A local company trying to develop several vacant properties along East Colfax Avenue near the Aurora Cultural Arts District say increased homeless activity in the area has caused multiple deals to fall through this year.
City officials and the leaders of area nonprofits that assist the homeless population believe help is on the way.
“The entire block is vacant, and even the apartments in the area are having problems leasing,” said Doug Adams, principal of Cornerstone Equity, a commercial property developer based in north Aurora. “Of course, it’s because of (homeless camps).”
in recent years to revitalize a couple of key blocks in the city’s entertainment and arts district along East Colfax Avenue, roughly between Havana and Dayton streets.
Among those efforts was a $3 million project that gutted a multi-unit property at 9995 E. Colfax Ave. and then restore it as a restaurant and theater.
“The city has not been able to lease their restaurant; seven people have turned it down,” Adams, whose company is trying to lease more than 10 empty retail spaces on East Colfax and other properties in north Aurora, said. “We’ve had a lot of people who just said, ‘Nope, sorry.'”
Adams believes business owners are rejecting the properties because they do not want to deal with homeless people who are hanging out and camping in the area.
“You can’t have fights, you can’t have barbecues, you can’t have sleeping, you can’t have half the stuff that goes on out behind these buildings,” he said. “It’s like a block party half the time. (Prospective tenants) have had people panhandling and threatening them.”
In recent months the number of homeless people living in the parking lot behind the building that houses the nonprofits Aurora Warms the Night and the Project to Assist in the Transition from Homelessness, or PATH, at 1544 Elmira St., has grown.
“It started with a few people — four or five — and then it went to 10, then 15, and then pretty soon there’s, like, 25 people out there,” said Brian Arnold, who is in his fourth month as executive director of Aurora Warms the Night. “Our parking lot has become a safe place for a lot of the clients that we have. Since then a lot of them have been living there. They congregate there all day.”
Some of the people receive services from PATH, which is open four days a week for a few hours a day, but many do not, and that concerns Arnold.
“When Denver started moving people along, we ended up with a group who found a safe place here. They came for services at PATH and then figured out this was a place where nobody was going to send them away,” Arnold said. “But now there’s a lot more people in the parking lot than people getting services from either us or PATH. You can tell there’s been drug deals going on there, and there have been gang members hanging out.”
The city explored beautifying the parking lot by installing Astroturf, picnic tables, fencing and shaded areas, but learned it would cost about $100,000, Adams said. Last week, officials installed a “No Trespassing” sign in the parking lot, near where the campers were keeping a grill.
Arnold isn’t looking for a quick, impermanent fix.
“I talked to (the Aurora Police Department), and we’re looking at solutions because we don’t want to have everyone get arrested for being there. That’s not the goal,” he said. “We can’t just say ‘Move on, move on, move on,’ because where are they going to move on to?”
Shelley McKittrick, Aurora’s homeless program director, hopes the will provide the answer.
“My hopes are that once the Day Resource Center ramps up, we will transport people over for showers and meals and they’ll start to feel that safety there that they feel outside Aurora Warms the Night and PATH,” she said. “The trick with any type of daytime services center is to set up a culture where people feel safe, welcomed and trusting of the people who work there. We’re off to a great start in setting the Day Resource Center up for that kind of environment.”
Aurora has been retrofitting an unused building to serve as the city’s first and only place for homeless people to hang out, sleep, eat, shower, wash their clothes and connect with support services.
“Everybody is really waiting on this Day Resource Center to see how big of an impact it’s going to make,” Arnold said. “The idea is that they’ll go over there all day instead of hanging out here. The problem is it’s four miles from here, so these guys aren’t going to have a way to get there.”
McKittrick said the city will offer rides to the center in its two outreach services vans.
The city expects to open the Homeless Day Resource Center, on the northwest corner of East 19th Place and Wheeling Street on the old Fitzsimons Medical Center Campus, in a month.
“It takes time,” McKittrick said. “But our intention is to make a welcoming place where they will choose to come. This is the only way to start breaking the cycle.”