by Fillmore Langford

When you are a little kid you never once think about being homeless when you grow up. You don’t raise your hand in class and say I want to be homeless as a goal or life- long dream. You just find yourself there. I was 38 when I did.

I was separated from my husband who was a Denver County Sheriff who ended his life in 2006. I was working out of state. I was making a good living as a private estate staff trainer on a large property on the East coast when I was contacted about my husband’s passing. But because I was making a good living I signed the power of attorney and his pension over to his daughter who desperately needed the money. When I came back to Denver I found myself without a home.

It is almost 8 years later, this March, and I can recall the fright I felt when I had nowhere to go. I owned my vehicle so I could load up what I needed and find a place to park and sleep. What do I do with all my beloved books, photographs, mementos, and  knick-knacks? I down-sized and gave away until I was down to what I needed. The idea of stuff quit having the same importance to me. Warm clothes when it’s cold and cool clothes when it’s hot. And sometimes on the same day in Denver I will need both. Hauling around snow pants and capris and everything in-between can be hard but I found that clothing makes comfortable cushioning to sleep on. Finding a spot to park where the police will let you sleep is another issue. 

I have never slept in a shelter. I hear from other homeless women about their experiences in the shelters and it doesn’t make me want to rush right over for a spot in line to get a mat on the floor. I have been told about the lotteries for a cot at a church but if your name doesn’t get called you are sleeping outside anyways. I’ve heard of the fights and the theft and I don’t want to fight or have anything stolen. Having access to a clean bathroom does sound good though. The city of Denver is lacking accessible bathroom facilities. If I do not appear to be homeless I can use the bathroom in a grocery store or a library or a bus station without being asked to leave or buy something. For those who have to carry everything they own around with them I can see how it would be difficult to use a bathroom regularly. Showers for women are not in abundance either. And try and find a place to wash some clothes.

I never thought I would feel so much boredom. But being homeless is boring. Sitting, watching people go about their days, maybe reading a book or finding someone to talk to or going to the library to catch up with friends online or watching a movie cuts some of the boredom. In the evening when most people are home sitting on their comfy couches and watching their shows I am driving around trying to find a parking space. I have to start kinda early to get a good one. Then I just sit in the dark and watch people shuffle from their cars to their front doors until I’m sleepy and then crawl into the back and get under the covers and fall asleep. Waking up after the sun has come up makes for a good morning. It provides warmth and light to see where your toiletries are so you can grab your toothbrush and paste before you go running for the bathroom at the nearest store or station.  

Coffee is motivation most mornings and can be found at many different locations. And if I get super hungry there is always lunch in the park at noon prepared by an empathetic person. 

The unauthorized camping municipal code makes it hard to really do anything in Denver now. If you look like you may be without a home then the police are your social workers and you are subject to curfew, trespass, or one of many other code violations. The police tell you to move on and I would like to know where they think I should move to. Every square inch of property is hard-scaped and privately, city or state owned. The grassy knolls around the city have been left for dogs to go to the bathroom on. I can not help but wonder how it became such a challenge for a person to find a bathroom but dogs have easy access to all the little grassy parts around the city. 

It is my wish that the Downtown Denver Partnership who pushed the unauthorized camping ban into code rethink their position and give the homeless community some place to go. A safe, well lit place to go. Homelessness is NOT a crime. 

By Kristen Brunelli
It was almost time to lock up, near ten p.m, when there was a knock on the door of the Catholic Worker. Trent had set up a fire--it had just begun to bloom--and we were settled, both reading, in the living room.

It is rare that someone comes to the door at night. It is rare that unexpected guests come to the door at all. Thirty-five years old, the Denver Catholic Worker has earned its respect, and most know that usually we are a full house and that we like to keep the atmosphere calm and familiar for the residing guests. 

I was reminded by a glance outside that the snow had formed a soft white pillow atop Denver’s concrete. But for others this sudden drop in temperature—not much higher than zero—has made life much more difficult, if survivable, for those without shelter. 

‘We have no room in the house right now,’ Trent was telling the presence outside. I got up and walked to the kitchen, afraid of the reality that this was someone kind, someone sober, someone incapable of working, someone I couldn’t blame for his or her own fate (it is an ever present challenge not to do so). From down the hall, I saw the back of only my friend, Trent’s head bow forward—I couldn’t see who stood before him. ‘I’m sorry,’ Trent said, and asked the person if he or she’d like some food. As I turned toward the kitchen to warm up some leftovers, I heard a voice; it was a mangled, woeful slur, neither intimidating nor intoxicated, but a voice of confusion, of fear. He’d just come from the hospital, and he was dizzy and weak. 

He came inside and sat near the fire. He put his hands out toward it, and I watched his long dry fingers outstretch. ‘It’s nice,’ he said. His hair was gray, and I realized the main reason for his speech impediment. He didn’t have teeth. ‘Do you guys drink coffee here?’ he asked. ‘Not at night,’ I said, ‘but I can make you some tea.’ ‘With sugar?’ he said and smiled. 

Hubert was from New Jersey, like me, and came to Denver to be near his cousin, who’d promised he could share his housing with Hubert. But this cousin, who wound up unable to fulfill that promise, also tried to steal Hubert’s disability income. Hubert seemed unsure as to where the money was exactly—at one point he seemed to say it was with his father, down south. But based on his appearance—perhaps he was in his seventies—I’d assume that Hubert’s father might not still be around. He seemed to me not much different from a lost child, someone who’s been lost, looking for a safe place, for a lifetime. Still, instead of acquiring a cold shell, there was a softness about him, something naïve and gentle. But his vulnerability alarmed me. Somehow, the fact that the majority of the homeless population is made up of those with untreated mental illnesses hasn’t completely registered.

‘Where did you sleep last night?’ I asked, as I flipped through our winter shelter resource book. Trent was in the office calling shelter after shelter, which only offered him the same we’d offered Hubert: ‘Sorry, we’re full.’ Hubert answered my question, eyes big, gratefully holding the hot cup of tea close as he took a sip. But his answer was unintelligible. Hesitantly, I asked him again. ‘I slept in an alley. Behind a dumpster. It was real cold.’ He frowned and with his thin fingers carefully took the tea bag from the mug and placed it into his bag to reuse at another time. ‘Do you want some more tea bags?’ I said, and he said, ‘Yes, yes, please!’

I nodded and excused myself. I called a few more places, most of them were closed. I refused to believe that the only option for Hubert, a mentally challenged man in his seventies, with tuberculosis, was to sleep atop ice with only one blanket. 

I invited Hubert into the dining room and gave him some steaming pasta. One of our other guests—an eleven year old who has brought so much joy into our house with her talents in song, dance and comedy—came in and asked me if I would be attending her school play. (Earlier, when Hubert first arrived, she’d grabbed me by the elbow and asked, ‘Who is he? Is he homeless?’ ‘Yes,’ I said, and instead of shrinking away, she gave me a hug.) ‘Want to hear what I’ll be singing?’ she said, and Hubert looked up at her and smiled. She began, ‘I don’t want a lot for Christmas…’ While Hubert ate, she continued to sing, dance, twirl. There was no apparent hesitancy in her to be loving towards this stranger, clearly in need. It was common sense to her. She gave me another squeeze, affirming, and went upstairs.

‘Have you stayed at any shelters recently?’ I asked Hubert. ‘The Mission. But I don’t like it there. It’s dangerous! People are real mean. They pick on me.’ ‘What about trying to retrieve your disability income?’ I knew gaining control—and only with the support of some kind of case manager would that be possible—of his SSI, and having someone help him maintain it, would be the only way he could ever afford to sleep indoors. ‘What about St. Francis Center. Have you been there?’ He shook his head, remembering. ‘I can’t go there for two more days,’ he said, ‘but that’s only two days.’ He looked hopeful and tried to eat another spoonful of food. ‘I had to use the bathroom real bad, see? And the line was so long, like an hour, and I didn’t want to have an accident in my pants, and so I left and went outside and found a private spot behind a house. Apparently, a lady at St. Francis saw me.’ I couldn’t imagine how the answer to a man’s desperation for a toilet would be to make toilets and similar resources even more inaccessible. ‘Make him work for it,’ seems to be the sentiment, even in regards to someone almost entirely helpless. ‘Make him pay for his mistake.’ But in this case, I couldn’t figure out what the ‘mistake’ was. Urinating is not something we can control or repress because it is ‘bad.’ It is a basic need of the human body—when the need is ignored this can affect already ill health. I wondered why our reaction is so cold hearted—when we see an old man in need, why are we so concerned with protecting ourselves or our organization from him? I pressed on: ‘Is there any way you could see a social worker to regain access to your disability income?’ He shook his head and repeated the telling of the St. Francis incident. He was confused and tired and stuck in a time and place that no longer was. I wanted to shake him, tell him, ‘Even if we find you a place tonight, you probably won’t have anywhere to go tomorrow!’ But I knew that would be fruitless. 

After exploring all shelter options, Trent called the non-emergency number for the Denver Police Station and explained our new friend’s desperate situation, and about thirty minutes later a policeman arrived to take Hubert to a motel. We gave him an extra coat, scarf and gloves, some sandwiches and plenty of teabags and greeted the officer at the door. ‘Okay, show me some I.D,’ he said to Hubert, without taking a moment to look at the old man’s exhausted, scared face. Hubert put his bags on the ground and began to rifle through them. His hat fell off, the plastic forks and bananas we’d piled into it fell out of one of the bags. I ran to get some more things and when I returned the officer was walking back from his car. ‘Well, the system says you don’t exist,’ he barked up at Hubert. I supposed Hubert, unable to locate his ID promptly, gave the officer his name. ‘So, unless you can find your I.D you’re out of luck.’ 

Finally, bent over searching frantically, Hubert stood up with his I.D. ‘Okay,’ the policeman said, ‘Let’s get you to a warm bed.’  

We asked folks on the street, “What did you experience during that really cold spell?” 

Here’s what some people told us.

A 23-year-old man with MS, who uses a wheelchair, showed us his two frost-bitten fingers. “Someone was wheeling me to a hot spot (grate) on the mall. I had gloves on, but I think they got wet and froze, and the next morning I realized I had frostbite.” 

He said he was willing to go to a shelter if the conditions were bad enough, and that he did go to Crossroads after the frostbite incident, since they were wheelchair-accessible. (We also met a woman who said she’d shared her sleeping back with this young man during three of the coldest nights, as they tried to keep warm and sleep behind Urban Peak's The Spot.)

A middle-aged woman said she sneaked into an apartment building and stayed there with her companion. She spent her days at Father Woody’s, and in the Auraria campus library. Out there on the streets, “It felt like the tips of my fingers and toes were gonna fall off, they were so cold.”

A 49-year-old man who gets SSI and is on Medicaid said he couldn’t stay at a shelter during the cold weather because his back-pack with his ID was stolen, and he had no gear so he couldn’t lie down and sleep anywhere, “so I walked around all night to keep warm.” He said that “when things get really heavy I’ll sometimes drink and go to detox.” He listed many health issues, including arthritis, heart problems, panic attacks, and traumatic brain injury, and also showed us his legs which were bruised and swollen with edema.

A sixty year old woman revealed that she has back pay from Social Security but can’t get it because “I don’t have a payee and don’t know how to find one. So I got frostbite and now I’m in a shelter.”

A man in his late 50’s said he and his buddy have a place by the river where they sleep, and that he managed to get through the cold weather using a sleeping bag, mummy bag and blanket. He said he won’t go to shelters, because he’s afraid of the lice, bedbugs and crabs that might be there, and also said that “it’s not safe there, your stuff can get stolen and you can get hurt.”

A couple slept under a semi-trailer. They said they were given trespassing tickets for sleeping there and were made to “move along.” They had nowhere to go so they just wandered the streets all night. They can’t stay together in a shelter and the woman’s mental health issues are such that she can’t be away from her partner at night. (She had just gotten out of the hospital after domestic abuse from her ex.) One day during the cold spell passers-by “threw rocks at us and dissed us--just treat people like we’re human!” Another day they gave up their blankets to a man whose blanket had been stolen, “so we were very cold.”

A 50-year-old man said he tried to get a motel voucher at Stout Street Clinic and they said it wasn’t cold any more so he couldn’t get one. Yet he emphasized how cold it was, and still is. He said that on one cold night he was turned away from both New Genesis and the Rescue Mission. Asked about his experience in shelters, he said that “they need better blankets” and that they should provide information about other shelters. He also wished that there could be posters around town with information on where to go when it is very cold. He said that Ft Lauderdale had a camp where you can sleep and stay when you can’t get into the shelters.

Another 50-year-old man shared that people take other people’s blankets and sleeping bags all the time. “You have to stash your stuff in at least seven different places. And go somewhere where no one else can find you.” He said that one day when he was sitting on the grates to stay warm the police told him to get off. During the cold weather he had plastic to keep his stuff dry but when that was taken his stuff got wet so he went to detox to be warm. He is worried because he now has trouble with his pancreas so he can’t drink, and that means “I can’t go to detox when it’s real cold.” 

A housed woman, a retired sheriff who uses a wheel chair, has been hanging out on the mall helping homeless young people for 14 years. She said that during the cold, when it was below zero, there was a man who could not get a bus to get home, so she took him in and let him stay for a couple of days until he could get home. She also took in a young woman with three kids who had just left her boyfriend because of abuse, and was eventually able to help her get Section 8.

A staff person at The Spot (Urban Peak) said that she and other staff spent the days leading up to the cold weather trying to convince their young guests to accept indoor shelter offers once the temperatures drop. But it wasn’t until some of the guests themselves started encouraging others to go indoors, telling about their previous bad experiences in the cold, that people started listening. “They all know that at the end of the day, the counselors and other staff go home to warm places, so their advice doesn’t mean as much as their peers’.”

A 50-year old man who had spiraled downward to alcohol and the streets after his wife and children died said that “It’s the people on the street who have shown me love and caring, who are helping me heal.”

A 54-year-old woman living on the street said that “There are many brilliant people among the homeless--who have just had enough with the system. Being homeless is a blessing for me. If not for them I’d be dead. We protect each other.” As for the way the housed treat her and her peers, she said,  “If you’re homeless in this place, you’re a nobody.”

                                                                                                                                  By Terese
It was Thursday night at 8pm and about 10 degrees and windy. While walking by Civic Center Park, Fred ran into a man who had no gloves or real coat and was very cold - Jon. Jon is homeless and was very drunk at the moment. Some other friends and I met Fred at the park and we talked with Jon about how he can get somewhere warm and safe for the night. I asked him if he wanted us to call detox so he could get in somewhere warm and he insisted he did not want to go to detox. I asked him if he wanted to go to New Genesis, the closest men's shelter, and he said yes. So the crew of us, now 4 friends - 3 of whom are homeless - and our new friend Jon, walked to New Genesis. 

When we made it to the shelter and Jon asked to check in, the shelter staff said he looked too drunk. Jon asked to go to the bathroom, but in the bathroom he dropped his liquor bottle. Hoping to help Jon be allowed to stay at the shelter, Fred picked up the bottle and claimed it was his. Shelter staff did not like this and kicked both Fred and Jon out saying they would call the cops. 

Outside we sat with Jon to try to figure out where else we could take him to survive the cold night. It was now after 9pm. It would be a long walk to the Mission and in Jon's state it would not be feasible to get there in reasonable time. Plus, there is no guarantee that once we got there the Mission would accept him - either because he is too drunk and they technically don't accept people that are drunk, or because they may be over full on that cold night by 10pm. Past that, there are no other shelters we know of that would be open at that time, in walkable distance, much less that would take an intoxicated man. 

Then shelter staff came out and said if we were not all gone in 10 minutes they would call detox. I talked with Jon again asking if he wanted to go to detox and he said no. Shortly after, police showed up. They asked about two people causing trouble. We told them there was no one causing trouble, we were just trying to help this man get into a shelter but he was not allowed at New Genesis because he was drunk. The cops pushed back asking Fred if he was drunk. Fred just asked if he was being detained, and the cops said maybe. After a bit more explaining that we were just trying to help Jon find shelter for the night, the cops left Fred alone. Then someone, either the cops or the shelter staff, called detox. When I learned detox was on the way I told Jon. When Jon heard the name Denver Cares (the other name for detox) he asked me if Denver Cares was on their way and said he wanted to go. (I guess there is a lot in a name:)). After a while detox showed up and took Jon. Ultimately, he seemed glad to have them come. 

Terese

Editor's note: New Genesis states that they are not an emergency men's shelter as such, but that when it's cold enough they will let men in if they can possibly fit them in somewhere, because "we don't want anyone to freeze." See the Emergency Shelter Resource Guide on page xx for more information.