When the new Hamilton Wing of the Denver Art Museum opens its doors on Oct. 7, its great shadows should provide shade for all, even the homeless. But there is a sentiment, expressed recently in an article in The Denver Post, that the homeless should somehow be restricted from the civic heart of the city.
Some think the homeless are going to be a human blight, as bad as dead evergreens, in the eyes of the million or more visitors expected next year to see the museum’s stunning Starship of the Rockies.
But I can remember, a decade ago, staying at Denver’s Blake Street shelter, the worst homeless shelter in the Rockies, waiting anxiously for free Saturdays, to visit the Denver Art Museum. Even the homeless and the poor can love art.
And it shouldn’t matter, after Oct. 7, when I’m sitting in the sunshine on a bench outside the Denver Public Library, studying the two huge black monoliths hulking in the courtyard of the museum’s new wing, whether I’m wearing a tie, a toga, or a torn old jacket.
But some would begrudge me, and others who look sort of like me, that library bench, the sunshine, and those hulking, sulking Sorrows. I say sort of like me because, in a lineup of middle-aged artists or some homeless men, I probably wouldn’t stand out. And if I wore a pair of those pre-ripped blue jeans, and my comfortable old shoes and shirt, there’s a chance I might get rousted by the horse cops. I’ve seen it happen before, to a homeless man resting in the plaza between the museum and library.
And with the advent of the new Hamilton wing, with its anticipated worldwide coverage, there will surely be a call for sweeps of Denver’s “detritus” from the Civic Center. But that would be as misguided as the direction of the broom in “The Big Sweep,” the other large public art piece in the new Hamilton’s courtyard. It looks like the broom is sweeping stuff from, not into, the dustpan.
That’s backwards. And so is the attitude expressed by several at the community meeting called by the Department of Human Services recently to discuss having a temporary cold-weather homeless shelter at 14th Avenue and Bannock Street – across from the Denver Art Museum’s farthest corner. Their attitude seems to be a cultural elitist version of Not In My Back Yard.
I can understand the cultural divide gaping between the homeless and everyone else. Until I became homeless, I was part of the suit-wearing, culturally self-selected, arts-dedicated elite.
Among other positions, I’d been head of the large arts council in the state capital of Michigan. Lofty, elitist company.
But the most interesting people I met and worked with were the artists, the creatives. And most of them were relatively poor. With a cardboard sign, some of the sculptors could certainly pass for homeless: longish hair, scraggly beard, work-dirty fingernails, and, more often than not, a hearty disdain for “normal” conventions.
If you can’t tell, from the outside, the difference between a sculptor and a bum, your view is just two-dimensional; you’re missing something important, just like those who object to the proposed temporary shelter across from the DAM: their objections seem to focus on seeing the homeless.
But by determined calculation, the homeless men who will use the temporary shelter on Bannock during the cold months will not be seen. They’ll be bused in the dark for their overnight stay, then bussed back to the Denver Rescue Mission before sunrise.
Overnight, they’ll be under constant supervision, with strict rules of conduct and procedures. The central safety issue here is not to keep the general public from harm, but to keep homeless men from the irrevocable harm of freezing to death.
As a member of the Denver Commission to End Homelessness, I’m aware of the shelter problems encountered, and overcome, by the Denver Department of Human Services. It’s members have done their very best to listen to the neighborhood communities and have worked things out to the satisfaction of most.
If a few mainstream people object to the temporary shelter based on their own neighborhood’s “safety,” their concern is ill-founded. If their objections seem to be based on differences described mostly by income and cultural status, chances are it’s really based on cultural ignorance.
Stephen Terence Gould (stgould@peoplepc.com) is an independent scholar in Denver.
