All In Mile High is poorly planned, cost millions more than reported

All In Mile High is poorly planned, cost millions more than reported

Published on March 19, 2026

En español(PDF, 189KB)

DENVER - All In Mile High was not adequately planned to meet its mission and goals, resulting in incomplete tracking of citywide expenses and the city underreporting program expenses by an estimated $20.1 million, according to a new audit from Denver Auditor Timothy M. O'Brien, CPA.

"$20 million in underreported costs is a lot of money, especially when the Mayor's Office is cutting budgets", Auditor O'Brien said. "It is alarming there's been no central oversight of spending and measurements of success keep changing."

In July 2023, Mayor Mike Johnston declared a state of emergency on unsheltered homelessness and began the House1000 initiative. After the state of emergency ended that year, House1000 became All In Mile High. The program provides homelessness services through the Mayor's Office, the Department of Housing Stability, and several other city agencies.

The Mayor's Office disagreed with five of our 12 recommendations to improve planning, transparency, and accountability.

No centralized expense tracking

We found no one is responsible for centrally tracking citywide expenses for All In Mile High and the city does not have formal guidance explaining what counts as an All In Mile High expense. Instead, individual city agencies track and report their own expenses and make their own determinations of what counts as an expense.

During an October 2025 presentation to the Denver City Council, the Mayor's Office reported the total cost of All In Mile High, from July 2023 through June 2025, was about $158 million.

When we analyzed expenses in Workday, the city's system of record, we found estimated $178.1 million was spent in the same time frame.

The Mayor's Office did not provide supporting documentation of their overall spending figures or what led to their reporting of $158 million and refused us access to House1000 expense-tracking spreadsheets, citing them as "deliberative planning documents." The Mayor's Office also said the $20.1 million in underreporting was unintentional.

From the data we could review, without formal processes to track expenses, the city cannot accurately know how much it is spending or whether its efforts are cost-effective.

"For a program in its third year and approaching $200 million in costs, not tracking expenses is irresponsible," Auditor O'Brien said. "The Mayor's Office's unwillingness to share how they are calculating expenses also raises red flags."

Housing statistics could misinform the public

We found the Mayor's Office's reporting on All In Mile High outcomes is not sufficiently clear to determine program success.

We could not verify the accuracy of the city's reported statistics used to track the mayor's goals of moving people indoors and into permanent housing because the city does not own this data. The data came from a regional homeless organization called Metro Denver Homeless Initiative.

The progress the city is making toward its All In Mile High goals is also unclear due to deficiencies in the city's online dashboard. The dashboard includes data about people in all the city's unsheltered homelessness programs, not just All In Mile High.

The city's "moved to housing" metric on the dashboard counts people moved to permanent housing and stable housing. The city includes temporary reunifications with friends or family and hotels paid for by the person experiencing homelessness as stable housing.

The city does not define how long a person must stay in housing before they are considered permanently housed. Furthermore, when a person is moved into permanent housing and later returns to unsheltered homelessness, they are not removed from the dashboard's count of people moved into housing.

Some Housing Stability staff have expressed confusion about what is a "successful outcome" for All In Mile High. Changes in data tracking make it unclear which programs count toward the mayor's goals.

"If the data isn't clear or is potentially misleading, the public cannot understand All In Mile High's true impact on unsheltered homelessness," said Auditor O'Brien.

The misunderstanding about responsibilities and data tracking stems from a broader problem of unclear direction from All In Mile High leaders.

Insufficient planning

All In Mile High lacks necessary program-wide planning and documented processes, resulting in program leaders being unable to ensure efficient operations, effective use of taxpayer money, and goal achievement. It also did not conduct a formal needs assessment before implementing its goals.

Without this assessment, the Mayor's Office risks not knowing whether it has the necessary resources to meet its goals and whether the program fully addresses the needs of people experiencing unsheltered homelessness.

Housing Stability staff said the city's urgency and priority in meeting House1000 and All In Mile High's goals of moving people indoors contributed to inefficiencies.

In 2023, the mayor's goal was to move 1,000 people indoors by the end of the year. Housing Stability staff said the goal exceeded the city's available bed capacity, and staff felt they were set up to fail because of misalignment between available resources and goal directives.

They said the programs' goals were not sufficiently researched and planned. The city could not ensure it had adequate resources for achieving the goals or that they were "doable" and sustainable.

"All in Mile High doesn't have a program plan, so goals and directives to achieve success can change on a whim. Based on feedback from city staff, they said they felt like they were set up to fail," Auditor O'Brien said.

Shelter inequity

The locations of All In Mile High shelters do not match the Mayor's Office's goal of establishing shelter sites in all 11 Denver City Council districts. As of December 2025, shelters are only in five districts. Four out of nine shelters related to All In Mile High are in District 8.

The city considered some equity-related characteristics when choosing shelter site locations, but did not include other equity variables clearly, like income levels or race and ethnicity demographics. As a result, shelter sites were disproportionately established in historically marginalized neighborhoods across Denver.

Contracts with vendors

Another concern: Housing Stability could not show it followed a competitive procurement process for All In Mile High contracts. This was the case for one of the program's largest contracts worth $9.28 million with The Salvation Army. The city procured the contract without a competitive selection process and no documentation was kept to support this decision, which violates the city's rules on document retention.

Conclusion

"The public's questions about the spending and effectiveness of this program led to my office looking into this initiative. Our audit affirms their concerns," Auditor O'Brien said. "Housing thousands of people is a noble ambition, but our audit's findings do not encourage confidence All In Mile High is delivering effective results."

We will conduct a follow-up report to see if the Mayor's Office implements our other recommendations, including developing expense tracking policies and procedures.

AUDITOR TIMOTHY O'BRIEN, CPA
Denver Auditor

Denver Auditor's Office

201 W. Colfax Ave. #705 Denver, CO 80202
Email: [email protected]
Call: 720-913-5000
Follow us on Facebook Connect with us on Twitter

• Auditor