Like many cities, Colorado Springs is grappling with how to deal with homelessness, and like many cities, it hasn't made much progress.
City officials, police and many engaged in some aspect of homelessness met Tuesday to discuss how to conduct trash pickups amid homeless camps, an issue that flared up after a sweep in November. Everybody knows the trash has to be picked up. Everybody means well.
Yet the members of the group that met at the Gold Hill substation fell neatly along two sides of a divide. Some citizens think the problem is the trash; others think the trash, while disgusting, is merely the symptom of a deeper problem.
After negative publicity of a sweep of some camps in November, Mayor Lionel Rivera announced a moratorium on the sweeps, which are conducted by Keep Colorado Springs Beautiful, the nonprofit that is funded mostly by city tax dollars. Advocates for the homeless charged that the sweeps are too harsh and that basic necessities provided by local charities - including IDs, clothing and sleeping bags - were being thrown out by Keep Colorado Springs Beautiful.
Without the monthly sweeps, "the police and code enforcement are getting a lot of complaints about trash buildup," said CSPD Commander Kurt Pillard.
Pillard recommended some changes to the sweep program, including laws making it illegal to leave personal items in a park or public right-of-way, providing more advance notice of the sweeps and establishing a group to help oversee the sweeps.
Keep Colorado Springs Beautiful officials deny they've been unduly harsh in conducting the sweeps. But so many street people tell stories about sleeping bags scooped up and prescription medications being taken that there has to be a grain of truth in it.
If the nonprofit has always dealt with street people in a sensitive way, we wouldn't need a group of volunteers to look over KCSB's shoulder.
Asked what good it would do to make it illegal to trespass in the city's right of way, Deputy Chief of Police Ron Gibson acknowledged that the answer to homelessness "is not an enforcement answer. It's a community answer."
How true.
Some property owners only care about the trash the homeless create, but viewing it only as a trash problem is pretty shallow. It is based on the idea that if we just get the trash and the undesirables out of sight, all will be well.
Many of the street people have mental health problems. Many are alcoholics in a town that just announced the imminent closure of its de-tox center.
Those who say street people choose their lifestyle should take a more honest look at the options our street people really have.
"We will always have people staying outdoors without shelter," said Robert Moran, founder of The Street Church. "We have a responsibility."
Moran was among those who volunteered to accompany Keep Colorado Springs Beautiful on future sweeps. It's a good idea, especially if it means the police won't be going along.
We need our police for more important jobs, and street people tend to be terrified of cops. There is a more humane way to clean up the trash and it needs to be done.
But cleaning up litter won't do much to address the homelessness that is causing it.
---
Contact Noreen at 636-0363 or
noreen@gazette.com. He appears at noon Fridays on KOAA TV channels 5/30 and on KRDO radio 105.5 FM and 1240 AM at 6:40 a.m.