Reading the recent Denver Post editorial of July 11 lauding the resurgence of downtown Denver, I cringed, embarrassed on behalf of industry colleagues who are so clearly out of touch. If readers hadn’t yet known that the Post is no longer based downtown, this editorial made it crystal clear. For there is no way that any person who is regularly downtown could write a commentary praising the resurgence of downtown Denver while nearly wholly ignoring the prevalence of the unsheltered.
There’s no doubt that the city cleaned up ahead of the All Star Game and that the event was a huge success and boon to the local economy and street life. But to take that as the standard is naïve. Anyone who frequents downtown and Capitol Hill knows that during the All Star Game, when homeless camps were swept, they simply moved to Grant & 7th, Speer & Grant and other places. But someone who relies only on statistics provided by chambers of commerce and the municipality won’t know this. Anecdotal evidence may be limited, but one thing it passes is the eye test.
Last Friday, late afternoon, I drove past Civic Center Park. It reminded me of Zurich’s Platzspitz of the 1980s. I warn you before you google, the images you will see are utterly gruesome, depicting the lowest level of humanity. After some years of this “social experiment,” the city closed down the park and invested in a program of drug rehabilitation (which includes controversial heroin-assisted treatment), mental health services, housing and job placement. Homelessness is illegal.
I applaud Denver’s recent efforts to acquire motels to house homeless people — it’s an idea I’ve long advocated and I hope more of it is to come. To see success, these facilities must also have mental health professionals on site, as well as job counselors and addiction therapists. Just like the Swiss, we Denverites must acknowledge that it is unacceptable for people in our society to live this way. Lack of toilet facilities, lack of privacy, criminality, people high on drugs who resemble zombies and piles of garbage including human waste — it’s brutal. Far worse than it being bad for tourism and business, it’s inhumane.
The Post should use its voice to send this message, rather than propping up municipal propaganda.
Shana Goldberg may be reached at shana@ijn.com.
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