Cops begin enforcing no-camp ordinance with a soft touch

There was no high drama Thursday as the Colorado Springs Police Department’s Homeless Outreach Team began enforcing the city’s new no-camping ordinance. In fact, there was no drama at all.

The officers limited their first official enforcement rounds to a camp just north of Cimarron Street and west of Interstate 25, and found only two campers. The encounter barely registered on the confrontational Richter scale as HOT Officer M.J. Thomson laid out the procedure.

“This is an official written warning,” Thomson told one of the campers, Alabama, as he handed over a piece of paper. “We’ll come back in 48 hours; if you’re still here, you’ll get an actual ticket. The next day, if you’re still here, we take you to jail. We don’t want that.”

“I don’t want to be here,” Alabama replied as he took the form from Thomson.

More important than the warning on the form was what Thomson wrote on the bottom: a referral for Alabama to enter a residential program at Springs Rescue Mission. Getting the campers out of the tent cities and into shelters and programs that might help them is what the HOT cops have emphasized since the unit was created last year, the officers said. Enforcing the no-camping ordinance simply provides a stronger incentive to make that happen.

“Our goal as a unit is not to have to arrest one person,” Thomson said.

The officers talked at length with the men about where they might want to go before they wrote the referrals on their warnings. Alabama’s camp mate, Pops, chose to go to the Salvation Army shelter. For whatever reason, Thomson said, neither opted to go to the Express Inn, which is housing about 102 of the tent campers under a grant from El Pomar Foundation to Homeward Pikes Peak.

“I want to do what they feel comfortable with,” Thomson said.

The team also spoke to two people camping south of Cimarron, but because it’s private property and the ordinance applies only to public property, they didn’t issue a formal warning. Still, their approach was the same. One of the campers, who also goes by the name of Pops, said at first he would try to find another place to camp.

“I’ll stay outside. I don’t get along with people,” he told the officers. But Thomson and Officer Brett Iverson persuaded him to at least consider staying in a west side bungalow for a week or two with help from grant money for emergency housing. In any case, Pops said he would be off the property by today.

Police decided not to expand their rounds beyond the Cimarron camp because they want to take a “slow and methodical” approach to their mission, making sure one camp is cleaned up before moving on. Next week, they plan to tackle another of the more visible areas behind America the Beautiful Park. But it’s unlikely they’ll find many campers there, either.

Police and volunteers have been working tirelessly to move campers out of the area’s tent cities after the no-camping ordinance was initially approved Feb. 9. On Wednesday, Iverson encouraged a couple at America the Beautiful to contact a couple of places of help, including the Veterans Administration office. Thursday morning, with the VA’s help, they were out of the camp and into an apartment.

“She was screaming ‘We got housed! We got housed!’” Iverson said.

Iverson estimated eight campers remain on the east side of the creek where the couple lived, down from a high of 20. The west side of the creek, which also had 20, has been vacated.