by Rob Prince
There will be no homeless shelter in the Inspiration Point neighborhood of northwest Denver. A plan on the part of the Denver Foundation--a local foundation whose focus is addressing the city’s social problems--to donate the property to the city has been withdrawn after a stormy meeting between city officials, the Denver Foundation and residents of the targeted neighborhood. Inspiration Point is a small enclave in the northwest corner of Denver, just north of I-70 and west of Sheridan Boulevard. The plan would have created what is referred to as “an overflow” center, a place where--when other shelters are full--homeless people could spend the night. This center would have been primarily for single moms with kids.
Never mind that such a center is badly needed. That fact didn’t stop several hundred northwest Denver residents from loudly and emotionally expressing their opposition to the plan at a September 16th meeting at the Scheitler Recreation Center. The meeting was nothing short of a classic example of what is called “NIMBY” (not in my back yard).
At the meeting, despite the legitimate protests of how poorly the city had handled the shelter issue, the level of blind hostility towards homeless people was pretty intense, subjective and self-serving–and in some cases downright ugly, toxic--as if homeless folk are no more than social lepers. There was so much FEAR in the room,…and so little…just plain sympathy for people down and out. Even had the city (meaning the Mayor’s office) and the Denver Foundation gone about it all in a more inclusive manner it’s hard to tell what the result would have been.
The shelter proposal is now dead in the water.
Inspiration Point residents have passed the shelter issue - like a hot potato - back into the City Council’s court where it continues to lay dormant. One way or another, there is no way of escaping the social problems which plague our city. Denver’s homeless crisis is, of course, part of a much bigger overall social crisis of the city’s growing population that includes generally low salaries, unaffordable and ever-rising rents and housing costs, growing displacement of middle class - even many who are upper middle class - working class and poor people.
The actual arguments made against the shelter by Inspiration Point residents were less about the city’s insensitivity to process - which is accurate enough - and more about a kind of bedrock hostility to the homeless themselves, in a city where the homeless population stands at more than 6000 and where mayor after mayor claims a need to address the issue while doing little to nothing concretely to do so. There were precious few speaking in support of the project; par for the course, no homeless people to explain their situation and how they viewed the shelter project. Maybe some of the fears would have been addressed? Really doesn’t work well to be “represented by others”..even well intentioned people.
Inspiration Point neighbors had obviously mobilized for the meeting and came out in force. They argued along several lines: that the City and the Denver Foundation had dumped the project on them with no warning, that there were fears of increased drug and alcohol use, a few feared for their children, what might be called the usual unfair - and inaccurate - prejudices about homeless people repeatedly expressed.
There were some comments made about how the Inspiration Point Park would be misused, as if that park is the private property of its neighbors and not public city space. Parks do NOT belong to the neighborhood in which they are found, they are part and parcel of a disappearing entity: public property. They belong to ALL the citizens of this city, including the homeless, whether it’s kids who want to play volleyball at Wash Park (to the consternation of nearby homeowners it appears)…or homeless people enjoying the view at Inspiration Point. There were battles fought in this city to give “unwelcomed people” the right to use public facilities…, then it was about race …now it is about just being down and out, homeless.
More to the point, a local merchant related (to the author) that the main concern expressed in his establishment was that a shelter would adversely affect property values; it is a common enough concern, but one that lacks concrete data support.
Other cities - Salt Lake, Seattle - the latter with a more serious homeless problem than Denver - have come up with innovative if temporary programs to address what is, for a prosperous city, its rhetoric aside, a disgrace. So it is that at the end of a ten year campaign to “eliminate homelessness in Denver” started by then Denver mayor and now Colorado Governor, John Hickenlooper, the results have been zilch, the political will to address the issue lacking. The current mayor, Michael Hancock, has followed in Hickenlooper’s tradition of making encouraging statements with little follow up.
It came through unambiguously, repeatedly actually, that from the outset, the city and the Denver Foundation (who owns the property for the proposed shelter) did not involve the community in the immediate area – or for that matter, even the elected officials in District One, and that they, the community (and the elected officials) felt “railroaded.” And in a way they were, which only made things worse. There have been major projects which were shoved down the throat of the Inspiration Point neighborhood without their input, especially, interestingly enough, the creation of I-70, which might go back a half century, but these folks remember. The fact that District One (with its long history of middle and working class families) has been historically neglected for wealthier neighborhoods is true enough.
Rob Prince is a retired teacher (DU).
He has lived in Denver’s Northside for forty years.
There will be no homeless shelter in the Inspiration Point neighborhood of northwest Denver. A plan on the part of the Denver Foundation--a local foundation whose focus is addressing the city’s social problems--to donate the property to the city has been withdrawn after a stormy meeting between city officials, the Denver Foundation and residents of the targeted neighborhood. Inspiration Point is a small enclave in the northwest corner of Denver, just north of I-70 and west of Sheridan Boulevard. The plan would have created what is referred to as “an overflow” center, a place where--when other shelters are full--homeless people could spend the night. This center would have been primarily for single moms with kids.
Never mind that such a center is badly needed. That fact didn’t stop several hundred northwest Denver residents from loudly and emotionally expressing their opposition to the plan at a September 16th meeting at the Scheitler Recreation Center. The meeting was nothing short of a classic example of what is called “NIMBY” (not in my back yard).
At the meeting, despite the legitimate protests of how poorly the city had handled the shelter issue, the level of blind hostility towards homeless people was pretty intense, subjective and self-serving–and in some cases downright ugly, toxic--as if homeless folk are no more than social lepers. There was so much FEAR in the room,…and so little…just plain sympathy for people down and out. Even had the city (meaning the Mayor’s office) and the Denver Foundation gone about it all in a more inclusive manner it’s hard to tell what the result would have been.
The shelter proposal is now dead in the water.
Inspiration Point residents have passed the shelter issue - like a hot potato - back into the City Council’s court where it continues to lay dormant. One way or another, there is no way of escaping the social problems which plague our city. Denver’s homeless crisis is, of course, part of a much bigger overall social crisis of the city’s growing population that includes generally low salaries, unaffordable and ever-rising rents and housing costs, growing displacement of middle class - even many who are upper middle class - working class and poor people.
The actual arguments made against the shelter by Inspiration Point residents were less about the city’s insensitivity to process - which is accurate enough - and more about a kind of bedrock hostility to the homeless themselves, in a city where the homeless population stands at more than 6000 and where mayor after mayor claims a need to address the issue while doing little to nothing concretely to do so. There were precious few speaking in support of the project; par for the course, no homeless people to explain their situation and how they viewed the shelter project. Maybe some of the fears would have been addressed? Really doesn’t work well to be “represented by others”..even well intentioned people.
Inspiration Point neighbors had obviously mobilized for the meeting and came out in force. They argued along several lines: that the City and the Denver Foundation had dumped the project on them with no warning, that there were fears of increased drug and alcohol use, a few feared for their children, what might be called the usual unfair - and inaccurate - prejudices about homeless people repeatedly expressed.
There were some comments made about how the Inspiration Point Park would be misused, as if that park is the private property of its neighbors and not public city space. Parks do NOT belong to the neighborhood in which they are found, they are part and parcel of a disappearing entity: public property. They belong to ALL the citizens of this city, including the homeless, whether it’s kids who want to play volleyball at Wash Park (to the consternation of nearby homeowners it appears)…or homeless people enjoying the view at Inspiration Point. There were battles fought in this city to give “unwelcomed people” the right to use public facilities…, then it was about race …now it is about just being down and out, homeless.
More to the point, a local merchant related (to the author) that the main concern expressed in his establishment was that a shelter would adversely affect property values; it is a common enough concern, but one that lacks concrete data support.
Other cities - Salt Lake, Seattle - the latter with a more serious homeless problem than Denver - have come up with innovative if temporary programs to address what is, for a prosperous city, its rhetoric aside, a disgrace. So it is that at the end of a ten year campaign to “eliminate homelessness in Denver” started by then Denver mayor and now Colorado Governor, John Hickenlooper, the results have been zilch, the political will to address the issue lacking. The current mayor, Michael Hancock, has followed in Hickenlooper’s tradition of making encouraging statements with little follow up.
It came through unambiguously, repeatedly actually, that from the outset, the city and the Denver Foundation (who owns the property for the proposed shelter) did not involve the community in the immediate area – or for that matter, even the elected officials in District One, and that they, the community (and the elected officials) felt “railroaded.” And in a way they were, which only made things worse. There have been major projects which were shoved down the throat of the Inspiration Point neighborhood without their input, especially, interestingly enough, the creation of I-70, which might go back a half century, but these folks remember. The fact that District One (with its long history of middle and working class families) has been historically neglected for wealthier neighborhoods is true enough.
Rob Prince is a retired teacher (DU).
He has lived in Denver’s Northside for forty years.
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