Homelessness has been a central topic of two Denver mayoral debates this month and on Monday unhoused people got their chance to ask questions directly to some of the candidates running to be the city’s next leader.

As the sun set behind the city and county building, the candidates gathered (and, at times, shivered) together to face a vocal audience that questioned them on issues ranging from whether they would endorse the use of psychedelic mushrooms as an alternative drug treatment therapy to what they would do to alleviate Denver’s seemingly ever-rising rent prices.

One of the most impactful moments of the forum was when Andy Rougeot, who is running an outsider campaign hinging on hiring more police and strictly enforcing the camping ban, was asked if he would stop the sweeps of homeless encampments that have become a hallmark of outgoing Mayor Michael Hancock’s responses to homelessness.

Through a chorus of boos, Rougeot defended the need to move people out of unsanctioned campsites and push them into mental health or drug treatment programs.

“It is not humane to step over someone sleeping in a tent,” he said, the jeering intensifying as his answer went on. He said that if one of his own daughters were to grow up to be unhoused with a drug addiction he would want her to be forced to get help instead of allowed to live that way.

Leslie Herod, responding to the same question, called the sweeps a clear example of failed policy.

“I believe that we need to replace the camping ban with policies that actually work like housing, like services,” Herod said. “That is what I would put forth.”

Herod’s campaign website, as of Monday, showed her homelessness plan was “coming soon.”

Robert Treta, a contractor and homebuilder, was the third candidate to field that question. He has blasted the city for wasting resources when he says he can build apartments for unhoused people for $25,000 per unit.

“Seven thousand units in one year,” he vowed. “Watch me do it.”

Treta did not say Monday where he would build those housing units.

The direct feedback started immediately at Monday’s event, which coincided with Mutual Aid Monday’s weekly community meal service and outreach program on the closed portion of Bannock Street that runs along Civic Center park.

During introductions, Chris Hansen was widely booed with some in the crowd calling for him to denounce an ad his campaign has released that some — including fellow candidates like Herod and Ean Thomas Tafoya — have called racist for including images of Black and Latino people either living on the streets or engaging in criminal activity.

Hansen, who has defended the ad, in his intro touted work he participated in as a state senator last year to get more money invested in addressing homelessness in Denver.

Even candidates who received warm welcomes were not immune to scrutiny during the event.

Lisa Calderón worked directly with unhoused people to craft her campaign’s homeless policy which, as highlighted by Denverite, would end the sweeps and start with setting up public sanitation stations in her first 30 days in office.

In answering a question about whether her administration would hire passionate advocates to work with the unhoused, Calderón said she would take the money currently spent on sweeps and put that into direct resources. Some in the audience found that answer to be too vague and demanded “What does that mean?”

Later in the debate, Calderón called out Kelly Brough, the race’s top fundraiser. While Brough said at a prior debate that she would not continue clearing encampments, she also said she would support involuntary mental health holds if someone were to refuse city services or shelter.

“Just because Kelly Brough does not support the sweeps, she still supports camping bans,” Calderón said.

Brough did not attend the debate in order to spend time with her mother. She sent Denise Maes, formerly of the ACLU, in her place.

All told, 12 of the 17 candidates whose names will be on the ballot on April 4 appeared at the event. Renate Behrens, who like Calderón has been unhoused, Mike Johnston, Terrance Roberts, Trinidad Rodriguez, James Walsh and Thomas Wolf were also there.

Roberts, Tafoya and Walsh were among the candidates who received mostly positive responses on Monday. Roberts has called for a public banking system to help create more social housing in Denver. Walsh is centering his campaign on empowering workers through things like increased unionization and universal basic income and Tafoya has worked directly with the city’s unhoused through his organization Headwaters Protectors, which brings water and other supplies to people living on the street.

When Al Gardner did not show up, Jesse Lawshawn Parris, a write-in candidate who has been unhoused and frequently speaks out on homelessness issues at City Council meetings, was invited by some of the other candidates to join them in the seats.

The most notable absence was Kwame Spearman. Spearman, who announced Monday that he is taking a leave of absence as the CEO of the Tattered Cover Book Store chain to focus on his mayoral aspirations, was rebuked last week for misrepresenting data from a survey collected by advocacy organization Denver Homeless Out Loud.

During a debate organized by 9News on the Auraria campus, Spearman said the survey showed 52% of unhoused people would “prefer to live in tents than other housing options” and that “18% of our unhoused would only live in tents.”

Terese Howard, one of the founders of Homeless Out Loud, took to Twitter to correct Spearman. The data he was reading was a ranked choice survey in which 52 out of 109 people chose a tent as their second choice for a shelter. Far and away that top choice, favored by 91 of the people surveyed, was a house.

Spearman was called out by name Monday for vilifying the homeless.