Mayor Mike Johnston gives his second State of the City address, held this year at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. Credit: CPR

Mayor Mike Johnston’s second State of the City address which was held recently  at the Seawell Ballroom at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts brimmed with Mile High optimism — invoking the word “dream” a dozen times and pitching Denver as the “capital of the New West.”

A $250 million budget deficit. A shrinking city government. Homelessness and an impossibly high cost of living. Battles with the Trump administration. Struggling businesses. Mass city layoffs. Federal funding cuts. Mayor Mike Johnston nodded to it all in his 2025 State of the City speech, which marked the halfway point of his first term. But at the same time, Johnston embraced his image as an unflappable optimist.

“How do you build a city that’s vibrant, affordable and safe for all of us, so that 150 years from now, our grandkids will look back with pride at how our innovation and ingenuity and yes, inclusion, proudly established a new chapter of Denver as the capital of the New West,” he said on the night. 

Nearly half of Johnston’s speech focused on Denver’s twin housing and homelessness crises, which have dominated the mayor’s first term. He described the city’s successes in clearing out homeless encampments and creating new support programs, but he also said the city would crack down on “quality of life crimes” such as public drug use and theft, “matching outreach with enforcement.”

“We know the best path forward is not an endless cycle of being on the streets, going to the hospital and landing in jail, but connection to high-quality and long-term support services, and we will find those for the folks that need them and connect them,” Johnston said, speaking before a crowd of hundreds at the Seawall Ballroom at the Denver Performing Arts Complex. 

The mayor also laid out a long-term vision for building more housing and infrastructure. That included a promise to convert 4 million square feet of vacant office space into new housing “that is accessible for middle-class Denverites,” part of a larger effort to build 5,000 homes each year. The speech also served as Johnston’s biggest pitch yet for his $935 million bond package proposal, which would pump money into transportation, parks, housing and more. In the speech, Johnston summoned historical and moral themes, imploring people to replace “learned helplessness” with “learned hopefulness.”

The mayor called for less cynicism and individualism, blasting President Donald Trump’s slashing of social services, trade wars and “political chaos.” 

“The insurgent belief is a refusal to believe in anything but yourself. Don’t believe in your government or your neighbor or your family. Tear it all down and just look out for yourself. Attack those who try. Mock those in need,” he said.

“That is not only a recipe to prevent us from getting things done,” Johnston continued. “It is a poison to eradicate our very human instinct to turn to each other when times get tough.”

Former Denver Mayor Federico Pena and Gov. Jared Polis share a word before Mayor Mike Johnston gives his annual ‘State of the City’ address to local leaders, press and Denver residents. Credit: Colorado Sun

On his first day in office in 2023, Johnston declared a state of emergency over homelessness. He made it a priority to eradicate unsheltered homelessness, bringing thousands of people indoors. 

“We did it because we had people dying on the street in record numbers,” he said. “We had thousands of tents blocking access to post offices and churches and hospitals, strangling businesses and frightening residents. We started there because it was a humanitarian crisis threatening the lives of people forced to live on the streets, and it was an economic crisis threatening the city’s post-COVID recovery.”

Johnston’s administration moved fast in those first two years, spending more than $150 million to bring people into hotel shelters and tiny homes with the promise of a path to housing.

We have done something historic,” he told the crowd. “In the last two years, street homelessness in Denver has dropped by 45 percent. That is the largest multi-year decrease in unsheltered homelessness of any city in American history.” But still, Johnston said that many residents aren’t happy with the scenes on Denver streets. He didn’t say it, but images of people in deep crisis — often yelling, nude or defecating — regularly go viral on social media.

What he did not say during the speech, but acknowledged to reporters afterwards, was that the promise of long-term housing isn’t panning out for everyone in the city’s new shelter effort. Federal vouchers are under threat. And the city has far too few income-restricted units to give everybody a permanent home.

Johnston used the speech to market his $935 million Vibrant Denver spending package. The mayor continues to bet big on the bond package, which would ask voters this November to approve new debt for infrastructure repairs and major new capital projects. The proposal would pay for dozens of initiatives, from the first phase of the sprawling Park Hill Park to an $89 million rebuild of the Eighth Avenue viaduct. 

Denver City Council President Amanda Sandoval listens as Mayor Mike Johnston gives his annual ‘State of the City’ address to local leaders, press and Denver residents. Credit: Colorado Sun

In the past, bonds have been a pretty good bet for politicians in Denver, but there are signs this one will be more difficult. Denver City Council members have criticized the spending proposals and the process. Meanwhile, some voters say they’re worried about spending big on projects in a time of economic uncertainty — and they rejected Johnston’s affordable housing tax just last year.

Johnston however hasn’t been cowed. In his speech, the mayor appealed to the Denver City Council to put the decision in front of voters.

Johnston highlighted city successes on crime and revealed that the city is on track to add 300 police officers across 2024 and 2025, he said, and is putting officers in the places with the highest levels of crime. 

“Denver has dropped our homicide rate by an astonishing 46 percent,” he said. Multiple news outlets have recently reported that the city’s homicide rate is at one of its lowest levels in decades.

Johnston also said auto theft is down by more than 50 percent and catalytic converter theft by 90 percent.

The Mayor reiterated his belief that all the city’s problems can be fixed. We can prove that our hardest problems are solvable and that we are the ones to solve them,” the mayor said, repeating a slogan he has said for years. 

He acknowledged the process is far from complete, and his term has been far from perfect. “We will never build a city free from human mistakes,” he said. “What we can do is build a city that carries you through crisis and a community, who sees you and cares for you and supports you.”

Success, he warned, “doesn’t mean a neighbor struggling with addiction won’t relapse, or a gang member won’t get pulled back into violence, or we won’t lose a favorite restaurant,” he said. “But that is not defeat. That is loss, and loss is a part of being human.”

A cross section of the audience at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts as Mayor Mike Johnston gives his second State of the City address. Credit: Denver Post

One major loss is already guaranteed. Johnston must face the city’s fiscal crisis. He has to make $250 million in cuts to the city’s current and upcoming budgets by the end of the year. 

As he wrapped up, Johnston returned to the theme of making Denver the capital of the New West, describing it as the “precocious Queen City of the Plains.” 

“We don’t believe in can’t,” he said. “We don’t believe in impossible, a place where we turn to each other and not on each other, a place we believe in working to build something bigger than us that includes all of us and lasts longer than any of us, a city that can be a haven for those who live here and an inspiration to those who don’t.”