Since 2018, Denver Alliance for Street Health Response (DASHR) has worked primarily on creating community-based mechanisms as alternatives to policing and jails. We have engaged in this work to achieve more humane, more effective, and less expensive ways to ensure public safety and serve our communities. We have led Colorado in creating non-police crisis response efforts and have been successful in building and launching programs that have moved these ideas forward. We’ve provided direct service to our community through the use of street medics to confront food insecurity and issues faced by our unhoused neighbors. We’ve advocated for initiatives and policies that would reshape our approach to public health safety in Denver as well as at the state level. All of our efforts contribute to our broader work of transforming the narrative of public safety to include meeting basic human needs of our communities, having a treatment lens when approaching crisis rather than a punitive approach, and addressing social determinants of health.


DASHR understands the problems inherent in our criminal legal system and forms of crisis response to transcend any one individual, department, agency, or administration. We believe that there is tremendous power – and success – in reforms. However, we are focused on transforming our systems. We believe in dreaming big, acting boldly, and painting a creative vision to re-imagine our communities and daily interactions without the harmful systems and violence that have for so long been entrenched in our society. We hope that other folks, especially those impacted by some of the issues we are confronting, will join us in creating that world and making our city of Denver and state of Colorado a more equitable, just, and thriving community.