by Darren O’Conner
On Saturday, July 25th, along with Board member Leanne Wheeler, I visited the Fort Lyon Supportive Residential Community, where residents stay long term to overcome the issues that found them homeless. For most at this facility, it is addiction and mental illness--not the leading causes of homelessness, but definitely prevalent for people who are at risk of dying and who are chronically homeless.
Fort Lyon is the brainchild of former DPD officer Phil Harrington (who hosted us on our visit) and his friend and colleague, James Ginsburg, who is the community’s director. When the property became available, they visited with several other interested parties, putting forth their idea of turning the property into a resident recovery program for those at the end of their rope. Their continued visits and proposals were never met with a no, and when private investors failed to materialize, the state stepped in and provided the necessary funding. Phil shares that the people who come there are survivors, having lived through a life that too many of their cohort on the streets died from. The project is managed by the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless .
It was an amazing visit. I saw the results of the work the community of residents are doing there, including reclaiming many of the historic buildings through their construction and decorating efforts. The profound observation I experienced is that, given the support to simply live in a drug free environment without having to face the struggle for survival, these wonderful people are thriving and working. The work was both on their own health and recovery, and on making the community the best it can be through their ownership of what they do. They make most of the decisions on how things are run, including what projects to work on. Their significant efforts fly in the face of the common belief that people who are homeless are lazy and are looking for a hand out and for a way to score their next drink or drug. Once given a safe space, away from the rat race of simply surviving and the lure of drugs and alcohol use with fellow unhoused community members, they are showing that thriving means living in harmony and staying busy, working as a group.
I'm extremely grateful to Leanne and Phil for the great amount of time they devoted to sharing the day with me, and to all the great residents of Fort Lyon that I met. I'm also happy to say that I found a friend from the streets of Boulder, who, now there for nearly a year, is in college, getting straight A's, working her ass off for recovery. Peace is there, and I enjoyed it for half a day.
For more information about this program,
contact Colorado Coalition for the Homeless
at (303) 293-2217.
Darren O’Connor is an electrical engineer at CU Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, where he is currently working on an instrument that will go to Jupiter's moon, Europa, looking for signs of life. His activism centers around foreclosure justice, homeless rights, banking fraud and exposing the racism inherent in and fundamental to our social, economic and justice systems.
Fort Lyon is the brainchild of former DPD officer Phil Harrington (who hosted us on our visit) and his friend and colleague, James Ginsburg, who is the community’s director. When the property became available, they visited with several other interested parties, putting forth their idea of turning the property into a resident recovery program for those at the end of their rope. Their continued visits and proposals were never met with a no, and when private investors failed to materialize, the state stepped in and provided the necessary funding. Phil shares that the people who come there are survivors, having lived through a life that too many of their cohort on the streets died from. The project is managed by the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless .
It was an amazing visit. I saw the results of the work the community of residents are doing there, including reclaiming many of the historic buildings through their construction and decorating efforts. The profound observation I experienced is that, given the support to simply live in a drug free environment without having to face the struggle for survival, these wonderful people are thriving and working. The work was both on their own health and recovery, and on making the community the best it can be through their ownership of what they do. They make most of the decisions on how things are run, including what projects to work on. Their significant efforts fly in the face of the common belief that people who are homeless are lazy and are looking for a hand out and for a way to score their next drink or drug. Once given a safe space, away from the rat race of simply surviving and the lure of drugs and alcohol use with fellow unhoused community members, they are showing that thriving means living in harmony and staying busy, working as a group.
I'm extremely grateful to Leanne and Phil for the great amount of time they devoted to sharing the day with me, and to all the great residents of Fort Lyon that I met. I'm also happy to say that I found a friend from the streets of Boulder, who, now there for nearly a year, is in college, getting straight A's, working her ass off for recovery. Peace is there, and I enjoyed it for half a day.
For more information about this program,
contact Colorado Coalition for the Homeless
at (303) 293-2217.
Darren O’Connor is an electrical engineer at CU Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, where he is currently working on an instrument that will go to Jupiter's moon, Europa, looking for signs of life. His activism centers around foreclosure justice, homeless rights, banking fraud and exposing the racism inherent in and fundamental to our social, economic and justice systems.
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