​Tuesday OCT 20 2015

Dear Get Loud,

    I just picked up my first issue of Get Loud publication, and yes right now, I am between homes. I’m staying at a chiropractor’s home out south. I know he’s trying to help me out of his Christian heart, but he can be a little hard on me. I really don’t know him that well. He’s the one who asked me to come to stay here. 
    
It might look like I’m complaining. My brother left me high and dry. I could--should--be living back at home where I grew up, but no--he’s never asked me to go back there the two times I’ve been homeless in the past five years. He’s since moved out to California.
    
I’ve been a believer in Christ for the past 21 years, I’m sure glad he’s in my life, because I really don’t know what I’d do if he wasn’t in my life. I had a big drug problem in the ‘80s. I have recovered from them, thank God, cause I know I couldn’t-wouldn’t survive on the streets if I was still doing drugs. God has put it on my heart to stay away from people who do them--not to ever do drugs again.
    
Rent has gone through the roof in Colorado. It’s ridiculous!! I’m not quite sure what to do!! So I thought to drop you this letter.

     Thanks--God Bless,

                       Jay Kern

    Rights. A moral ethical or legal principle considered as an underlying cause of truth, justice, morality or ethics.    Unalienable rights. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  
   For just over ten years I have stood in the lines, fought my way out of the bondage of addiction, fell back into the addictive cycle, and braved the elements. I have both overcome the odds and lost everything--even when I had everything going for me. The issue most prominent to me has been: Tonight, where will I sleep? There has been legislation proposed, asking for the “Right to Rest” to be granted to the citizens of Colorado.
    The focus should be locked on the right to exist. From birth all homo sapiens have one goal: to continue existing. To cry when hungry or wet. To place cardboard on the ground to lie on. To ask our fellow Coloradans for financial (donations/support) help for food, travel, etc. I know of no outside area where law enforcement officials are exempt from telling an individual(s) to “pack it up.”
    Who if cold would not wrap themselves in a blanket? Who if tired from a day-long trek across a city, would not seek a well-lit place to rest? This is about a demographic of disenfranchised, displaced humans, Americans, Coloradans, Denverites, not fighting to rest. They are fighting to exist.
    Profiled by their scruffy appearance, backpacks stuffed with belongings, and their general area of habitation, these people either are, were, or will be criminals. How compassionless! How fearful, lazy and one-track-minded of an issue that you do not understand! Statistics will help you (legislatures and the public at large) understand root causes of homelessness. Habitual and chronic homelessness.
    We don’t want to mess up the Capitol lawn, or turn Civic Center Park into a Los Angeles-esque Skid Row. We don’t want to set up tents outside of Coors Field. However, we do want to exist. I, just like every other American, was endowed with the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Thomas Jefferson did not remind us of these rights that cannot be removed, just to direct them to the wealthy and stable citizens.

By MT Hazard

     With all that is going on in Colorado Springs one might think that the City Council and the Mayor desire to take us back to the good ol’ days of the 1940’s and 1950’s, a film noir dream when women were in the kitchen, undesirables (you know, people of color, bums, the disabled) knew their place or the police put them there without any whining about it either, and wise white men ruled. Well, “those times have been changin’” even in the Springs. It’s more like the sixties.

FLASH: City Council backs away from, amends and delays No Sit/Lie Ordinance! 
     The City Council attempted to circumvent the Constitution, justice and compassion while pushing the Mayor’s agenda to rid the downtown area and Ol’ Colorado City of homeless looking scary people. The sentence of jail, fine and probation was reduced to $500.00 fine which is still a jail sentence in the Springs because no one can afford the costs of staying out. 

RESULT: The ordinance is now postponed until January 2016 in hopes that all those people who rose up against the “silent majority” to oppose the criminalization of sitting down will quiet down. However, people are still speaking out against the ordinance and will continue to do so. The task of _fighting government intrusions into the rights of the people has not and cannot end here. _
     As to Debtor’s Prison Redux, the ACLU has filed a complaint with the city and the practice is under attack. We shall keep an eye on this abuse.

FLASH: Colorado Springs Police Round Up Panhandlers Indiscriminatingly!

     In further attempts to rid the downtown area of people wearing certain attire and of a certain manner, the CSPD practice of arresting or ticketing grounded pilots flying signs looking for a bit of change had become the norm. The streets seemed empty, void of diversity and contrast. (Remember the Debtor’s Prison?)

RESULTS: 375 Panhandling case dismissed in Colorado Springs courts! Practice ceased and under review.

     Go figure: the Supreme Court likes signs! A Federal Court judge said panhandling is free speech!
     Judgment be damned let the innocent go free! Holy Cow the streets are back in full swing: now every corner has its resident pilot who continues to suffer the insults of the ignorant and the elements. Go get a job? It is his or her job!

FLASH: City Council attacks legal marijuana industry!

    Moratoriums were discussed and one ordinance, eliminating any further development, licensing or expansion of “pot bars” was passed. The medical marijuana moratorium was amended to only be for six (6) months however, under closer examination, the amendment has no meaning and can itself be amended. REASONING: Gosh, we didn’t expect the people to obey the law and to have so many folks who like smoking pot: we need to slow this down. (Too bad there are no fields to spray accidently.)

RESULTS: Colorado City Council Stifles Business in the Springs (and taxes the people instead). Some things haven’t changed: yet.

FLASH: Colorado Springs Hosts Homeless Summit!

    Representatives from all across the United States and from agencies city wide came together to hear about initiatives and actions taken to help end homelessness. A Salt Lake City representative of “Housing First” spoke of giving homes to the homeless and how well it was working in reducing homelessness by 90%. We laughed and joked because, I mean really, homes for the homeless. LOL. 

RESULTS: NADA, ZIP, NO-THING

    Mayor Suthers spoke for approximately two (2) minutes and focused on his tax bill for fixing the roads. That could help the homeless: yes, yes, it gives them a smooth ride out of town. The County Commish spoke and with a smile and tone of sincerity commented that the Salt Lake City model was good and all but probably wouldn’t work here.

COMMENTARY: 
    That’s the news folks. As a final statement I would like to comment on a statement made by a developer who spoke at the Homeless Summit about the rights of some interfering with the rights of others. He was talking about his office being surrounded by some people of the street. Well sir, we have a right to sleep, we have a right to sit and a right to be left alone. At my last search, the right to not be annoyed by what or who doesn’t meet your limited judgment of a certain folks does not exist. If there was a right to not be annoyed, then there wouldn’t be a mayor or city council. 

 “Urban camping a growing problem in Denver despite ban; city spending millions to help combat issue” Posted on the Denver News Channel Wow! Now that’s a headline!  If one was to only read the headline and skip the article, you might think that our fair city is doing everything in their power to combat, or wage war against the homeless “Issue” here in Denver. They’re not. 
    Let me just say for the record. I for one believe that the urban camping ban is a problem. Not for the reasons you might suspect though. The urban camping ban made criminals out of the homeless in 2012 and in so doing, created discrimination towards homelessness, which as we all learned in the sixth grade, only promotes hate and fear.
Our reporter friend that gives us this story, Jaclyn Allen got a first hand look at “The dangerous combination of drugs, camping, and Homelessness”. What about the dangerous combination of drugs, camping, and college lads or, drinking, driving, and football? Is the city spending millions to help combat these “issues”?
    As far as the needles found, did anyone check? Or did they assume they were used for drugs? Of course they were used for drugs, they’re homeless people. Just maybe, they were insulin needles, Diabetes is one of the major illnesses that attack the homeless, due to their diet.
 I’m sorry I have to ask, where do you think these drugs are coming from? Do you honestly believe that these Homeless people are bringing pounds and pounds of meth, heroin, and crack with them from what ever state they came from? I don’t think so!
    The truth is, Homeless people and anyone else for that matter, can get these drugs all too easily, right here in our shining city. That’s right; Denver has its own problems without needing to point a finger at the homeless.
The difference being, your neighbor or maybe even you, live in the brick and mortar of a home, where you can lock your door. A place surrounded by walls and we can’t see you sticking needles in your arm, smoking crack, or drinking a fifth and beating your wife. The fact is all this is real, here in Denver, Like it or not.
Like the article says “Drug use has come out of the shadows”. It’s no longer hidden in your bedroom, bathroom, or garage. Sorry!
    Please don’t get me wrong I don’t condone any kind of drug abuse in any way, shape, or form. You just can’t pretend that it’s only a homeless issue.  
Okay, let’s talk about something less depressing! The debris that was mentioned kind of made me chuckle, really! I can see trash along the river just like everybody else does. The thing that strikes me as funny is, DSD “spent hours clearing debris left by homeless people along the creek.” You see, Denver being the shining city that it is, we don’t ever litter here, No human being in Denver has ever littered along the Cherry Creek river, the Platte or anywhere else in this city, it just don’t happen! 
    Pillows, Luggage, and, STARBUCKS cups? That seems a little unlikely to me. I can’t even afford seven eleven, let alone Starbucks coffee. I wonder if the pillows and luggage were actually trash or did Denver Sheriffs department just throw away all the personal property that this homeless person owned. That would fall under Seizure and/or destruction of personal property: Unreasonable search and seizure. 
That’s a Constitutional right In case you don’t know about it. It’s called the forth amendment. 
    So, why is The Denver News Channel article trying to imply that the citations issued for smoking pot were all given to the homeless? Out of this “480 citations issued” how many of them were really issued to the homeless? And how many were issued to your sons and daughters? All I’m asking is that we be fair about this.
"(They are) urinating in the fountain and defecating on the trail. These are things I haven't seen until this year, where I have come across human waste," 
After removing all the porta-pots from off the Platte river, Keeping other public restrooms locked, and insuring that it is as difficult as possible to use a restroom anywhere in Denver. How does this come as a surprise to anyone? Oh yeah, if your not a homeless person, you’re just not aware of the issues. 
The Team at Denver Homeless Out Loud has just finished a report on “Downtown Public Toilet Inventory” Yea Really! It was sent to Denver City Council Members.
It serves the purpose of cataloging the “lack of” basic human and personal care facilities in the downtown area. You can find this report at:
 http://durablog.me.pn/wordpress/category/reports/
“Even though Denver has a camping ban, there has to be a balance between public safety and people's rights.” Emphasis Mine: Cmdr. Tony Lopez DPD
   Wait a minute, stop the presses, Did he say “balance between Public Safety and People’s rights”? I thought this article was about Sleeping, eating, and taking a dump. I don’t want to sleep I HAVE to sleep, I don’t want to eat I HAVE to eat, I don’t want to sh*%. Well, you get the point.
I don’t see how sleeping in any way infringes upon public safety, I’m asleep. Eating outside isn’t a public safety issue either. Have you ever heard of picnics? As far as using fountains to urinate in, Open up some restrooms, install some clean porta-pots on the river, or even a bottle and a safe place to dispose of it. Seattle and Oregon both have some pretty nice restrooms for the homeless. 
   "I know people get really frustrated because they don't believe or see us down here, but we're down here quite often,"
   Officer Ligea Craven, Denver Police Department's homeless outreach team.
Seems I should know Officer Craven, I’ve been on the streets for almost two (2) years now, and have never been approached by any officers identifying themselves as a “homeless outreach team”! In all fairness I have been asked, told, and ordered to “move along” by several Denver police officers that I don’t think were trying to reach out to me. 
It's a problem that's grown so serious that the Denver City Council recently approved nearly $2 million and 10 new officers to deal with the homelessness issue downtown.
    Oh Wait! I was at that city council meeting. The story goes something like this.
It wasn’t going to be for more arrests of the homeless. It was going to be for a police presents downtown, in Lodo, And in the Ball park Neighborhood, you remember them, their the people that love the homeless and just want to help. And only about half of the $1.8 Million is going to DPD the other half is going to the sheriffs department for arrests and detention. So much for, no arrests.  
    But that’s not even why I started this little letter, “Denver's Road Home said since the 2012 ordinance, they have made space for an additional 600 shelter beds”. Sounds like there are an additional 600 beds, besides the Whatever Number there was before these additional beds. So, at best, someone from the Denver Road Home, wants us to believe there are at least approximately six hundred and ONE beds, readily available, somewhere in our fair city. Well, I wrote Denver Road Home and asked them about this.
    Here is the response:  “Please note that the article cites this increase since the ordinance went into effect in 2012—so it is not reporting an immediate increase within the last month or anything._ After the ordinance shelter capacity at Denver Rescue Mission and Crossroads both increased, and we brought Women’s Emergency Shelter online as well”._ 
“Capacity is increased seasonally during the colder 6 months of the year (typically Oct-Apr) so shelter capacity is not stagnant across a 12 month period”.
   So don’t go out this evening talking about how there are 601 beds in Denver for “Those People” because there’s not. And even if there were 601 beds, There are far more homeless people than beds.

    As a formerly homeless individual I have begun to realize that the general public has no idea what homelessness is like. They've never been down that road. They've never been told the truth. And because of the lies they have been told many of them really don't give a damn.
    The average home has how many TVs? How many motor vehicles? And what percentage of people in America have cell phones today? And yet, with all of the technology and all of the riches that so many housed people enjoy in our country, some of them are callous and insensitive enough to ridicule a homeless person for having a cell phone.
Bitch please!
    I've heard people (sometimes in churches where they teach people to "love one another") make all sorts of negative comments about homeless people who have phones. They also complain when homeless people have major brand name items (I know that Christ's Body Ministries has had brand name shoes lately) or anything that looks remotely new. After years of hearing such nonsense I simply want to curse at them and call them names. I didn't used to be that way, but I've lost patience lately.
    It really is just mind boggling to me how a housed person will, anytime he or she makes a new friend or whatever, give the person their number without thinking twice about it. Yet many of them don't think homeless people are worthy of having a phone to be contacted by friends, family, case workers, or employers.
Some individuals experiencing homelessness do have incomes. These incomes are sometimes government benefits. In other cases the income comes from day labor jobs. Some have disabling conditions that prevent them from getting or keeping a job, but that Social Security doesn't recognize as such--and so they have NO government benefits OR wages--and their only income might be what they get from compassionate people who see them with their sign on the street corner. Wherever the income is coming from, it's usually not enough to even think about getting an apartment at market rate value.
So, people experiencing homelessness will do whatever they can to live a normal life. One thing they do is have their own cell phones.
    And cell phones are extremely useful. If a person is outside and needs a place to stay for the night he or she can call a friend and either sleep on someone's couch or get blankets with which to sleep outside. 
Some cell phones that homeless people have are the type that are prepaid. The people with these types of phones only use them in case of emergency. They don't use these phones for leisure phone calls. (And even if they do, so what? Don’t housed people?)
    Without a phone, who the hell can be reached--for employment? For benefits? For medical care? For emergencies? For anything?
    The public needs to realize that homeless people are people. People need to be able to communicate. Therefore, they need phones, dumb ass.

​by Debbie Brady 
    Why are we, as an advanced civilized society, asking law enforcement to solve our social _problems for us? Where has this gotten us? The United States has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world, by far. Those other mamby pamby countries, like China, aren’t even close. Our law enforcement officials have gunned down more unarmed citizens (mostly black men) in the last year then most of these other countries have ever killed. 
    When we put society's problems in the hand of cops--as happened at Sustainability Park on October 24th--the results are seldom good. It should be common knowledge by now that if you call the police to report problems with a mentally ill or disabled relative, what you are going to end up with is a deceased relative who is no longer mentally ill or disabled, they are just dead, with no cure possible. Social solutions from the barrel of _a gun.
    On October 24th several hundred friends and I took part in a very moving event, the birth of Resurrection Village. Brenda Budd, a Native American who grew up in this neighborhood, gave a wonderful talk on the history of this land and the people who lived here in harmony with the earth. We hoped to carry on that tradition.
This plot of land belongs to the Denver Housing Authority, in other words, the City of Denver, in other words the citizens of Denver. This is our land folks. How about a little history here. I don’t know the exact date when this land was stolen from the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes that lived and hunted here, but it was sometime after Col. Chivington and his band of bloodthirsty volunteers slaughtered Black Kettle and his group of peaceful Cheyenne in their sleep at the big bend in Sand Creek, southeast of Denver. You can Google the dates.      They are important dates to remember but don’t really pertain to this story. 
    As the city grew and awareness of poverty as a social problem increased, the City created The Denver Housing Authority and gave it a mission as quoted from the horse’s mouth: _DHA’s mission is to serve the residents of Denver by developing, owning, and operating safe, decent and affordable housing in a manner that promotes thriving communities." 
In pursuit of that mission they built public housing on this plot of land in the 1970’s, to house people who were without housing. These buildings housed hundreds of people who would have been living on the street. Poor funding by the city however resulted in lack of maintenance and the gradual decline of these buildings, and in the 1990’s they were condemned and demolished and Denver’s supply of low income housing was decreased, in the name of urban renewal or some such thing.
    The land sat empty for a few years and then in 2009 a group of organic urban farmers formed a coalition of groups to lease the land for urban organic farming. It was great! The plot of land between 24 and 25th St and between Lawrence and Arapahoe St was named Sustainability Park and organic urban farming began on a big scale. They not only produced healthy organic produce and vegetables to the food desert that is the Curtis Park neighborhood and surrounding areas, but they demonstrated daily how to live sustainably with a small carbon footprint in an increasingly mechanized world. The Denver Urban Farmers were going at it great guns until last year, when DHA refused to renew their lease because it had decided to sell the land to a private developer. This sale would result in further gentrification of an already over-gentrified neighborhood. Do you remember DHA’s mission statement?--    DHA’s mission is to serve the residents of Denver by developing, owning, and operating safe, decent and affordable housing in a manner that promotes thriving communities. Does anybody read. “Sell the people's land for profit “in this mission statement?
    We decided this was not acceptable. It’s not acceptable to turn public land into a monetary profit when there are thousands of Denver citizens living in the streets, without shelter. 
    Oct 24th was the last day for the farmers to move out and we decided it would be a good day for us to move in. It was a beautiful day. We got there early. I didn’t get there till 8am, and already there were two almost complete homes and another three under construction. I went toward some friends who were sitting at a picnic table making signs. I sat down and we talked while they worked. I am an old lady and not much good for anything these days except for shooting off my mouth. I don’t play with hammers and nails and I suck at making signs, so Terese asked me to hand out flyers and information and talk to people. This I can do, so I said, “sure.”
With that I acquired a ringside seat in one of the most beautiful ceremonies I have ever attended. The Birth of a Village. It was beautiful, starting with Brenda’s talk on the history of the land and her attachment to it, _to talks about how the village would be structured and coordinated by the people who were going to live there and were in the process of building their own homes. They were unsheltered people who were committed to building homes for themselves in a self-governing sustainable community.
    The sun shone. It was a beautiful day. Hammers hammered, saws sawed and screwdrivers screwed, I handed out pamphlets and talked to people, while my friends made some beautiful signs. I was envious of everyone’s talents, but I enjoyed the camaraderie as I watched a village come together. It was like magic really, you could see it happening. People were helping each other, discussing logistics, making decisions together--it was beautiful. It reminded me of my youth in the ‘60s. We had similar dreams and many of us still hold to them. It looked to this old hippy like it might happen. Denver Homeless out Loud was in the process of reclaiming a plot of public land and returning it to the public. We were all excited and looking toward the future. 
    Then the cops came. 
    I wasn’t there when the cops showed up, about 70 strong, along with the SWAT team, of course. I was not planning to stay overnight because I’m an old lady and I did not want to spend the night sleeping on the ground, when I have a warm bed 15 blocks away. So I walked home before it got dark and as I was crawling into my warm bed, ten of my dear friends were getting hauled off to jail. The Police not only arrested our 10 brave pioneers, but they gathered up all of our tools and material as well as the tiny homes and tossed them into trucks and took them... God knows where.
    This is a classic example of tasking law enforcement with solving social issues. Once the police show up there is no thought of compromising. The cops have a job to do and they do it quite well, with a show of force. This heavy handed approach to solving social issues is enjoying a hay day right now in much of the world, except in some small areas where humans have evolved to the point where they have learned to solve social issues, socially. Let’s all hope that the rest of _humanity _is not too far behind them.