DENVER—This city’s mounting homeless crisis is dominating a crowded mayoral election set for Tuesday, with over a dozen candidates offering competing plans on how to tackle an issue that has left residents sharply divided. Here, as with other communities across the country, the homeless population grew during the pandemic—in size and visibility. Tent encampments, once tucked from view under bridges or along the South Platte River, have sprouted up downtown and in residential neighborhoods where they line sidewalks near newly constructed condominiums. The one-two punch of Denver’s growth and rising housing costs has fueled the problem, advocates for people without housing say.

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