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A Response to the New York Times IAN STITT EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF NETWORK COFFEE HOUSE HAVING SPENT A FAIR AMOUNT OF time with you speaking about the issue of homelessness in Denver, and having spent almost 10 years fighting it, I was disappointed to see that your analysis of the issue was boiled down to a far too simplistic idea that solving homelessness is as simple as having the will, and that the struggle of homelessness in large cities is a failure of political ideologies. Both may be true, but the reality of solving homelessness isn’t as simple as willing it away. A colleague of mine says: “If we were going to enforce our way out of the problem of growing homelessness, then we would have done it by now.” We have had an anti-homeless camping ban in Denver since 2012, and it has done nothing but entrench people deeper into homelessness and overburden the police force and judicial system. It is well documented that large cities largely lean progressive politically, and that this reflects educational achievement, economic factors and population density, among other things, I am sure. The criticism of other large cities reads more like a love letter to Mayor Mike Johnston than a well-rounded critique of modern social services. I recognize that your reporting on Denver’s “progress” in fighting homelessness is of national interest since we have seen an increase in homelessness nationwide as a result of a complex series of factors that can be distilled down to several main economic and social issues that inconveniently are a direct result of federal-level decisions by both conservative and democratic administrations dating back to the 60s. This includes JFK’s push for the deinstitutionalization of mental hospitals and asylums, which never saw an equitable growth in community-based mental healthcare, leaving cities to grapple with mental health care through the use of ERs and Jails. It also includes the idea of trickle-down economics championed by Regan in the 80s, which has never been proven to work and has been used to obscure growing financial inequality that has driven the concentration of wealth in the top 1% and the death of the middle class. This was only made worse by the concerted effort of republican administrations passing tax breaks for the wealthiest. Combined with the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which declared corporations are people, we witnessed a drastic change in how politics is played. This led to a drastic increase in corporate spending to influence policy that maximizes corporate profits and decreases the power and voice of everyday constituents. Not to be forgotten is the incremental defunding of social safety nets championed again by conservatives, including defunding Medicaid and Medicare, reducing housing subsidies, removing workers’ rights and the continued growth of isolationism and fear-mongering that seems to have done nothing more than reduce social connection and radicalize those who struggle the most. To speak more directly about your opinion piece, I’m greatly disappointed by the lack of attention you paid to criticism of the mayor’s policies. By omitting any real alternative assessments, your piece suggests your journalism is biased and focused less on a critical analysis of the facts surrounding homelessness in Denver and more on a politically motivated advertisement that seems to do nothing but push a short-term narrative that Johnston has been deceptively campaigning on. As I stated in our interview, I am more than willing to acknowledge the benefits of Johnston’s increased attention to the issue of homelessness. I, however, also feel it is important to share the areas where he is not succeeding in his initiative to fight homelessness. Nowhere in your piece do you share that, in his pursuit to move more people out of unsheltered homelessness, he has increased service resistance, pushed for the criminalization of a state of existence that does little more than perpetuate a false narrative of moral failings being the reason for homelessness and not a broken economic system that Editor’s note: On June 22, New York Times editorial writer German Lopez interviewed Executive Director Ian Stitt of Network Coffee House for Lopez’s Oct. 13 editorial “We Know How to Fix Homelessness. Look at Denver.” The Denver VOICE is republishing what was originally an email from Stitt to Lopez on Oct. 15, with permission from Stitt, as a column. caters only to people already endowed with financial stability. This is best illustrated by the quote from a community member that I have worked with for years: “I walk and walk and walk because as soon as I stop to rest I am illegal!” and what is unspoken here is that being illegal means an increased likelihood of interacting with the criminal justice system, a deepening of individuals’ homelessness and the growth of service resistance are inevitable in a system that punishes people as if unsheltered homelessness is a choice being made willingly. Not once did your piece refer to those experiencing homelessness as anything similar to victims of a broken system, and that says more than you would wish about your belief in the causes of and solutions to homelessness, not to mention your journalistic integrity when writing biased opinion pieces that directly impact those the piece is written about. I challenge you to consider what the reality of an individual’s experience of homelessness is actually like without labeling, assuming and applying some capitalist ideal of a person’s worth being intimately tied to their work productivity. Only then will you understand that the solution to homelessness won’t come from political fortitude, but from a concerted effort by all Americans to put social welfare over corporate profits. I have worked with thousands of people in my time as a service provider, and not once did a community member suggest that they preferred homelessness, or liked the social castigation that comes with it. I encourage you to stop consuming the propaganda politicians push, which uses data to obfuscate the truth in favor of political points, and to explore issues through a more honest lens. Ian Stitt is the executive director of Network Coffee House, a 44-year-old nonprofit in the heart of Capitol Hill. His path to this work began with a year teaching English in Madagascar, an experience that shaped his commitment to community-centered service. Stitt brings nearly 10 years of homeless services experience in Denver — including street outreach, managing Saint Francis Center’s Safe Outdoor Space program, housing case management and a year in youth residential treatment. Answer the Call 10-4 SOME PEOPLE ARE SO POISONED by their environment that they will never achieve the level of success that they have right in the palm of their hands unless, by some miracle, greatness is thrust upon them and they answer the call. I too WAS AS SOME REA BROWN DENVER VOICE VENDOR OF YOU, looking at a homeless person’s shoe, wondering why they never do, not seeing who but through hesitant to even do what I thought was cool offering food instead of money so they can’t use it for brew. Yet to stay true to what turned me blue it was one of my crew for privacy sake i’II call him Jue now that I to have some confused wondering a thing or few, and yet don’t think that life is cruel, maybe unusual as stew, but must add the vegetables of fools that speak of this life as though they knew who are more apropos to school, white elephants, and baby kangaroos now back to Jue to switch the mood to black and white till klancy uses ku klux tools now im starting to wonder what was the blunder or do they even have an excuse. So many a check away from having nowhere to stay and the news around the way is the SUPER RICH are buying the land away it you believe what people say, OK now back to J I lost a friend just like The FRAY I’m dog-tagged with an AK in a war with my understanding grey is it Trump or DOJ will Mamdani try to make us pray where’s the back up for American made nightmares of Al upgrading hate what is the answer to fate or will the heart beat of earth make America SUPER GREAT. There’s talk that they found NOAH’S ARK the homeless house of bark which brings us back to start. OVER BLUE SURVEILLANCE Accountability for police misconduct is behind a paywall in Colorado — we tear it down. DENVER VOICE NOVEMBER 2026 13

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