PRAGMATIC ISSUES

Denver Mayor Mike Johnson

For all his talk about compassion, Mayor Mike Johnston has done little more than weaponize it. He came into office vowing to end homelessness, restore dignity, and make Denver “a city that works for everyone.” What we got instead is a city bleeding cash, housing fewer people, and spending millions to shelter those who aren’t even Denver residents whilst the ones who actually live here are left freezing under overpasses.

It’s not just bad policy.

It’s a moral fraud dressed up as progress.

The $90 Million Mirage

When Johnston declared a “state of emergency” over homelessness, people listened. For a brief moment, Denver believed him. But months and millions later, the crisis looks worse. Hotels were bought or leased, neighborhoods were promised relief, and social programs were padded with consultants instead of solutions.

The money poured in like salvationand vanished just as fast. Ask where it went, and you’ll be handed another photo-op of Johnston shaking hands in a shelter while his communications team tweets about “compassion metrics.” Ask the people still sleeping in Civic Center Park, and you’ll hear the truth, the tents haven’t gone anywhere. They’ve just been pushed farther out of sight and the hotels, are being shuttered.

Johnston’s housing plan was never about helping the unhoused.

It was about hiding them.

Misplaced Priorities, Manufactured Humanity

While Denver families struggle to keep up with rent and property taxes, City Hall has opened its checkbook to fund services for migrants and undocumented newcomers using resources meant for Denver’s most vulnerable citizens. It’s an uncomfortable truth no one inside the mayor’s office seems willing to acknowledge.

We are now a city where American citizens are told to wait for housing vouchers while hotels and housing are being shuttered due to budget cuts. Compassion isn’t a zero-sum game, but budgets are. And Johnston is spending Denver’s empathy like it’s Monopoly money.

His policies aren’t humane, they’re performative.

They make headlines, not headway.

The Myth of the Fixer

Johnston sold himself as the pragmatic reformer, the “education guy” who gets things done. But you can’t spreadsheet your way out of a housing collapse or wish away urban poverty with buzzwords and bond packages. Every initiative he touches seems to produce more bureaucracy, not better outcomes.

Instead of fixing systems, he builds committees. Instead of building homes, he builds narratives.

The mayor’s real skill isn’t leadership, it’s marketing. He treats the people of Denver like a focus group to be managed rather than a community to be served.

The Numbers Don’t Lie, They Just Vanish

When pressed for data on how many unhoused residents have actually been permanently housed under Johnston’s grand “micro-community” plan, the city stumbles. The numbers shift. Definitions change. It’s as if every failure can be solved by rewriting the math.

Meanwhile, city staffers whisper about the ballooning costs of maintaining temporary sites that were supposed to be short-term. The clean-ups, the security, the endless cycle of displacement, all paid for by taxpayers who were told this would save money.

Denver’s homelessness problem hasn’t improved, it’s just been re-branded.

The Price of Political Theater

Johnston’s compassion tour is as expensive as it is hollow. Tens of millions have been funneled into contracts with politically connected nonprofits and developers promising “transformative housing” that never seems to materialize. It’s the same old game, pay consultants to study the crisis, hold a press conference about the findings, and call it change.

Denver doesn’t need more strategy sessions, a bond for millions to make it prettier, it needs accountability. The people living on our sidewalks don’t need “vision statements.” They need roofs.

The mayor’s defenders call criticism “lacking empathy.” But what’s truly heartless is wasting public money while families live in tents two blocks from City Hall.

A City on the Edge

There’s an eerie quiet spreading through Denver, a mix of fatigue and disbelief. Residents are starting to realize that the city they love is being run like a campaign that never ends. Johnston’s answers grow longer while his results grow thinner. His office promises transparency, yet hides financial breakdowns and a flock camera system, behind layers of red tape and press jargon.

Every month brings another headline about a new “initiative,” but the potholes remain, the rents climb, and the shelters overflow. If this is progress, it’s progress that can’t be measured except by the number of people giving up hope.

We Warned You

For over a year, we’ve said this was coming.

We called out the photo ops, the shell games, the moral grandstanding disguised as leadership.

And now, as Denver’s finances buckle under the weight of mismanagement and misplaced compassion, the city’s patience is gone.

Denver didn’t elect a savior.

It hired a salesman.

Johnston promised to build a city that cared.

Instead, he built one that pretends to.