A Denver Home for Homeless College Students Opens

College students without stable housing now have a place to live while working toward their degrees: a new residence that opened near the Colorado State Capitol on Thursday, September 24. It is Denver’s first house run by the Dax Program, and it can hold up to 15 students at a time.

Dax is run by the nonprofit Depaul USA, and it offers students who are experiencing or at risk of homelessness a place to stay for up to two years. The Denver home is an 1890s brick building in North Capitol Hill that began as a duplex, now one of the larger houses in the program.

The need is widespread, and often hard to see. A 2023-24 report from the Hope Center for Student Basic Needs surveyed 74,350 students at 91 colleges across 16 states and found that about half were dealing with housing insecurity and about 14 percent had experienced homelessness. Students in that spot rarely show up in a shelter. “A lot of students usually live out of their car,” said Abbie Kell, who runs basic-needs and housing support at Metropolitan State University of Denver, where staff help 80 to 90 homeless students in a given year. At Regis University, the dean of students, Erica Ingalls, said her office assists four to six a year.

Both schools already offer short-term help, including temporary dorm space or emergency aid, but such support may end before a student is back on their feet. The Dax house is built for the longer stretch. To live there, students work at least 10 hours a week, keep up their grades, and pay a reduced rent. The house also runs onsite food pantries, financial-literacy workshops, help finding work, and health referrals, and puts on movie nights and Sunday dinners. MSU Denver and Regis are the first campus partners, and the program wants to add others.

“Our program is really designed to transition students towards independence,” said Serita Reels, Depaul USA’s national Dax director. On its website, Depaul USA reports that about 95 percent of residents find permanent housing. In its news release, it says about 84 percent stay in school or graduate. The nonprofit has run the model since 2015, with 11 student houses in Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and New York that have together housed 494 students. The Denver building is expected to widen the program’s reach to about 110 students a year, according to a news release.

Nikya Harrell found that footing through Dax. As a new student at Malcolm X College in Chicago, she spent a winter cold and bouncing between relatives’ homes, some weeks able to afford only a single meal. A friend steered her to the campus therapist, who connected her with Dax. In the Chicago house, she had her own space for the first time. She hung “Coraline” and One Direction posters and taped up affirmations, one of them reading, “You might be going through a storm, but the sun is approaching soon.” She took up poetry and journaling and joined student government. Now 24, she has a place of her own and is working toward a degree in early childhood education, with graduation set for 2029 at DePaul University.

Harrell traveled to Denver for the new home’s opening with a message she repeats to herself and has for other students in the same situation: “You’re never alone.”