NOREEN: Boulder, liberal mecca, shuns the homeless
You can’t just wave a wand or pass a new law to make homelessness vanish.
Boulder, where many residents consider themselves more enlightened, humane and forward-thinking than their Colorado Springs counterparts, is in the process of learning this lesson the hard way.
On Monday the American Civil Liberties Union challenged Boulder’s camping ban, which bars homeless people from using public property to erect shelters. Boulder’s law, quite similar to the one passed this year in Colorado Springs, says a shelter can be something as simple as a sleeping bag.
The ACLU has taken up the case of David Madison, a homeless man who was turned away from a crowded shelter in Boulder, then ticketed when he rolled his sleeping bag out in last November’s 11-degree chill. Madison, of course, was found guilty in Boulder Municipal Court.
Precisely what Madison was guilty of is something a reasonable person might ask, and it certainly is a question the Boulder City Attorney’s office is going to have to answer in court. Madison, you see, didn’t have anywhere to go and similarly, Boulder has nowhere to run and hide on this.
Many other U.S. cities have lost these kinds of cases.
ACLU didn’t sue Colorado Springs for two good reasons: (1) unlike Boulder, which has issued 1,600 tickets under its law, Colorado Springs has issued none. (2) Boulder has room for only 160 homeless people in it shelter, while Colorado Springs has spent money making sure many of the city’s homeless have an option other than sleeping on the ground.
“Both of the ordinances in our view are very problematic,” said attorney (and Colorado Springs native) Mark Walta. “What we find very troubling about the Boulder situation is that there are not enough beds.”
In the Springs, Walta said, “their response has been more enlightened than Boulder’s.”
Bob Holmes, director of Homeward Pike Peak, said “I’m proud of us in comparison to what Boulder has done. It’s more humanitarian.”
Holmes said there will be enough beds for homeless people this winter, although he and some other homeless advocates have disagreed about how many homeless people our city has. The tougher problem, Holmes said, is the group of homeless people with severe mental health or substance abuse problems — a population that is much more expensive to deal with.
Colorado Springs needs to try harder with that group and Holmes envisions a “phase 2” in which that can begin.
It’s clear: We can’t simply start issuing tickets and we must continue to provide shelters, and that’s going to cost money.
Boulder’s going to have to pay that tab. Plus court costs.
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