Chances are, if you’re in town for the Democratic National Convention, you won’t see many homeless.
That’s not because Denver has no homeless. At last count, there are 3,900 homeless in city and county of Denver and 10,060 in metro Denver.
Nor is Denver “hiding” its homeless. In fact, the opposite is true. Some of Denver’s beauty salons have offered their services free to the homeless — which means that if you have the stereotypical view of scrawny, bearded guys flying cardboard signs, yes, we’re “hiding” some of our homeless behind good, clean looks.
Denver’s homeless are being treated with special regard during the DNC. There are extra volunteers, some even flying in from California, to help. Homeless shelters are staying open for extended hours during the hot August days. For some, that will be a refuge from all of the hullabaloo going on outdoors. And, indoors at many of the larger shelters, there’ll be cable television and big-screen TVs (on-loan for the convention).
One possible inconvenience for the homeless is that Cuernavaca Park, near the intersection of 20th Street and I-25, is where Tent State University is headquartering its activities. That’s not all that far from Denver’s “Ground Zero” for the homeless, the so-called Triangle Park at 23rd and Lawrence. And Cuernavaca Park is just a few blocks from one of Denver’s main homeless shelters, the Salvation Army’s Crossroads shelter for homeless men on 29th Street.
Of course, the homeless can participate in the many activities, protest-wise or otherwise, in the four-day DNC span. In Denver, surely as elsewhere, the homeless have the right to their freedoms as any other free citizen. Aggressive panhandling, however, is prohibited. In downtown Denver, you probably won’t be hassled too much. There’s a long list of prohibited begging activities and “distance-from” rules, developed by the Denver Commission to End Homelessness.
And you probably won’t see drunks lying on the street. It’s against the law, too.
But in Denver, drunks are treated differently than in some cities. Before a drunk is busted or cited, a homeless outreach worker is called in, to see if there can be a help-based — not arrest-based — solution to the problem. That’s one of the humane results of Denver’s Ten-Year Plan to End Homelessness.
Although it wasn’t always so, there’s been a transformation in attitude about the homeless in Denver that, I think, other cities can admire and, perhaps, learn from.
Many of the communities represented at the DNC already have a 10-year plan, of some sort, to end homelessness. And many readers probably already know something about homelessness. There are some homeless issues that seem to be common to most cities.
The major issue, in my mind, is how to deal effectively with the chronically homeless, where drugs and alcohol are involved. In Denver, they eat free at the Denver Rescue Mission, then sit around the triangle-shaped park that’s “Ground Zero” for the homeless, waiting for a free floor mat across the street at the Samaritan House shelter. What they’re doing, meanwhile, in the park is often illicit. Crack, meth and weed can easily be found among the homeless, and those who use, often sell. It turns out eventually to be a circular saw of hopelessness. Even the homeless outreach workers get burned out from dealing with the total “caringlessness” of the chronic, often drug-induced, homeless.
Denver’s Road Home, the project name for the Denver Commission to End Homelessness, is now considered one of America’s leading 10-year plans. It had its start just before the election of 2003. The Denver Homeless Planning Group had brought together a disparate group of Denver’s homeless agencies, business leaders, police, and homeless citizens to struggle toward a general plan to deal with Denver’s homeless. That plan proved to be the backbone of Denver’s Ten-Year Plan.
Then Mayor John Hickenlooper got elected in 2003, along with 10 of 11 new city council members. Shortly after, the mayor was asked by HUD for Denver to join one of 100 communities to develop a 10-year plan. The mayor, in his inimitable fashion, accepted the challenge and, like a bright kite, ran with it. In short order, Hickenlooper appointed Roxane White as head of Human Services and chair of the Commission to End Homelessness. The commission itself is a wonderful mix of community leadership, from City Council president to homeless reps, from police chief to the Downtown Business Bureau.
But without the initial push from the mayor and his continued, aggressive support, and without the brilliant chairmanship of Roxane White, Denver would still be just a collection of scattered huts, instead of a purposeful village building toward the hopes of civilization.
Stephen Terence Gould is a member of the Denver Commission to End Homelessness, and received the 2007 Michael Gilbert Award for Outstanding Achievement by the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless. He was a member of the Colorado Voices panel in 2006.
