NOREEN: Homeless solution hits bump - reality
Filled with optimism for the future, secure that the right thing was being done and fired up about the news that there would be plenty of room at the inn for the homeless, City Hall approved the no-camping ordinance in February.
We could put a warm and fuzzy blanket around that tough love and, gosh darn it, it felt great that overnight, Colorado Springs had taken bold action to solve the same problem whose solution has eluded other cities across the nation. You know, cities that just weren’t as tough and creative as Colorado Springs.
On Feb. 21, Homeward Pikes Peak Director Bob Holmes said, “We have enough beds for the people who want to get off the street.”
A $100,000 grant from the El Pomar Foundation provided a stopgap solution, and dozens of homeless people who were camping were put into transitional housing at the Express Inn at I-25 and Cimarron Street. The cash enabled the city to offer a helping hand to those who wanted it, and as some campers took advantage, it looked like the community’s homeless situation was being transformed in one stroke.
It was inevitable that reality would intervene.
The El Pomar money, Holmes said in a March 5 email (see my blog), will run out at the end of May.
“I am very nervous,” Holmes wrote, “about the fact that the El Pomar funds will run out at the end of May, and I see no one or no entity even considering picking up the ball.”
Seeing this a month ago would not have required the services of Nostradamus.
No more money means an end to the $6,000 a week that has been paid to the Express Inn. Already, some have been turned away.
As Holmes wrote: “So, do not send people to the Express Inn, please. We will neither see nor place them.”
What to do?
“I figure I’ve got about two months to come up with something,” Holmes said Monday.
On the phone he echoed his email about the solution: “I plan to ask the city to help out.”
We can’t light the streets, can’t water or pick up litter in the parks, can’t run a transit system, but we’re going to find money to put homeless people in a motel? A waterless Uncle Wilber might say, “ya gotta be kiddin’ me.”
A couple of dozen homeless campers have obtained jobs, aided by being able to stay at the Express Inn, and that is a real plus. But Holmes acknowledged one segment of the homeless remains a big challenge — “the ones with mental health problems. That’s probably the biggest problem as I look into the future.”
If there is nowhere for them to go, won’t they just continue camping out?
“That’s the worst case scenario,” Holmes said.
Or it’s reality performing an intervention.
—
