Portland homeless cesspool- Denver next?

[hollohas]

Denver's homeless problem is certainly getting much worse. Many areas are full of trash everyday. Some areas downtown are BAD. But Denver is fighting it and seems to be doing what they can to keep the homeless population from setting down deep roots.

I see the "clean-up" crew taking down homeless camps almost daily. In one spot on SantaFe (right by the I25 north flyover at Mississippi) they repeatedly took down homeless camps in some trees there on the East and West along the river. Each time I saw them doing cleanup they had at least a full size garabage truck and even a roll off once. I guess they got tired of it so the city came in a cut down the entire grove of trees on the East side of SantaFe. Made it much less desirable to camp there. But, camps still get setup.

I spent 18 months living in San Fransisco. That's another place that let the homeless take over. My wife worked downtown there and got verbally abused by the homeless folks almost everyday to and from the BART. They even have open air toilets in the parks there, wide open. It's eff'ed up. I hope Denver doesn't go that far..

[fitterjohn]

They're not homeless, they're disenfranchised tenants .



Starting to get? The ACLU took ft fun to court over the freeloading deadbeats ability to loiter in 1 place for more than X amount of time. The city council has no spine, they'd rather push carbon credits than push the freeloaders out.

I thought they just threatened to, and the spineless city backed down without even going to court. It was nice when it was not legal to panhandle.

[colorider]

Search the web and look at some of the homeless camps in the Areas surrounding Vegas.

[Ronin13]

Denver's homeless problem is certainly getting much worse. Many areas are full of trash everyday. Some areas downtown are BAD. But Denver is fighting it and seems to be doing what they can to keep the homeless population from setting down deep roots.

I see the "clean-up" crew taking down homeless camps almost daily. In one spot on SantaFe (right by the I25 north flyover at Mississippi) they repeatedly took down homeless camps in some trees there on the East and West along the river. Each time I saw them doing cleanup they had at least a full size garabage truck and even a roll off once. I guess they got tired of it so the city came in a cut down the entire grove of trees on the East side of SantaFe. Made it much less desirable to camp there. But, camps still get setup.

I spent 18 months living in San Fransisco. That's another place that let the homeless take over. My wife worked downtown there and got verbally abused by the homeless folks almost everyday to and from the BART. They even have open air toilets in the parks there, wide open. It's eff'ed up. I hope Denver doesn't go that far..

The problem, and 9news for all their faults did a good job of investigating this, is that the shelters in Denver are awful. 9WantsToKnow interviewed 100 homeless and found that over 70 of them would rather sleep on the street than in the dirty, disease ridden, violent shelters. DPD and DFD have seen a massive increase in calls for service to the homeless shelters in recent months. Jeremy Jojola stayed the night in one and said the smell was near unbearable. I see this problem getting worse and Denver has no one to blame but themselves for the problem. They can "dismantle" homeless camps all they want, but until they come up with a more viable and permanent solution, it won't be fixed. The bigger issue is so many homeless are mentally ill and are not easy to have function in normal society.

[hurley842002]

Search the web and look at some of the homeless camps in the Areas surrounding Vegas.

Visiting family in CA this past summer, my father in law and I were driving on one of the freeways (can't remember which one) in LA, when I looked over and saw a small village of large tents, at first I thought it was a swap meet or something, when I asked him about it, he said it was a homeless camp, HOLY SHIT, that was one hell of a camp.

[Martinjmpr]

WRT the homeless, when my wife worked downtown she would remark every night that her journey up the 16th street mall every day reeked of "Pot and piss." I know one of the local news channels did some reporting on the violence and panhandling on the mall and I guess the DPD is or was going to try and crack down on it, or so they say.

Haven't really spent much time downtown in years. I know during big events the DPD pretty much clears the bums out in order to make the city look nicer but as soon as they're done, the homeless come back. I know if I was an owner of a business along the mall I'd be pretty unhappy with the city and probably looking to relocate to somewhere that is both more accessible (i.e. free parking) as well as less infested with panhandlers and druggies.

[Martinjmpr]

Having said that, I think the one saving grace Denver has over Portland is that it gets cold enough here that it drives the drifters to warmer climates. Portland gets rainy but it never really gets that cold, and so the homeless are more likely to become a permanent fixture there. Ditto for Seattle.

One thing I noticed in San Diego is that I didn't see a lot of homeless people infesting the parks and open spaces there. I'm assuming that is because the people of San Diego are less tolerant of it and their police "encourage" the homeless to move on to more "friendly" locations like LA.

[Ronin13]

Having said that, I think the one saving grace Denver has over Portland is that it gets cold enough here that it drives the drifters to warmer climates. Portland gets rainy but it never really gets that cold, and so the homeless are more likely to become a permanent fixture there. Ditto for Seattle.

One thing I noticed in San Diego is that I didn't see a lot of homeless people infesting the parks and open spaces there. I'm assuming that is because the people of San Diego are less tolerant of it and their police "encourage" the homeless to move on to more "friendly" locations like LA.

My wife remarked when she first moved here in 2011 or 2012, from Orlando, at how many homeless are around the Denver metro area. She said that Orlando didn't have that problem- and wonders if they made it so miserable for them to exist?

Your last sentence reminded me of the episode of South Park where Cartman plays the song: "California, is good to the homeless."

[Martinjmpr]

My wife remarked when she first moved here in 2011 or 2012, from Orlando, at how many homeless are around the Denver metro area. She said that Orlando didn't have that problem- and wonders if they made it so miserable for them to exist?

Alligators, I presume?

[BushMasterBoy]

Mosquitos!