A large homeless encampment was cleared in Denver on Thursday amid temperatures of -5C (23F), risking further controversy over the city’s approach to homeless people struggling with winter weather.
As in other western cities, activists are up in arms over rules that they say criminalize homelessness. Denver, whose homeless population is estimated at 3,700, banned “urban camping” in 2012. But in November, police faced intense criticism after a video that showed them confiscating people’s blankets and other outdoors gear, with bad weather imminent, went viral.
In response, Denver’s mayor, Michael Hancock, promised that police would not take survival equipment when enforcing the camping ban until the spring. The city and its officials are currently being sued by several homeless residents over such policies.
“It’s an atrocity,” said Ray Lyall, a 58-year-old homeless man and a member of advocacy group Denver Homeless Out Loud, said of the camping restriction.
“They’re just trying to live. But the council wants to keep moving them, and they’re going to move them out farther and farther, and then next year they’ll be back where they started and we’ll start the whole process over again.”
City workers arrived close to 9am at the site in a dilapidated industrial area in the northern part of the city. They looked on as about 30 homeless residents packed up tents, blankets, bikes and cooking equipment in trailers and shopping carts.
A basketball hoop balanced precariously atop one cart, while on another a woman carefully placed a pet carrier containing a black-and-white cat.
Once they had left, the area was cordoned off with yellow tape. Kali Gutter, who is 28 and two months pregnant, said she was feeling “sick, sad and emotional”. She said she was banned from Denver’s main women’s shelter after a fight with another woman there, and feels safer on the streets. “A lot of us don’t have a lot of options,” she added.
Amber Miller, spokeswoman for the city, said that today’s clean-up took place because the camp was on private property. “The concern that we carry is that it is unhealthy, unsanitary and unsafe,” she added. Residents were encouraged to move into city shelters.
About 150 people had been living at the site, according to one resident, although the majority moved on when the city erected signs two weeks ago warning that anybody who remained there risked a year in jail or a fine of $999.
Cory Donahue, a man in his 40s who had a star-shaped scar on his left check and was wearing a gray overcoat, was sat on a bike next to a cart containing all his belongings. He had lived at the camp for four and a half months. Asked where he was going to go next, he said he had “no idea”.
