Learning Lunch: Beauty’s Role in Housing that Heals

It’s no secret that Denver needs more housing units—lots of them—to meet our homelessness crisis. 

But under those roofs… how will life be experienced? What are the possibilities for genuine community that makes for a great place to grow up, or grow old?

We invite you to imagine and explore the role beauty can play in the context of affordable housing. Maybe you’re wondering…

• How does beauty in the built environment contribute to healing and flourishing?
• What cultivating a “community of the beautiful” looks like among those who have experienced isolation and life instability?
• What personal and communal practices help us grow “new eyes” for beauty within and around us?
• For faith-centered people, what are God’s beauty-making ways we might align ourselves with?
• How beauty complements and supports Mile High Ministry’s two other “ABCs” of Advocacy and Community?

Come join the conversation and contribute your own perspectives and questions.

As part of Denver Institute's FOR Campaign–a five-year strategic plan–we are identifying three significant civic issues that we want to help impact over the next five years. Housing affordability will be one of them and we are excited to partner with Mile High Ministries on this event.

Mile High Ministries is a Denver-based nonprofit committed to seeking God’s peace for our city through the creative, compassionate, and prayerful development of people and communities. They have two housing communities that will be highlighted during the event. Clara Brown Commons, a 61-unit apartment community, has been Mile High Ministry's playground and palette for incorporating beauty in shared living spaces and long-term neighborly relationships. At Joshua Station, their supportive transitional program for families, they nurture beauty with residents as a way of healing from their traumas of homelessness.