On Thursday, Denver police ordered people experiencing homelessness to clear sidewalks, small grassy areas and other public spaces near the Denver Rescue Mission in Five Points. The city’s public health officials and police did so to clean up the streets — not for aesthetic purposes, but to sanitize away fecal matter that could carry Hepatitis A and remove any trash that could include used syringes.
Initiative 300, if approved by Denver voters, could prevent these kinds of sweeps in the future. We feel strongly that the City of Denver must be able to ensure public spaces remain safe and healthy for the use of everyone, including those who are without permanent housing and sleep on Denver’s streets.
The initiative, put on the ballot by advocates with Denver Homeless Out Loud, asserts basic rights for everyone in the city, including “the right to rest, to shelter oneself from the elements in a non-obstructive manner in outdoor public spaces” and “to occupy one’s own legally parked motor vehicle.”
It’s unfortunate that sweeps like the one at the Denver Rescue Mission and those that have been conducted of urban “tent cities” negatively impact people whose lives already are extraordinarily difficult. Picking up their possessions and moving on can be unsettling, exhausting and a bit like starting over. But we can think of no other way to maintain our public spaces for use by all, including the homeless.
Voters should reject — by voting “no” — the Right to Survive initiative in next month’s elections (mail ballots have already been sent to registered voters).
RELATED: What is Denver Initiative 300: Right to survive
However, we also don’t appreciate much of the fear-mongering taking place against the Right to Survive by those with Together Denver. The debate is far more nuanced than opponents would make the public believe. Denver Homeless Outloud’s director, Terese Howard, argues that spaces with curfews (like all city parks) are not “open to the public” at night and would be excluded from places where people would have a right to camp overnight.
Howard says the initiative is targeting spaces in the city that go unused: nooks and crannies, strips of right-of-way that can be occupied without obstructing others. Already these are the spaces the homeless occupy, finding bits of land that are neither parks nor thoroughfares, but that are still public.
Initiative 300 would then, in essence, codify the right to be in those spaces. Today, under the camping ban law, people in those spaces are technically violating the law, and while police don’t issue tickets (that would truly be criminalizing homelessness) they do issue move on orders and clear areas out.
And here’s where we come down with strong, definitive opposition to Initiative 300. The police, health officials and even social workers must be able to issue move on orders. It must be done with compassion and we think the city has done a good job of striking a balance of moving the homeless out of areas after a time, but also providing services to them, protecting their possessions, and offering housing. A lawsuit brought by Howard’s organization has helped prod the city to do better and we think the settlement agreement reached in that case is a step-in-the-right direction.
The city must do more, as was detailed in a report from the city auditor last week, and it sounds like a planned reorganization of the Denver’s Road Home could also help make efforts more coordinated, efficient and effective. Denver needs more housing vouchers, more shelter beds, more social workers and more temporary jobs. But camps on public lands, even those tucked away out-of-sight, cannot be made permanent and unremovable.
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