DENVER (KDVR) — Homeless sweeps can get a lot of attention when they take place, but a new study now finds that they may not have much of an impact on crime rates.
Researchers from the University of Colorado Anschutz studied hundreds of sweeps in Denver.
For a while, encampments kept growing and countless neighbors asked the city of Denver to remove the encampments saying they were unhealthy and causing crime rates to rise.
But CU Anschutz Researcher Pranav Padmanabhan says sweeps do little to reduce crime.
"When we looked at the data, we look at a large number of sweeps over a long period of time. We see no evidence to suggest that sweeps are an effective use of our public resource," Padmanabhan said.
Researchers said there were some decreases in auto theft and public disorder reports within a quarter mile of the former encampment sites within a week. But in some cases, rates of some violent crime went up a little further from those locations. The study lasted from November 2019 to July 2023.
"Consistently, we found that there were really no scenarios in which we saw a meaningfully decreased crime following sweep," Padmanabahn said.
But people who live near the La Alma Lincoln Park neighborhood where a huge encampment once stood say the sweep has helped improve the quality of life in the area.
"So if they are saying it hasn't changed it’s a minutiae because there is a change in the livability of this neighborhood when those camps are gone," Resident Jerry De La Cruz said.
Homeless Advocate Amy Beck says sweeps hurt the unhoused and that more must be done to help them.
"What we need to be doing is offering resources and doing outreach in order to help someone get off the streets," Beck said.
“We agree that just sweeping individuals from one block to the next without housing resources does little to effect real impacts in reducing street homelessness, which is why Mayor Johnston took immediate action to launch All In Mile High and change this policy when he took office, ensuring that the city strives to offer transitional housing resources when closing encampments and only conducts clean-ups when there are health and safety risks, right of way infractions, or if the encampment is on private property," Mayor Johnston spokesperson Jordan Fuja said.
Meanwhile, CU Researchers say they hope to conduct another study regarding the impact of homeless sweeps on crime in the future.
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