Amidst reports that an increasing number of people are sleeping in public areas in downtown Denver, city officials are right to raise the issue of whether it’s time to enact a law forbidding sleeping outside in the central business district.
But that alone is not enough. This moment should also give rise to discussions about whether Denver and the metropolitan area as a whole are doing all that we should to address homelessness.
“I want to get them off of our Main Street, and the 16th Street Mall is our Main Street,” says Councilman Charlie Brown, who is among at least three council members pushing the idea of making it illegal to sleep outdoors overnight downtown. “We have to stand up for our businesses downtown and our women and children who are afraid to go downtown. Are we supposed to just give in?”
No.
But we also can’t think that by simply passing a law we’ll solve what appears to be a problem with an increasing number of homeless people who, for one reason or another, are not finding or seeking shelter. Pushing the homeless to the periphery of the city or into other municipalities is not addressing the problem.
According to Denver’s Road Home, which is the program to end homelessness in the city, homelessness in the Denver metro area is down 4.6 percent from 2007 levels.
But business owners and visitors to downtown aren’t seeing it. Many nights, as many as 100 to 200 people sleep in the open downtown, according to the city.
Post-convention surveys regularly cite people sleeping outside and the perceived safety threat they pose as a chief complaint about what is an otherwise remarkable city center.
While the safety concerns are not backed up by crime data, there are legitimate concerns about what homelessness means as far as sanitation, health and the perception of the city’s most popular tourist attraction — the 16th Street Mall.
That makes the notion of limiting where people can sleep a debate worth having.
But we can and must do more.
Earlier this fall, 100 additional shelter beds were authorized by Denver’s Road Home. Has that been enough?
Is there additional need for services? Is there enough transitional housing? Have Denver’s policies and services for the homeless made it a magnet for people from throughout the region and across the country?
As Mayor Michael Hancock rightly said in an interview with us Friday, the issue must also be one of compassion.
“We’ve got to demonstrate compassion by taking a comprehensive approach to it. … I don’t want to lose that value.”
But, he pointed out, we only have one downtown, and it’s important that it thrive.
“We cannot afford to lose our city core. If people don’t feel safe going downtown, that is a threat to the very vitality of our downtown and our city.”
