Residents of a fashionable apartment building in Denver, Colorado, have described how their peaceful lives descended into chaos after homeless families were placed in neighbouring flats using state-funded housing vouchers.
A Honeymoon Period Shattered
Owen Johnson, a 25-year-old from Missouri, moved into the White Swan building near Congress Park with his wife in May. Their newlywed bliss was short-lived. A homeless man, granted a state housing voucher, moved into the adjacent apartment. Johnson told local outlet BusinessDen it soon became apparent the new neighbour "was crazy."
"The one (tenant) was sharing a wall with us," Johnson said. "Because all the time we would hear banging on the walls and smell smoke coming from the walls, and we would hear fighting and shouting and slamming." He added that his wife "never felt safe to walk downstairs by herself" – despite the couple paying over $1,700 monthly for their two-bedroom flat.
Building 'Destroyed' and Drugs Dealt Openly
Johnson stated that not only his next-door neighbour but also the tenant below and at least three others in the building were homeless voucher holders. He accused them of trashing the complex and dealing drugs openly. "There were a couple of times where there was so much junk piled up in our courtyard that I just took a pair of gloves and threw it all away," he recalled.
The building's owner, Christina Eisenstein, said her property rapidly filled with homeless families using the vouchers to pay rent. She blamed them for "destroying' her building and 'terrifying" other tenants. "They need a place with wraparound services, where they have drug rehab support or mental health support," Eisenstein argued. "Because they’re completely out of their mind."
In her building, Eisenstein said at least five units are paid for by state vouchers, and at least three have tested positive for methamphetamines. The vouchers, managed by the non-profit Community Economic Defense Project (CEDP), cover the entire rent – up to $15,525 per month – for homeless people with disabling conditions like addiction or mental illness.
A City-Wide Crisis Comes Home
The issue is set against Denver's escalating homelessness crisis. According to the Common Sense Institute of Colorado, the city's homeless population has doubled since 2019 to over 10,000 people in 2025, a record high. The voucher programme, which began as a pandemic eviction prevention measure, received $66 million in government grants in Colorado in 2023.
Critics say the scheme has strayed from its original intent. BusinessDen reports that users in Denver are not subject to background checks, and many in Eisenstein's building allegedly have long criminal records. The programme also lacks sobriety tests or work requirements.
Other tenants suffered similarly. Tiffany Freccero, who lived below a voucher-holding tenant with her husband and infant child, reported: "They were letting their two dogs poop and pee on the balcony above us... the water, full of all the feces and everything, came down onto our balcony."
Both the Johnsons and Frecceros moved out in September. Eisenstein, however, remains entangled in complex legal processes to remove the problematic tenants, even paying two $1,500 cash-for-keys deals to encourage departures. "I’ve had to become a caseworker. You don’t invest in a property to manage people with mental health issues," she lamented.
CEDP co-CEO Zach Neumann responded that Eisenstein had demanded actions only she could take as property manager and had shared evidence with media before providing it to CEDP. Eisenstein countered that the organisation "haven't been easy to work with from the beginning." She now hopes the nightmare will end next month when she expects all the voucher tenants to be gone.
