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In their home: "Residentially challenged"
Della Winkler, 48
Della Winkler was born and raised in Colorado Springs. She said her problems started early in a troubled home and she dropped out of high school, calling herself “a child of crisis.” Although she’s held down some jobs for a while, including a delivery route for the Gazette, she has flirted with homelessness for much of her adult life.
“I haven’t ever been high on the social ladder,” she said, “but I haven’t always been homeless.”
“I don’t always play well with others, past and present,” she admits, when talking about her job history.
She lived in her car, but when it broke down a few months ago, a tent was the best she could do.
“We’re people who are residentially challenged,” she said. “We have less of a home right now, but it’s what we have.”
She and her boyfriend, Dave, decorate as best they can, with candy canes on a tree outside the tent to mark the holidays. And they’re happy with the new tent donated to them, because it keeps them warmer than the drafty model they had before.
“Some of these individuals have promoted our well-being, not our homelessness,” Della said.
She is angered by the message from local officials that donating goods to the homeless is enabling instead of helpful. She says HOT Team cops discouraged some friends of hers who came over the holidays to help her out.
“They interrupted a sweet couple who had come down to Colorado Springs to wish us a Merry Christmas, and tried to discourage them from being our friends and giving us things,” she said.
Winkler is keenly aware of the political wrangling around the homeless.
“It sucks that this is all political. Making it illegal to camp, what’s that going to prove? That’s not what homelessness is about, it’s not political warfare,” she said. “We can all get better together, or we can all get worse together.”
