VOICES OF OUR COMMUNITY OUR Streets: CHRISTOPHER & TASHA BY PAULA BARD “I AM CHRISTOPHER, 42 years old. I’m from Long Island, New York. This is Tasha. We’re traveling, passing through. Kind of got stranded with money, actually. We took the Greyhound bus and Mega bus and jumped a freight train and hitchhiked the rest of the way here from New York.” “I was a taxi driver for five years out of St. Petersburg, Florida, for Independent Taxi. When we get to Oregon; we might do the Uber thing, you know, we can invest in a car and start driving for Uber. They pay twice as much as taxi drivers. We stay away from the Jesus Saves places. That place is a very violent place. People that are on parole. They are forced to stay in that area. And there’s crime. Since we’ve been in Denver Tasha’s MacBook Pro and her purse were stolen.” “Yeah, all my music, all my movies, my family photos. It was the only thing I had that was worth anything. It was our entertainment.” “She was sitting five feet from it. It was a set up.” “And our sleeping bags were stolen too. Sleeping bags! Who would take a sleeping bag?” “I gave a homeless guy the shoes off my feet. We’re not thieves, we’re not rogues, we are not vermin. We are just passing through and that’s the truth.” “You never travel without two pairs of shoes. And another thing about traveling, we don’t have insurance and we’re poor. And I chipped my tooth so there is no way I can get things taken care of till we get there, to start over. We’re okay, as long as we’re happy, we’re together, we don’t mind if we’re broke.” ■ Author’s Note: In the fall of 2015, just ahead of Colorado’s winter, Denver sent the full force of its police department and SWAT team to destroy five tiny homes that people “living without homes” had built north of downtown. Something in me snapped: Denver is behaving like a bully! Denver has more than 6,000 people without homes, and more than 3,000 trying to survive on its streets. It is an ugly business. In 2012, Denver passed an urban-camping ban making it illegal for the homeless to protect themselves with “any form of cover or protection from the elements other than clothing.” Violations can bring a $999 fine or a year in jail. I began walking those streets where the homeless are trying to survive, photographing the faces and collecting the stories of those my city has abandoned. So began OUR Streets – stories of Denver’s unhoused residents. CREDIT: PAULA BARD HOW TO HELP The money we take in from vendors helps us cover a portion of our printing costs, but we depend largely on donations from individuals, businesses, and foundations to help us pay our rent and keep the lights on. DONATE Give a one-time or recurring donation online through denvervoice.org. You can also mail a check to: Denver VOICE | P.O. Box 1931 | Denver, CO 80201 Donations to the Denver VOICE are tax-deductable. ADVERTISING Our readership is loyal, well-educated, and socially concerned. Readers view purchasing the paper as a way to immediately help a person who is poor or homeless while supporting long-term solutions to end poverty. If you are interested in placing an ad or sponsoring a section of the paper, please contact us about rates at ads@denvervoice.org. GET THE WORD OUT We rely on grassroots marketing to get the word out about what we do. Talk to people about our organization and share us with your network. Support us on @denverVOICE VOLUNTEER SUBSCRIPTIONS We need volunteers to help with everything from newspaper distribution to event planning and management. Contact program@denvervoice.org for volunteering information. If you are unable to regularly purchase a newspaper from our vendors, please consider a subscription. We ask subscribers to support our program with a 12-month pledge to give $10 a month, or a one-time donation of $120. Subscriptions help us cover our costs AND provide an amazing opportunity to those who need it most. Go to denvervoice.org/subscriptions for more information. June 2020 DENVER VOICE 3
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