'Significant' Number of People Want to House Migrants

A female-run organization in the greater Denver area has partnered with a large local nonprofit to help connect migrants to housing.

Hope Has No Borders and Mile High United Way are encouraging those who can provide shelter assistance to what has been described as the largest per-capita surge in the United States to call a 211 hotline. Mile High United Way is facilitating the calls while Hope Has No Borders is looking for potential suitors for migrants—families across Colorado.

The partnership comes as the city of Denver has tightened its purse strings in terms of continued migrant funding and resources. The sanctuary city has opened its doors to 41,530 newcomers as of Wednesday, according to the city's migrant dashboard, at a cost of roughly $70 million. Denver was sheltering 632 people through a mix of congregate and non-congregate sites as of May 6.

Hope Has No Borders, run by three executive directors and born out of community and neighborhood-based endeavors, began connecting migrants with housing opportunities in late 2023.

"It's pretty significant, the number of people who are open to this idea," Jenifer Kettering, one of Hope's three executive directors, told local news station FOX 31.

Hope Has No Borders told Newsweek that the program is run independently by its nonprofit, with future placements pending funding. It is not a program directly affiliated with Mile High United Way and receives no funding from them.

"HOPE's Host Home Program is one of a wide range of solutions needed to address socio-economic disparities," they said. "Our program is designed to include hosts with a willingness to open their homes to a broad range of people in need of transitional housing including veterans, those experiencing poverty, or those who have been displaced due to a natural disaster."

Kettering told local ABC affiliate Denver 7 that her organization is collecting information about volunteers' lifestyles, such as the amount of time they are willing to open up their personal property.

"It can be a room in your house. It could be an Airbnb that has some periods of low occupancy and you're willing to open it up for that period of time," she said. "It can be for a week for respite and emergency situations. It could be for three months or a year, however long you want to negotiate."

She added that the goal is to have 50 host families open to housing migrants before the matchmaking commences.

Erin Lennon was reportedly the first person to host immigrants, a Chilean family of four, as part of the new endeavor.

"All I could think about was I have a basement bedroom with an egress window, and I have no family staying in there right now," Lennon told Denver 7. "I really need to do this."

She added: "I wanted to be like the launchpad for them—like, you're in a safe place for right now."

Mile High United Way describes 211 as a multilingual and confidential service that connects individuals to critical resources, including food, shelter, rental assistance, childcare, and more.

"Our 211 Help Center has been part of efforts to support our community's new immigrants since the influx in arrivals began nearly two years ago," a Mile High United Way spokesperson told Newsweek. "We collaborate with thousands of organizations available in our 211 database."

The database contains more than 7,000 health and human resources and is updated daily.

"We want to open up homes for migrants who need transitional housing in the wake of expensive short-term shelter stays," Andrea Ryall, another of Hope's executive directors, told Newsweek. "We hope to have an important impact on this flow of homelessness in our state due to this humanitarian crisis."

Last November, Ryall and other community members became enveloped in the plight of many migrants who she says have only been seeking employment and stability as part of their new lives in the states.

She told Newsweek last month that she and other mothers in the Facebook group Highlands Moms & Neighbors are providing a "workaround" for migrants unable to obtain work permits due to their legal status. That has included creating LLCs [limited liability companies] as swifter options for income, which is legal in the U.S.

Update 05/08/24, 11:16 a.m. ET: This story was updated with comment from Mile High United Way.

Update 05/09/24, 7:38 a.m. ET: This article was updated with comment from Hope Has No Borders.