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By Jerry Greene
A couple of evenings per week I ride my bike near the RTD station and there is a homeless guy curled up in the same spot under an awning next to the sidewalk. I gave him some money once, he was really polite and seemed about 40 years old.
On a related encounter, a couple of years ago me and a friend needed the side of an office building painted, so we approached two guys on a corner with a cardboard sign. They agreed and worked really hard for about four hours. They painted the whole thing, were really friendly and said it was the best day they had had in a long time.
This points to the two key issues surrounding homelessness:
A. Trash etc. from homeless camping, potentially related low-level crime, especially stealing bike parts, and the sapping of police time for homeless issues.
B. The long-term loneliness, depression, lack of purpose and useful activity of a human life that has, in some cases, essentially given up trying to compete in normal society.
Let’s see what the city is doing about it according to its dynamic community “Homelessness Strategy,” which has a goal that “Boulder community members should have the opportunity for a safe and stable place to live … new thinking and approaches and innovative solutions.”
Here is a quote from the city’s plan:
“Homelessness Strategy goals include initiatives planned or in progress to achieve the strategy vision. As a living document, Homelessness Strategy initiatives will be added or modified as efforts are evaluated and new ideas and opportunities arise to reach goals. Local and regional evaluation plans are in development to measure the success of these efforts, as baseline data is collected and metrics are established. The Homelessness Strategy is a partnership with local and regional organizations and the community overall, with a vision of transparency and continuous quality improvement through joint assessment of outcomes and community needs.”
Is their plan to evaluate and modify efforts with new ideas to reach goals? Impressive for sure.
For the council and city staff, the only thing that will work, and solves the above issues A and B, is a sanctioned camping site, say 50 stacked cabins on a half acre with a cooking and restroom area. Any person willing to put in 10 hours per week maintaining the facility could get a cabin and food. There would be no on-site staff, but residents could apply for management positions at the site. And it would be cost-effective since it just requires the construction of cabins and the delivery of food.
I proposed this to the council, and one council member said they were not going to do it because similar ideas have failed too many times. I asked for an example of a similar idea failing somewhere and got no reply.
Let me ask this to the council and staff: How exactly would it fail? You have a spot to move ad hoc campers to, you basically eliminate homeless issues from impacting the rest of society, and you provide human compassion and the benefit of a purpose and a home, and it hardly costs anything. What exactly would failing look like?
Any takers?
Jerry Greene lives in Boulder.
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