hope their neighbors find a safe place to land.

“You don’t just pop this on them real quick and say, ‘Oh by the way, you have 120 days to figure out your whole entire rest of your life,’” said Dawson.

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Denver7 | Your Voice: Get in touch with Danielle Kreutter

Denver7’s Danielle Kreutter covers stories that have an impact in all of Colorado’s communities, but specializes in reporting on affordable housing and issues surrounding the unhoused community. If you’d like to get in touch with Danielle, fill out the form below to send her an email.