Before 2013, I probably would have said “love” or “friends” or “dignity” but upon being destitute and homeless in Boulder and Denver, Colorado...my opinion changed. There was no time to be poetic or dream about how I might be stronger after this all ended. If you had a fake positive and blissful look on life, it was gone. Things are very real. Try having a "look at the bright side" attitude when there is nowhere to go to the bathroom, and if you do go to the bathroom you could be arrested for indecent exposure.
Places in Colorado have anti-camping laws that are broadly written. If you go lay outside of a personal residence, you can be issued a citation or arrested on the spot. It doesn't matter that you were a taxpayer all of your life, you aren't now, so don't go thinking you can be in public places.
Colorado hates homeless people. Don't let anyone tell you any different. Outside of a few select places on the 16th street mall, there are ZERO facilities where you can go to the bathroom without an access code. You get the access codes by being a customer or begging a customer to give it to you. The only other place I have lived which was as nasty was in communist China. That's right, by looking at commercials advertising Denver, it looks like the land of weed smoking ant John Elway parades. No, not even close. In fact, when Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders come to town, they round up the homeless people to hide the reality. On March 8, 2016, they sent a police army to the Denver 5-points. In the 5-points there is the Denver Rescue Mission, Samaritan House, Salvation Army, Step 13. The police army was sent to "evict the homeless" from the sidewalks. That's right, you read that correctly. The confiscated the belongings and made them stand up. We are not talking about 1 or 2 people, we are talking about the entire blocks around Denver Rescue Mission and Samaritan House. People had no place to go, the winter was so cold, these people played out all over in the cold, with no place to go to try not to get frostbite and lose a toe or die. And then, the next day the city announced that they were giving millions of dollars out to THE EXACT SAME INCOMPETENT ORGANIZATIONS THAT COULD DO ANYTHING FOR THE PRIOR DECADE.
You can see the trend, Colorado hates the homeless. With their nose point directly up in the sky. Most of the issues with homelessness can be narrowed down to a few categories, two primaries actually. Mental Illness and Substance abuse. These people have not hardened crims, these are people with diseases and disabilities. Alcoholism fits into the disease model, so if anyone thinks just walking around saying "Just quit, it was your choice to start." just showed absolute ignorance of the dangers and realities. Alcohol, even with binge drinking, is one of the only things that can instantly kill you if you stop suddenly. These are people who need medical attention and long-term help being reintegrated into society, which I will address after this, the hospitals in Colorado are terrible.
Since much of my experience is dealing with homelessness in Denver and Boulder, I will address it from that perspective.
VA Eastern Colorado Health Care System 1055 Clermont St
Here is a good place to get an idea of the homelessness issues in Colorado in greater detail.
I was admitted to this hospital into the 3rd-floor inpatient mental health section, where people are safely detoxed so they don't die while being detoxed. After a few days there, they had me fill out paperwork to go to another facility in Wyoming, except, they liked about what that place does. The VA said it was a sort of work and rehab program. Except, it wasn't. They take all of your things and put you on lockdown for a year. There is no work program at all there. So, because the staff at the VA hospital are not really accountable to anything except their paperwork, they refused to help me. It was in the negative degree range this past winter in Denver. Being a homeless veteran, I went to the VA for help, hey said sorry we don't have anything open. If you ever wondered why the VA has a bad reputation, is because the veterans weren't allowed to say "Sorry sergeant, all out of bullets, you are going to need to ask someone else to take the hill".
At "Denver Cares" on 16th and Cherokee I have seen people fall into a seizure and the staff has a look on their face that says it all, that if you are going to die, please wait until their shift is over. Not to mention, that not once has my items been returned to me unbroken or missing. This facility also had a split VA and civilian program for substance abusers who were homeless. Those who oversee that program canceled it. Denver Cares was banking the veterans GPD program money and nobody got help. 14 out of 14 back out on the streets homeless. Zero.
And one more thing on that note. Saint Joseph Hospital is a hospital in the City Park West neighborhood of Denver at 1375 E 19th Ave, Denver.2014-2015, I was sent to the emergency rooms at this hospital, still homeless, nothing changed. They have some sort of case worker or social worker that comes and speaks to the people admitted there who are there for specific issues I am guessing, drug, alcohol, homelessness. This woman came in on maybe hour 3 of the IV detox. In this situation, they are supposed to offer you referrals on where to go to get help. There is generally a process or protocol for things, immediate treatment to stabilize, then show you where to go for follow-up help. Especially not being from there, it would have been very helpful. This woman talked to me like my presence was ruining her night playing BINGO or something. She had one or two old fliers in her hand, she left them on the chair and left the room. I went out into the cold, they give you one bus ticket and say go find Denver. They released someone prior to me, I walked over to the bus stop, it was freezing. When I got closer to him, his skin was all yellow and his eyes were yellow. He asked if I was taking the bus and if I wanted a drink. Apparently, they kicked him into the cold like they did me. And, they gave him his extra large sized Listerine bottle back.
The one thing about homelessness that I hate is that your recourse for actions is almost zero. There are little to no ways to do anything about anything, and people know that when they interact with you. And, that sucks as bad as freezing to death.
As poetic and beautiful as it sounds to say other things like dignity, research has proven that the amount of good that comes from the housing is exponential. In Denver the “Housing First” model is proven, New Genesis also uses housing as their foundation for helping homeless individuals and the Boulder Ready to Work homeless program model guarantees up to 2 years of your housing completely covered, and these aren’t grants, these are from community donors and the average cost of savings on the taxpayer is cut by $20,000 - 30,000. The Bridge House has already had tremendous amounts of success. Right now I believe there are only 4 or so places in the U.S. that have that have the Ready to Work model running. Keep in mind, that model is directly targeted towards that exact thing “homeless or working poor” — so their focus can directly impact and assist. You will see other various “charity” organizations that are so broad and watered down, you wonder what their intent was, to help people in need or help themselves get grant money. It is a sad reality, but Denver is full of opportunist organizations. Don’t believe me? This year Denver “evicted” the homeless on March 8. The very next day released information showing an amazing amount of money, I believe in the 20+ million range toward solving this homeless situation. So, if you follow me here on the logic train, they evicted people with nowhere to go — nowhere. They stood up and walked a street or two down. Then they told they were giving millions to the organizations who have proven that they are not capable of managing solutions, and yet you are giving them money w no oversight. Way to go people of Denver. The current Bridge House implementation of Ready to Work for the homeless in Colorado is fairly new with the location they are at in Boulder having only been open for a year or so, though the Bridge House itself has been around longer. Samaritan House Denver reviews Homeless housing and employment programs http://bridgeurl.com/ready-to-work-boulder
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from Ready to Work Boulder Colorado https://www.reddit.com/r/ready2workboulder/comments/4ptntn/homelessness_and_joblessness_for_veterans/
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