Five hundred fifty-three thousand seven hundred forty-two: according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s 2017 Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress, there are 553,742 people experiencing homelessness on any given night in the United States, with 35 percent of them – 192,875 human beings – living entirely without shelter. In the seven-county Denver Metropolitan area, the figure is 924: 924 human beings going unsheltered on any given night. Every one of these 924 people is criminalized by Denver’s sixteen ordinances that punish poverty and marginalize homeless people.
These city ordinances push the homeless deeper into darkness and danger. Where do you “move on” to when you have no place to go? A back alley? A dumpster? According to the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, 231 homeless people died in Denver in 2017, all of them forbidden by law to even cover themselves as they drew their last breath. This figure is up from 171 in 2016.
Can you imagine being harassed by police and ordered to “move on” for sharing a sandwich with a friend in a public park? Can you imagine being questioned, searched, or even threatened with arrest for protecting yourself with a plastic trash bag from a flash storm, or for ducking into a doorway to get out of the rain? Can you imagine having your personal property searched, seized and likely tossed in the trash without either a warrant or probable cause? Every day, Denver’s homeless community endures these injustices, and many more.
In 2012, Denver’s City Council voted 9-4 to pass the Urban Camping Ban ordinance, which makes it illegal for homeless people to sleep outside in Denver: not on the street, not in any public space, not even in an alley. The law demands that, if you’re in Denver, you keep moving, even though there is nowhere to go. Though Denver had, and still has, minimal services to mitigate homelessness, Mayor Michael Hancock was able to sell the camping ban as an act of compassion designed to help police guide the homeless toward overworked, underfunded, barely-existent services. Councilperson Susan Shepherd called the vote to pass the ban “a great injustice and tragedy that we are about to commit in the name of compassion.”
Six years later, the injustice and tragedy continue. Emergency shelter beds are still woefully inadequate, only able to serve a fraction of those without shelter. There are no shelters for men with children, the LGBTQ community, or people with pets. Moreover, Denver’s government has no effective agency to ascertain and address the concerns of the city’s homeless community. The 43-member Commission to End Homelessness, which first convened in 2004 and which disbanded in May 2017, was “plagued with problems” according to Westword: the commission was never consulted about the camping ban, nor was it consulted about the large-scale sweeps of homeless encampments conducted by the city in 2016. And its replacement commission, the 15-member Advisory Committee for Housing People Experiencing Homelessness, is barely getting started; the mayor only announced the formation of the committee on April 26.
The indifference and inhumanity of Denver’s government towards homeless people and the challenges they face are amplified by the dozens of citations that Denver police issue to them every day. Denver Homeless Out Loud (DHOL) is working to help Denver restore its humanity. DHOL does not believe that the city government’s stance is at all reflective of the compassion and kindness of Denver’s citizenry. Denver is a city where the average monthly rent for a one bedroom apt is $1,419, just slightly less than the monthly earnings of a minimum wage worker. Denver is a city where many hundreds, perhaps thousands, are only a paycheck away from joining the homeless community. And Denver is a community that cares.
The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution reads:
"The right of the people to be secure in
their persons, houses, papers, and effects,
against unreasonable searches and
seizures, shall not be violated, and no
Warrants shall issue, but upon probable
cause, supported by Oath or affirmation,
and particularly describing the place to be
searched, and the person or things to be
seized."
Tonight, hundreds of people are on the brink of becoming part of the homeless community, to which, judging by the actions of the Denver police, the Fourth Amendment does not apply.
Did you know that while the city pads revenues by allowing, and even inviting, food vendors to ply their wares in Denver’s parks and other public spaces, it simultaneously, at these same locations, uses police harassment to discourage and debase the efforts of community and charity organizations, religious institutions, and lone good Samaritans to provide meals to the homeless and hungry?
Denver Homeless Out Loud has declared that enough is enough and has mobilized an effort to mitigate the inhumanities and injustices borne endlessly by the homeless. Specifically, DHOL is currently working to secure the requisite signatures to put the Denver Right to Survive Initiative on the 2018 ballot. This initiative will restore homeless people’s right to rest and shelter themselves from the elements, in a non-obstructive manner, in public places. It will restore homeless people’s right to, like “every” citizen of Denver, peacefully procure, consume, and share food in public places where food is not banned. And it will restore to the homeless their illegally-stripped constitutional right to protection from illegal search and seizure of their persons and possessions.
The Denver Right to Survive Initiative is the right thing for Denver right now, but getting it on the ballot will not be easy. If you are outraged by the challenges that homeless people must overcome just to eat a meal or snatch a few moments of rest, if you are disheartened to know that poverty is now sufficient reason to strip a person’s constitutional rights, if you believe that humans should simply be kinder to other humans, then DHOL needs your help.
Interested in helping
with the ballot inititive?
If you are a resident of Denver City & County and a registered voter, you have the opportunity to sign a petition supporting the Denver Right to Survive Initiative for inclusion on the ballot. Take care to only sign once; duplicate signatures will not count.
Want to get more involved? Great!
Denver Homeless Out Loud, the organization sponsoring the inititive, needs signature gatherers. Signature gathereing is all-volunteer. Training is available and required but flexible enough to fit most schedules. Prospective signature gatherers are asked to commit 25 hours a month, through September.
Ready to get started?
Contact Dianne Thiel at [email protected].
These city ordinances push the homeless deeper into darkness and danger. Where do you “move on” to when you have no place to go? A back alley? A dumpster? According to the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, 231 homeless people died in Denver in 2017, all of them forbidden by law to even cover themselves as they drew their last breath. This figure is up from 171 in 2016.
Can you imagine being harassed by police and ordered to “move on” for sharing a sandwich with a friend in a public park? Can you imagine being questioned, searched, or even threatened with arrest for protecting yourself with a plastic trash bag from a flash storm, or for ducking into a doorway to get out of the rain? Can you imagine having your personal property searched, seized and likely tossed in the trash without either a warrant or probable cause? Every day, Denver’s homeless community endures these injustices, and many more.
In 2012, Denver’s City Council voted 9-4 to pass the Urban Camping Ban ordinance, which makes it illegal for homeless people to sleep outside in Denver: not on the street, not in any public space, not even in an alley. The law demands that, if you’re in Denver, you keep moving, even though there is nowhere to go. Though Denver had, and still has, minimal services to mitigate homelessness, Mayor Michael Hancock was able to sell the camping ban as an act of compassion designed to help police guide the homeless toward overworked, underfunded, barely-existent services. Councilperson Susan Shepherd called the vote to pass the ban “a great injustice and tragedy that we are about to commit in the name of compassion.”
Six years later, the injustice and tragedy continue. Emergency shelter beds are still woefully inadequate, only able to serve a fraction of those without shelter. There are no shelters for men with children, the LGBTQ community, or people with pets. Moreover, Denver’s government has no effective agency to ascertain and address the concerns of the city’s homeless community. The 43-member Commission to End Homelessness, which first convened in 2004 and which disbanded in May 2017, was “plagued with problems” according to Westword: the commission was never consulted about the camping ban, nor was it consulted about the large-scale sweeps of homeless encampments conducted by the city in 2016. And its replacement commission, the 15-member Advisory Committee for Housing People Experiencing Homelessness, is barely getting started; the mayor only announced the formation of the committee on April 26.
The indifference and inhumanity of Denver’s government towards homeless people and the challenges they face are amplified by the dozens of citations that Denver police issue to them every day. Denver Homeless Out Loud (DHOL) is working to help Denver restore its humanity. DHOL does not believe that the city government’s stance is at all reflective of the compassion and kindness of Denver’s citizenry. Denver is a city where the average monthly rent for a one bedroom apt is $1,419, just slightly less than the monthly earnings of a minimum wage worker. Denver is a city where many hundreds, perhaps thousands, are only a paycheck away from joining the homeless community. And Denver is a community that cares.
The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution reads:
"The right of the people to be secure in
their persons, houses, papers, and effects,
against unreasonable searches and
seizures, shall not be violated, and no
Warrants shall issue, but upon probable
cause, supported by Oath or affirmation,
and particularly describing the place to be
searched, and the person or things to be
seized."
Tonight, hundreds of people are on the brink of becoming part of the homeless community, to which, judging by the actions of the Denver police, the Fourth Amendment does not apply.
Did you know that while the city pads revenues by allowing, and even inviting, food vendors to ply their wares in Denver’s parks and other public spaces, it simultaneously, at these same locations, uses police harassment to discourage and debase the efforts of community and charity organizations, religious institutions, and lone good Samaritans to provide meals to the homeless and hungry?
Denver Homeless Out Loud has declared that enough is enough and has mobilized an effort to mitigate the inhumanities and injustices borne endlessly by the homeless. Specifically, DHOL is currently working to secure the requisite signatures to put the Denver Right to Survive Initiative on the 2018 ballot. This initiative will restore homeless people’s right to rest and shelter themselves from the elements, in a non-obstructive manner, in public places. It will restore homeless people’s right to, like “every” citizen of Denver, peacefully procure, consume, and share food in public places where food is not banned. And it will restore to the homeless their illegally-stripped constitutional right to protection from illegal search and seizure of their persons and possessions.
The Denver Right to Survive Initiative is the right thing for Denver right now, but getting it on the ballot will not be easy. If you are outraged by the challenges that homeless people must overcome just to eat a meal or snatch a few moments of rest, if you are disheartened to know that poverty is now sufficient reason to strip a person’s constitutional rights, if you believe that humans should simply be kinder to other humans, then DHOL needs your help.
Interested in helping
with the ballot inititive?
If you are a resident of Denver City & County and a registered voter, you have the opportunity to sign a petition supporting the Denver Right to Survive Initiative for inclusion on the ballot. Take care to only sign once; duplicate signatures will not count.
Want to get more involved? Great!
Denver Homeless Out Loud, the organization sponsoring the inititive, needs signature gatherers. Signature gathereing is all-volunteer. Training is available and required but flexible enough to fit most schedules. Prospective signature gatherers are asked to commit 25 hours a month, through September.
Ready to get started?
Contact Dianne Thiel at [email protected].
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