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VOICES OF OUR COMMUNITY & LOCAL NEWS OUR Streets: MIGUEL BY PAULA BARD I STAY ON THE STREETS NOW, pretty much in front of the Mission (sleeping quarters upstairs are not wheelchair accessible). I grew up in Curtis Park. This is my neighborhood. I’ve been in a wheelchair for about three years. Something just happened with my back and my legs with my nerves not acting right. The doctors — it’s always three visits to get anything done. It’s the same drill for everything. Come on, man. I don’t like that. I don’t need more mind games. It’s been a financial strain because I get no money. I’m not getting food stamps. No ID. All my stuff has been stolen twice. CREDIT: PAULA BARD Out here I’ve got friends I consider family, we’re all out here struggling together. All going through the same things. ■ 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. DHOL posted videos of the` Denver Department of Public CITY OFFICIALS FAIL TO PROVIDE REQUIRED HOMELESS SENSITIVITY TRAINING BY ROBERT DAVIS DENVER OFFICIALS HAVE FAILED to provide sensitivity training, which is required by the February 26, 2019, settlement agreement in Lyall v. City and County of Denver. The training is for city employees and contractors who regularly interact with homeless people. The training requirements contained in the settlement are: “Denver’s Road Home shall develop training on homeless sensitivity for City employees and contractors who regularly interact with people who are experiencing homelessness. Denver Homeless Out Loud and other advocacy groups may provide suggestions or recommendations concerning the sensitivity training, but Denver’s Road Home shall retain the ultimate responsibility for developing and providing the training. The sensitivity training shall take place on an annual basis.” The Denver VOICE filed two open records requests with the Department of Housing Stability (HOST), one in January and again in June, to retrieve any documents from Denver’s Road Home related to sensitivity training conducted. Denver replied that the training had not taken place yet. Attorney Jason Flores-Williams, who represented the homeless plaintiffs in Lyall, told the Denver VOICE that he “isn’t going to be a jerk about” the city not providing the training because of the COVID-19 pandemic. For their part, Denver Homeless Out Loud (DHOL) put together a three-page document outlining several aspects of the homeless experience that city officials need to keep in mind during their frequent interactions with homeless people. Specifics covered in the training document include accessibility to basic life-sustaining activities such as eating, sleeping, and using the restroom, as well as understanding the trauma underlying the homeless experience itself. “We will never address homelessness in our society if we do not treat it as the systemic problem it is, as opposed to an individual problem of individual homeless people,” DHOL’s training document reads. Meanwhile, the city has conducted several homeless sweeps of camps, including sites near the state capitol, in Lincoln Park, on the property of St. John’s Catholic Church, and others. Many of these camps have been cleared by city employees before providing the required seven-day notices stating when and where a homeless sweep will occur. Health and Environment (DDPHE) employees clearing a camp from 21st Avenue. and Stout Street. City employees posted a notice saying the camps would be “access restricted” only minutes before conducting the sweep. In mid-June, DDPHE also cleared a camp of more than 250 residents from the area near 22nd and Stout St., claiming that the camp presented a threat to public health. However, the city recently conducted voluntary COVID testing within the camp and found no cases of COVID. At the time this article was written, more than 100 homeless people living in the city’s shelter system have tested positive for COVID. It remains to be seen when the City will be able to provide the sensitivity training. ■ HOMELESS COMMUNITIES CAUGHT IN CROSSFIRE DURING GEORGE FLOYD PROTESTS BY ROBERT DAVIS SEVERAL HOMELESS COMMUNITIES in Denver found themselves caught in the crossfire between Denver police officers and rioters as some of the protests over the in-custody death of George Floyd turned violent. A camp in the Lincoln Park neighborhood had a tent burned by a smoke bomb Denver police officers threw at protesters. Another tent and several blankets were also damaged during the encounter. And another camp at Colfax and Broadway was forcibly removed as police fired pepper balls and tear gas at protesters indiscriminately. One woman at the camp was hospitalized for stomach issues she believed were caused by the amount of pepper spray police officers used. Amidst the chaos that ensued during the first nights of the protests, some homeless people in the community still aren’t blaming the police for their tactics. “I actually thanked the cops because nobody got blown up and they left us alone,” a man identified as Rook told Denverite. “The cops did their work right.” However, the ACLU of Colorado and Denver Homeless Out Loud (DHOL), a housing rights advocacy organization, both condemned the police tactics that led to the injury of protesters and the city’s most vulnerable residents. DHOL activists drew a link between the George Floyd protests and the plight of homeless people across the country. “Police terrorize people for being homeless, who are forced to survive in public, every day. These fights are all together,” they wrote in a Facebook post. The ACLU took issue with the militarization of Denver’s police force and the city-wide curfew implemented in response to the protests. “We are alarmed at the increasing militarization of Denver police, and Mayor Hancock’s decision to impose a weeklong curfew in Denver and Governor Polis’ decision to call in the Colorado National Guard,” the organization said in a statement. “This city-wide curfew is an unprecedented and extraordinary measure that poses a risk of selective enforcement in Black and Brown communities.” The National Alliance to End Homelessness found that more than 60 percent of homeless people nationwide are non-white, even though minorities make up 25 percent of the population. In Denver, more than half of the city’s homeless population is non-white, according to the 2019 Point in Time count. During the protests, three homeless people were arrested for curfew violations. Each of them was subsequently released and all charges against them were dropped by the Denver District Attorney. In response to the treatment of protesters and vulnerable communities by city police officers, lawmakers introduced SB-217, known as The Law Enforcement Accountability Act. The bill would end qualified immunity for police officers and require their body cameras to record any contact police officers have with the public. “Now is the time for accountability. We are committed to working with lawmakers and stakeholders from all communities, in every corner of our state, to create and reform systems and policies that tear down the systemic and structural racism that is tearing our country apart,” the ACLU said. ■ JAVIER DE JESUS SITS AT HIS CAMP ON 13TH STREET AS BLACK LIVES MATTER PROTESTORS GO BY. “The protests made everything feel a lot more dangerous out here. Fires. Pepper Spray. More people. More police. It is more dangerous right now. I support what they’re doing. I’ve experienced police brutality. That’s why I’m homeless. The police arrested me over a fi ght with my wife. I made the mistake of calling the police when she was out of control. When they got there, they arrested me. That arrest literally destroyed my life, took everything from me.” PHOTO CREDIT: GILES CLASEN tied July 2020 DENVER VOICE 3

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