by MT Hazard

    We arrived under overcast skies and chilly air to surround the Indigenous hunter with his buffalo prize and feed on pizza, songs of justice and rally cries. People came from all over the nation and one representative hailed from Australia. The National Coalition for the Homeless’ Executive Director, Jerry Jones, was there and was bull horn honored for his years of service. Representatives from the Western Regional Advocacy Project (WRAP), who were instrumental in having the bill introduced in the House, were able to shout their slogan, “House keys not Handcuffs”! All the while a few opponents of the bill joined the rally; however, they didn’t eat the pizza or sing but seemed to enjoy the show of support. 

    At the vibration of the text, we file in through State Patrol detectors and ride sardine style up to the floor of debate. We fill the State, Military and Veteran Affairs Committee room and voice a need for protection of the unprotected. The energy was palpable and people smiled in anticipation of a fair hearing. 

    Suits and ties, beards and ‘locks, skirts and heels, the colorful motley crew shuffled in with each clique full of whispers and hope. Other bills came and passed with ease and little fanfare. When House bill HB15-1264 came up for further hearing, warnings were issued about any display of emotion or breach of decorum. The audience in support of the unhoused did raise fingers and ‘wiggle’ until the Chairwoman found that mute act an annoyance. Formalities, Robert’s rules and stiff opposition continued to smother the purpose of the bill.

    Many couldn’t understand the need for such discipline in procedure; they wanted a free flow of reality on the street to cut through the roadblocks to healthy debate. It’s the record to blame. Following procedures at times is the only way to progress. Rules don’t negate the will of change.

    The Collective House of Post Pony Palace, cool tempered with determination, was present with the sense of urgency to end the harm being perpetuated by the cities that are to protect all people not just the moneyed. Terese Howard, who also testified, and others worked hard and long hours to help promote the bill. 

    Proponents shared anecdotes and the need for protection from the unfettered discretion of the police and municipal law. Opponents spoke of municipal reign and services; however they unanimously failed to mention the lack of beds available in their services. Proponents decried criminalization of having no place to go and opponents railed against unsanitary conditions.

    Several suits and skirts were concerned about how the bill’s newly protected class could enforce his or her newly sanctioned freedom.They uniformly balked at the possibility of lawsuits and attorney’s fees. Even the court advocate attorneys were against the bill because they didn’t do civil procedure or want to start. 

    The possibility of abuse was the fear of many municipal advocates despite the fact that courts already recognize that people file frivolous lawsuits and may be dismissed quickly with damages going to the aggrieved party. Ironic because most of the municipalities’ ordinances have been ruled unconstitutional by Federal and State Courts which gives rise to causes of action for the violation thereof. Those who are deprived of his or her freedom can sue anyway.

    People forget that there are laws in place to cover littering, blocking passageways, public urination, and disturbing the peace. What was lost during the hearing were the overt efforts by municipalities to target people with no place to go. There was talk of money spent (mostly to police and security services), services that could be diminished with frivolous homeless lawsuits, and protecting families’ ability and desire to visit parks void of unsanitary park people.

    The Committee could not bring themselves to let the bill move to the House floor; too much to ask. They were jovial about it up to the end. Too jovial for the audience who sensing the nay sway of the committee began to bristle. Committee members one by one began the pre-vote discussion with comments of admiring the sponsors’ zeal but if it wasn’t for this provision or that section; just not ready for such a bill and by the third “I love you but …” voices rose in disgust. “Sellout!” “Cowards!”  “Bullshit!” Each objection voiced was followed by a resigned but indignant, “I’m leavin’.” A roll call vote was immediately called. Eight were opposed to the bill leaving committee; three were in favor of moving the bill along for further debate and amendments.

    Representatives Salazar and Melton, with the assistance of the ACLU, Denver Homeless Out Loud, statewide partners, the Western Regional Advocacy Project, and the National Coalition for the Homeless sponsored and supported Bill HB15-1264. 

    The Denver Post reports that the bill ‘dies in committee’, however the bill, regardless of the Committee’s vote, is neither dead nor forgotten. It lives in the spirit of freedom and fairness. Services: Aye; Beds: Nay; Waiting time: Awhile; Where to go: ‘Dunno’, just not here. However,

by John W Claybaugh

When some people hear that someone is homeless they begin to think the person is lazy. But maybe that's not even the worst part.
Society forgets that homeless people are people! Homeless people, by definition, have the problem of living without a home. That's obvious. But let's remember that for the most part a person experiencing homelessness has all the other problems that you and I have.
They have health problems. They have financial problems. They have transportation problems. And they still deal with the pain that life throws at each of us through deaths in the family, injuries, and other life challenges. 
Let's quit treating them as though they are some sort of subhuman species!

Well the politicians and corporate big wigs, who are watching their 10 year plan to end homelessness go down in abject failure, now have come up with the perfect scapegoat for their own poor planning. It’s all because of that “killer weed” that the people voted to legalize. Never mind that pot wasn’t legal for the first eight years of their ten year plan and it was showing no sign of even moderate success at that point.  

They have their bogey man framed and hung: “It’s all them homeless people coming to Denver for the pot.” You see the politicians did not make pot legal, the people did that. Conveniently the politicians that were most responsible for the ten year plan, the Governor and the Mayor included, opposed the legalization of cannabis.  

So now they can sit back and say they told us so, instead of fixing a failed plan to house those who are unhoused mostly due to the way the Wall Street tycoons, and the politicians who enabled them, blew up the economy in 2008. None of those responsible for making the mess
were ever held accountable--most in fact profited from the whole thing. The bulk of the current crop of poor and displaced former middle class workers are the fallout from this explosion. Many of them, like me, ended up homeless when we landed.  

Believe me. It had nothing to do with smoking pot.  I can see them all now, in some fancy conference room, patting each other on the back and congratulating themselves for coming up with the ultimate scapegoat. How convenient. Not very good for the poor who are suffering because of their failed plan, however. 

OK, so I have had my rant. My mother used to say, “Don’t criticize, unless you have a suggestion to improve the situation.” So here is a suggestion. What is the one thing
the homeless don’t have, that forces them to live in the Street? Oh! I know, a home, somewhere they can perform simple acts of survival behind a locked door. But that’s too
easy, even though, it’s a fact that housing the homeless is cheaper than throwing them in jail.

Now I’m going to criticize again.  In Denver, in 2012, the Mayor and the City Council passed what is known as “The Urban Camping Ban.” In this one stroke they criminalized sleeping, a necessary act of survival that homeless people must often perform in public spaces.  

They made instant criminals of every citizen in Denver who does not have a home. The ratio of shelter beds to homeless people is too ridiculous to even cite here. There were promises made, with no intentions of them ever being kept, like the 24 Hour Rest & Resource Center which after two years has failed to happen and now I hear, may never happen.  

I am just going to finish this by asking all the Politicians and Denver Tycoons who shoved this law down our throats, one question. It is the question every homeless person asks the cop who is telling him or her to move along.  

Move along to where?

by Dara Harvey

I follow that one simple rule to leave no trace I am houseless--been now for two years. This would be my third stint, sadly enough, but working on it to change that. I LOVE to go camping,
fishing, hiking, sight seeing, etc. I LOVE the wilderness and respect it--even in grizzly territory. However, being houseless gives a whole new definition to the word “camping,” whether it be urban or wilderness.  

The idea is “pack out what you pack in.” I have several different campsites in Denver and you would never know I had been there because I follow that one simple rule--to leave no trace.
Consequently, there are other houseless people who simply don’t care and just like pigs “shit in the same place they eat and sleep.” It is abhorrently gross and I see it almost everywhere I walk.  

“Gee, someone’s living there.” I wonder to myself: No wonder regular people loathe the homeless because of the garbage most leave behind. Granted everyone litters on occasion, but come on! However, you know how the saying goes--”It only takes one person to ruin it for everyone.” So what I’m saying to you other sloppy houseless people is: 
Pick upr your F&%#(G TRASH 

The other the day, for the first time in a long time, I went past a bridge that I had called home for three years in the ‘90s.  As the bus passed underneath, I looked up and was shocked and
dismayed to see that the cubby-holes where one used to be able to rest one’s weary bones had been filled in. It saddens and angers me the extent to which some people will go (at what expense?!!) to make other people’s lives more miserable.

I don’t walk softly and carry a big stick, because to me that trend has lost value. The question is, what does one look like participating in that old way of life, when having to deal with these unethical government officials, who are the primary decision-makers for the underprivileged and underemployed American citizens?  

In today’s time, I must walk tall and carry a big stick and point out the harsh realities and social crimes committed by those who unethically and inequitably govern humankind. For we humans today, to participate in the preceding thought theme to walk softly and carry a big stick-while observing at the same time those who govern society rape democracy is the drastic act of helping these big producers nail United States citizens to the now crooked cross. I am not, and I believe no other American should be either, into that old preceding type nature and makeup of one human being that was considered in the preceding time to have had the beyond-average belief system as their general philosophy, which said, that one should walk softly and carry a big stick; because the philosophy that must be the belief system in the 21st century, is that one existing human entity should and must walk with a firm and durable faculty, coupled with carrying a stick of intelligence which fosters a voice that, when used and heard, will penetrate all listeners to where the message given willnever exit their minds.  

I Mr Calvin C. don’t walk softly and carry a big stick because such a method and its results don’t provide man with an ultimate fix.

Today I seem to look upon Denver, Colorado in a whole different view, a view that arises
out of Denver’s rude behavior towards its homeless and lower class population.  Why do I look upon Denver in such a bad light? Four years ago I moved to Denver because I wanted a way
to start over in life. When I first came here everyone was on top of the situation that Denver was a good place for someone like me to start a new life. Now everything has changed, and it has actually changed for the worst.

Starting with the legalization of pot in a community that already was rich, politicians have used this legalization to become even richer. Republicans have taken over as the dominant force in Denver’s up-growing community, and many worthless people have traveled into the city to destroy its cleanliness and beautiful parks and reserves.  The citizens have gone from helping
persons like me to start over, to ignoring the lower classes, and in some instances, whole committees have been formed with the intent of kicking out all of the lower classes.

Where do the homeless go and what are they supposed to do? We are now trapped in a city that will not help, keeps locking us up for no place to sleep, and will not help with the bus fare for those traveling through to make it back home. We are fed well just to keep us alive and miserable.

In 2012 an anti-camping bill was passed in the City of Denver, making it illegal to sleep outside, but with this bill the city was supposed to build a new shelter that would actually provide the homeless and lower classes here a way to receive the help they needed to become productive members of society. Has that happened? No! Many grants later, there has been no effort to do so, and most of the money from the tickets and other citations has been used to build upper-class housing and a new bus station, that let it be noted, does not even have a
pay phone installed.

I openly admit to being an Occupy representative, and openly admit to representing a portion of the lower classes that exceeds more than half of the homeless. In doing so, I came to Denver as a rich man, but now within the changing community, I have become just as homeless and broke as the people I represent.  I wonder if Denver will become the next Detroit, bankrupt due to the Republicans thinking they can run the lower classes out of a major city, or I wonder if it will stay a crime to be homeless in the City of Denver.  

No longer do I love the City of Denver like I did when I moved here in the end of 2009. No longer do I wish to be a part of its thriving community, and by all rights am I wrong for feeling that way? I would hope that Denver changes its over-all outlook upon the lower classes. Without the lower classes, a city can not build itself.  I do everything I can for the lower
classes, but now it has become a crime to stand up against the City of Denver. It has become a crime to be homeless in Denver. Some of us do work when work is available, some of us do right when we have stability in our lives, so remember, the up-rising crime rate of the lower classes is coming from a city that pushes its homeless and lower classes to do things 
just to survive a very evilly transforming community.

I believe that if something is not said against the rich of Denver, we all will be puppets to the ones that Denver hates the most, the good old federal government.  This is the voice for the homeless and lower-class, a voice simply to be known as Miracle, and as my name states, I am
asking for that Miracle to transform Denver back into what it was a couple years ago, a city glowing with beauty and the ability to transform oneself for the better.  

I am an educator in the twenty first century, from the standpoint that I Mr C the triple OG
monitor the ethics of all the city, county and state governmental officials. I am the
educator that is needed today because I promote and promulgate that there is no law
enforcement in any city, county, or state in America today. I have a message to be
transparently understood. And that message is if any city, county or state governmental
official commits a local, state or federal crime, their colleagues will and do condone their
transgressions and sins coupled with remaining and being steadfast and loyal with their
committed crimes while jeopardizing their own careers at the same damn time.
      And if the thought of such conduct don't blow the public's mind then myself as an
educator can only be perceived by the readers and listeners of my message to be an
educator whose imagination belongs to a human being who is deaf, dumb and blind.
Yes I am an educator with a certain spirit and flavor who is here in today's time to tell
the story with no desire to soften my message for those listeners who might not want to
accept the harsh reality of my story.
      Take a look around you with a profound observance and glare. There is anarchy in
America today which sadly express and imply that the republic and democracy is
exclusively raped. And we the public as believers in the original introduced American
system are left in total disarray. There is forgiveness for the social and political wrongs
done by the leaders in the American cities, counties and states, which constitutes a sad
state of affairs considering America’s original role and its tradition, as stated in the Bill of
Rights: that all and everything human and material or otherwise have the same rights and privileges, duties and obligations, independent of an agreement. Meaning without
having to sign a contract all Americans and those human entities in the United States
are declared equal which complies to the natural laws of nature. Yes I am an educator
promoting and making publicly known what all people should and must comprehend
about where America has gone wrong. I am the educator.

   Whenever I have a few extra bucks, maybe every other month or so, I walk down to 17th
and Downing to the Health Center and pick up a gram of legal pot. Sorry I’m an old
hippy from the 1960’s and sometimes I like to kick back and remember old times while
indulging in a toke. They say “if you remember the 60’s, you weren’t there.” Well, I was
there and I remember, at least most of it, I think.
    OK so I am indulging in a sin and I suppose I should pay a “sin tax,” if that is the way
you think. That is certainly the way most politicians were thinking when they realized
how much money they could make taxing all those potheads through the nose so they
can have a toke and not get arrested in their own homes.
    The politicians did not pass this law, the people passed this law. The politicians still get
to make the rules though. Ok so they tax pot to the point that it cost more than it used to
cost on the street. At least you can walk up to a counter and take your pick of what you
want in the many varieties of cannabis they have, and not get thrown in jail. They are all
the same to me; I’m still trying to find something like the Mexican laughing weed we
used to buy for $15 an ounce in 1965. I think it went extinct though, at least the price
certainly did. It was driven to extinction by these new age breeders. Oh well, you make
do with what is available.
    So every other month or so I make my way down to 17th and Downing. I hit Park Ave
(23rd St) at 18th and Ogden, that makes a shortcut. I take Park Ave straight to the Health
Center from there. There are usually two or three guys, sometimes a woman, flying
signs at this busy intersection.
     That is where I pay my “sin tax.” I give them all a buck, and I don’t care what they spend
it on. I am on my way to indulge myself with something which helps me cope with this
world we live in, so I hope they can use that buck to do the same thing for themselves. It
doesn’t matter to me if it is a meal or a drink or helps toward a warm place to sleep. It is
their money and they can spend it any way they want. They are in a better position to
know what they need than I am.
Who are we to judge?
     Everybody has to make their own way in this world the best they can. We didn’t wreck
the economy--the bankers and the politicians did that. We are just the pieces that fell
out. Now the powers that be, which happen to be bankers and politicians, want to
sweep us off the street. You yell, you scream, you write letters, you vote, nothing
happens. What can you do?
After indulging in an occasional toke, you help those you can help and weep for those
you can’t while surviving in your own crazy world, and you wonder why we smoke pot. 

People who have jobs and the safety, security and means to live don’t know how hard it
is to be homeless. They assume we’re all druggies, thieves, lazy, or in some way did
something to deserve this. They harass us, call us names, beat us up, accuse us of not
taking care of our animals, and try to steal them when most of us go without food to
feed our animals. Even the police do this and also tell us to leave or arrest us for trying
to sleep or make money to eat. We are forced to go to the bathroom outside like
animals because we’re not allowed to go in public restrooms unless we have money.
     We have to worry about dying in the cold months because of theft of our bedding or
people throwing it away. We try so hard to live and keep hope--every day we do this.
The places that help can only do so much...and some claim they help and yet act as
though they would rather see all the homeless dead. In the eyes of so many we are
merely animals, eyesores, and parasites to be exterminated. The police department and
even the self-proclaimed “religious” people look at us that way. I have seen and met a
lot of truly kind, caring, helping and loving people, even if all they do is say “hi”...but I
have seen far, far more cruel and uncaring people.
     Where did these people lose sight and understanding of what respect, love, caring,
kindness, helping and politeness are--and how to show these qualities to others? If they
did so, then maybe we would act the same to them. Believe it or not, we are people too.
All I ask and want, not just for me and my husband--but for ALL the homeless--is for us
to be treated like people instead of a disease. I only wish what I say won’t fall on deaf
ears. Unfortunately it will, for there are too many selfish, uncaring people in the world.