Effort to get more bikes to the homeless gets rolling
Dave Banes’ bicycle was his quick link to the world outside his room at the Aztec Motel. It got him to the medical clinic. It got him to the soup kitchen downtown. He could use it to get to job interviews.
And then, it was stolen.
Today, Banes is one of at least 65 homeless or formerly homeless people in Colorado Springs on a waiting list for a bicycle, an essential form of transportation for a population unlikely to have enough money to buy and maintain a car.
“A bike means everything,” Banes, a former tent city resident, said Tuesday as he sat outside his room at the Aztec on Platte Avenue. “A lot of these guys don’t even have a driver’s license.”
To help pare the waiting list and speed up distribution of bicycles to the area’s homeless residents, Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission is launching a program that got a boost Tuesday when the Colorado Springs City Council voted to lease part of an unused city building at 25 Cimino Drive to store donated bikes. There is no charge to the organization, and there’s an option to renew the lease for four years.
Beginning next week, the executive director of Pikes Peak Justice and Peace hopes to begin collecting bikes at a donation site to be set up weekly at the Colorado Farm & Art Market at America the Beautiful Park. His goal is to get 50 to 100 bikes that need few, if any, repairs.
“We’re asking people to dust off bikes that are sitting around the garage collecting cobwebs but don’t require hours of repair. What we want is good-condition bikes,” Steve Saint said.
Saint hopes to work in tandem with Peter Sprunger-Froese, who has been repairing and refurbishing bicycles for free since 1979, and Brian Gravestock, who recently started working two days a week on some of the bikes that Sprunger-Froese can’t get to.
Sprunger-Froese welcomes Pikes Peak Justice and Peace’s effort, but he worries that bicycles donated through the drive might not be in as good of shape as their owners think. He has a waiting list of about 65 and can barely keep up with the requests he gets, he said. Gravestock has a four-day-a-week job at a bike shop, so his time to refurbish bikes for homeless residents is limited.
“In concept, it’s a great idea,” said Sprunger-Froese, who estimates he spends an average of 60 to 80 hours a week repairing bikes. “I guess Steve, Brian and I would have to sort things out. I just know, as a bike mechanic, that when something seems to be viable and in good shape, it isn’t always the case.”
Saint said Tuesday that operational details need to be worked out, but he’s hopeful the program can get rolling now that there’s a place to stash donations. Sprunger-Froese, too, wants the program to work so more bikes can be given out.
“Really, I think there’s a way to make it work,” he said. “I don’t want to be a damper on this at all.”
DONATION DETAILS
Steve Saint, executive director of Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission, plans to start accepting donations of good-condition bicycles beginning Aug. 18 at the Farm & Art Market at America the Beautiful Park and continuing each Wednesday through the market season. The market operates from 3 to 7 p.m. Contact Saint at 632-6189 for more information and to confirm donation times and location.
