DENVER’S HIDDEN GEMS OF HUMANITY CREDIT: PAULA BARD TERESE HOWARD WITH DHOL TALKS ABOUT DENVER’S ONGOING SWEEPS BY PAULA BARD TERESE HOWARD works with Denver Homeless Out Loud (DHOL), a gritty, five-person organization that strives relentlessly to give voice to Denver’s citizens experiencing homelessness. She walks the large encampments growing on the northern edge of downtown and knows first-hand the extent of this humanitarian crisis. Recently, the Denver VOICE spoke with Howard about Denver restarting the “sweeps” after a several-month respite dictated by the CDC as a safety measure during the Coronavirus Pandemic. Sweeps consist of the city breaking down homeless encampments, scooping up people’s belongings, forcing the people to move, and often fencing off the area. Sweeps have been a regular activity for years, the city’s attempt to quell Denver’s exploding homeless population. DHOL blasts out news of the streets on social media, and they raise legal challenges to the city over the inhumane treatment of those without homes. They bring bills to the legislature and ballot initiatives to the City of Denver, seeking to bring down (so far, unsuccessfully) Denver’s camping ban, which has made life a living hell for those on Denver’s streets. In the last week of May, during the sweep of the blocks around California Street and 22nd Avenue, DHOL handed out 100 tents in three days and fed 60 people home-cooked dinners. They also helped many of the displaced relocate their meager belongings. DENVER VOICE: Terese, give me your take on what is happening to the community because of the harassment, moving, and displacement. Do you get a sense of what it does to people with this much disruption in their lives, the trauma associated with it? Terese Howard: So, with Corona, a lot of outside help dried up. There was a period of about two months when there was relative stability. Not the regular sweep disruption. During that time, people were starting to build community in a much deeper way, like really getting to know their neighbors. There was a lot more effort to keep the camps clean, folks were up to invest in the space. What happens when people have stability, and they are able to put their lives together? I see people more likely to get jobs, more likely to work on social progress things, more likely to stay in contact with case managers. Increased general understanding of who’s your community, looking out for each other. 4 DENVER VOICE July 2020 Safety issues? Safer for women? Able to get help if they need it? Yeah, people know this [tent] is where I can go, they stay in this tent, this is who I can talk to. When it isn’t a stable camp, this all gets disrupted, throws people into a lot of chaos. Folks don’t know where to go; people lose property, disconnect from friends and social safety nets. Moving to another camp with no safety net, they don’t know who can help out. People that are disabled and have health issues depend on other campers to look out for them. [So, when camps are disrupted] they are left on their own. In the camps when people are disabled, do other people in the community help them out with things, get food, set up tents? Would you agree with the statistic that 40 percent of those living on the street without homes are disabled? Yes, and various types of disabilities, like some folks who have a physical disability where they are not able to set up a tent or move or haul things, they depend on somebody else to do that for them. That’s one of the most tragic things about the effects on so many people that are super vulnerable and disabled or are struggling, [they] just get totally screwed. They depend on a safe encampment to turn to when they have crises and other needs.
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