HOT officers recognized for helping homeless

Rochelle Veit refers to her time living in a tent off Interstate 25 as “the cold days.”

Memories of those four months enduring below-freezing temperatures while recovering from a hysterectomy still give her chills.

“Those were the cold days,” Veit said.

The police officers who helped Veit and hundreds of other homeless residents of makeshift camps along creeks in Colorado Springs are on the verge of earning international recognition.

The Colorado Springs Police Department’s Homeless Outreach Team was named a finalist for the Herman Goldstein Award, an internationally recognized honor bestowed by the Center for Problem Oriented Policing to agencies that successfully deal with complex crime or safety issues.

The team was one of six agencies — three of which hail from the United Kingdom — to be named finalists for the award. Officers with the outreach team will travel in late September to Arlington, Texas, to make a presentation to a panel of judges, who will then name a winner.

Brett Iverson, a police officer with the outreach team, said Wednesday the honor was unexpected and isn’t a sign that their work is done.

Since the recession began in late 2008, the agency has offered help to nearly 575 people.

About 100 people turned down the team’s help, but hundreds of others were placed in shelters or given bus tickets to family members out of state.

In all, 145 people were reunited with out-of-state family members. Another 131 people found a job with the team’s help, and 105 of them became self-sufficient.

While the tent cities have disappeared along Interstate 25 near downtown and along Fountain Creek on the west side, the team of three police officers still receives about 30 calls a day to assist people needing shelter or to contact people who are panhandling — often a sign, Iverson said, of someone about to lose a home.

“We’re seeing a slowdown in the number of people who are on that verge of homelessness, but it’s still there,” Iverson said.

The announcement of a possible award for the team came as no surprise to Veit, who was offered shelter away from that cold tent by the outreach team.

At first, she hesitated. Most shelters, she said, do not allow dogs — a problem, considering she could not part with her pal, Charlie.

When the outreach team offered to find the dog shelter while she got settled in a place she could have pets, she relented.

She has since been living at the Aztec Motel, 1921 E. Platte Ave., which was recently converted to a homeless shelter.

“If it wasn’t for them … I wouldn’t have my dog,” Veit said of the HOT officers. “And I don’t go anywhere without him.”

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