Residents ask Denver Health to relocate program that pays drug users cash to take HIV tests, surveys

Homelessness, street crime and vandalism are nothing new along the Broadway corridor south of downtown Denver. But Chris Specht, who owns a condominium at the Broadway Flats building at 2nd and Broadway, contends Denver Health is aggravating the problems by operating a community site in Specht's building that pays people who inject drugs to come into the building for HIV testing and to take a survey about their lifestyles.

Each participant earns $35 in cash for taking the survey, another $35 for taking an HIV test and they can earn another $100 by recruiting a maximum of five other people to do the same.

The money comes from the federal government's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which sponsors the REACH (Risk Education Aimed at Community Health) program to collect data about people who are higher risk for contracting HIV.

"If you feed the bears, you're going to get more bears," said Specht, who claims the REACH program, which is administered locally by Denver Health, is attracting an erratic and unpredictable population of drug users that are jeopardizing the safety of the residents who live in the 10 condominiums in the Broadway Flats building. Denver Health has rented a ground floor space for the program. 

Specht says he has seen participants in the program get paid in cash, then "They'll call their dealers, their dealer guys will roll up ... and sell them their drugs and they sit here and do drugs. They're giving cash payments to these guys and gals for doing STD testing but all it's doing is attracting more and more of them to this neighborhood and our building. More drugs, more drugs, more drugs -- that's all they care about," said Specht, who has lived in the building since 2006.

"I don't allow my wife to walk around by herself in the afternoon, definitely not at night," said Specht. "We've had incidents where they throw rocks at us, yell at us, make a motion like they're going to kick our dog," he said.

 Specht said the REACH clients regularly loiter around the building before and after they undergo testing.

Eric Cadman, who manages a digital marketing company on the ground floor, said he regularly sees "drug users and addicts waiting in front" of the Denver Health site.

"We've actually been chased and had things thrown at us. I actually now escort some employees to their cars. We're afraid of the violence and the issues happening out there," said Cadman.

Dr. Bob Belknap, executive director of Denver Health's public health institute, said he believes occupants of the building are mistaken about who is making them feel unsafe. He says an increase in homeless individuals along the Broadway corridor is the real issue.

"We really think that is probably the driver of concern for them and not in fact our program," said Belknap.

Asked why the program is located in a mixed-use residential building and not on the Denver Health main campus, just a few blocks away, Belknap said, "We've found the community we are recruiting for is comfortable coming there. When we talk to people about where they want to come and be interviewed, it's not on a medical campus, it's in the community."

The REACH program seeking drug users to come to the 2nd and Broadway location operates in cycles every couple of years. This year it began in June and will end Nov. 22.

"The data we are collecting is incredibly important," said Belknap.

He said it helps connect people to care, put preventive measures in place and decrease HIV in the community. In previous years, the program handed out grocery store gift cards to drug users who agreed to come in for testing, but this year changed over to cash, which Denver Health says is in line with what other REACH clinics around the country hand out.

Belknap said administrators have heard the complaints and have cut the clinic's operating hours, have met with the building's landlord and worked with Denver police to address concerns.

But at least a couple of Broadway Flats occupants are unmoved by the Denver Health rationale.

"Why do we as citizens who work hard and pay taxes pay for something that makes the problem worse?" asked Specht.

"Just having it on their property (main campus) makes way more sense," he said.

Cadman was more blunt.

"We're dealing with unstable people, and when we combine that with drug use, it's a recipe for disaster. It's absolutely insane and it's got to stop."

Denver Health said it's lease on the Broadway office space runs through 2026 and they have no plans to leave early.