LOCAL FEATURE Continued from page 7 “I don’t want to kill myself, but I don’t want to keep going anymore, you know?” Tracie said. “I need to get into someplace. I was told to come here and I would be eligible for housing. I did what my case manager told me to do. Instead of housing, I get police telling me to leave or get arrested. I can’t seem to win.” Tracie is willing to walk to anywhere in the city and stand in line for hours or days if she could sign up to receive one of Mayor Johnston’s new housing resources. “I don’t mind working hard and then providing for myself. I’ve done it before, but I just need help to start,” Tracie said. “I find it awful that I can’t work for a home, that I Just have to wait and hope for the City to show up at my camp.” Woodbury said that he would advise individuals living on the streets to participate in case management through the city’s outreach workers or with one of the city’s partners like the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless or the Saint Francis Center. According to Woodbury, that is the best way for an individual to pursue resources to aid folks in moving from the street. Woodbury acknowledged that the only way to receive one of the new housing resources was through the city’s street outreach team. “We’re taking a step-by-step approach, you know, encampment by encampment,” Woodbury said. “You know, we’re not announcing encampments in advance because it’s something that we’re working on every day of the week, and there’s many encampments throughout the city. We are deploying more resources than ever before.” The camp at 8th Ave. was one of the first encampments in months to be swept without the City offering housing or shelter to any of the individuals living at the site. Woodbury said the reason the 8th Ave. site was without any access to housing was because of its size and the threat it posed to public health and safety. According to Woodbury, the Mayor plans to avoid sweeps that do not also offer some housing resolution in the future. “Department of Housing Stability outreach teams have been meeting with individuals in the encampment for some time and connecting to them to offer longer-term case management services,” Woodbury said in a follow-up email with the Denver VOICE. Individuals in the camp claimed they had not interacted with city outreach teams. The night before the sweep. 30 individuals living in the 8th Ave. camp also said they had not had any interactions with outreach workers offering case management or other services. All of the individuals surveyed said the only encounters they had in the weeks prior to the sweep were with police officers, or volunteers and staff with the Harm Reduction Action Center, who offer needle exchange and other harm reduction services. “I believe I have seen the street outreach team out here and they did a count. But I haven’t seen any [case management] or anything like that offered to me,” said Lauren BB. “I am at a loss here. I have been out here for two years now, and I must have missed out. I must not have been at the right place at the right time because I haven’t seen any of this housing that they offer.” To Tracie, the dispersion of new housing resources only through encampment resolution feels more than unfair. “They don’t understand how this is adding more trauma UNHOUSED INDIVIDUALS PACK UP THEIR BELONGINGS, AS THE CITY BEGINS TO SWEEP THEIR CAMP. CREDIT: GILES CLASEN to our lives,” Tracie said. “We get our hopes up that this is all ending, that we’ll get housing by moving to this camp. When they tell us there is no housing, and we have to move or go to jail it hurts. It makes you feel hopeless. It makes you want to quit.” ■ LADY RED MOVED TO AN ENCAMPMENT NEAR HAVANA STREET AND 45TH AVE. BECAUSE SHE WAS TOLD HOSE IN THE CAMP WOULD BE OFFERED HOUSING. CREDIT: GILES CLASEN AS SWEEP TAKES PLACE, AN UNHOUSED INDIVIDUAL LEAVES BEHIND THEIR ARTWORK. CREDIT: GILES CLASEN 8 DENVER VOICE May 2024
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