Turns out, killing homeless folks is gross.

Hate to say we told you so, but public opinion is turning against Keep Colorado Springs Beautiful, the nonprofit who employs “bush-beaters” (homeless people serving community service sentences) in order to find and destroy camps occupied by the local homeless.

Our argument, as voiced in the February ‘08 issue, was that KCSB’s periodic raids on the camps, in which they seize clothing, bedding, personal items and medication, was plain wrong. People have lost their medication, leading to continuing mental and physical health issues. People have lost their sleeping bags, leading to frostbite—and toes being amputated. People have died from exposure.

KCSB has taken the tack that, once homeless people lose their camping gear, they’ll start using facilities. They will, according to Bob Holmes, be forced into using the homeless ID card system he’s advocated for. Holmes is, you may remember, the ED of Homeward Pikes Peak and the guy who bandies about the term “arrogant homeless.” He’s said many times that Homeward’s mission is to eradicate homelessness—which you can read as eradicating the homeless.

Our Homelessness Issue was, I think, the most important thing we’ve done, and it opened our eyes to how screwy that world is. Dee Cunningham, the ED of Keep Colorado Springs Beautiful, ignored repeated requests for a comment, and Beth Kosely of the Downtown Partnership surprised us by saying that the DP supported them in all their efforts, even during a winter that saw a record number of frostbite amputations and deaths. One of our contacts, a longtime veteran of Colorado Springs’ homeless culture, sketched out in detail the amazing idiosyncrasies of those agencies involved with outreach. It’s really a weird, convoluted and occasionally insane world.

So. The point of all of this is that Gazette columnist Barry Noreen wrote a piece unflattering to KCSB yesterday, taking very much the humanitarian stance we did:

It’s strange but true that the same necessities provided by nonprofit agencies are sometimes carted off to a landfill by another nonprofit. Catholic Charities giveth, and Keep Colorado Springs Beautiful taketh away.

On Saturday, Joe Richard, manager of client services for Catholic Charities, was monitoring the sweep to “help people preserve their documents and backpacks and things.”

Richard and Robert Moran, founder of The Street Church, have heard many stories from street people about how Keep Colorado Springs Beautiful has trashed valuables over the years, especially in the fall, just before the cold weather arrives.

Among Catholic Charities’ programs is one that helps transients acquire their birth certificates and Colorado identification cards, which enable them to get jobs.

“It’s the old ‘teach-them-to-fish’ thing,” Richard said.

He explained that Catholic Charities spends about $400 a month on documents, and it can be frustrating if that kind of thing is lost in the sweeps.

Dee Cunningham, executive director of Keep Colorado Springs Beautiful, acknowledged that anything belonging to transients is fair game in the sweeps. She wrote in an e-mail that “KCSB removes tons of rotting food, human waste, drugs, weapons and debris from our natural areas every year. This work may or may not include removing abandoned property.”

We applaud the ‘Zette and Noreen for reporting on this, because what has been going on amounts to a cynical and systematic war—not on homelessness, but on the homeless, seeking to drive them out at any cost. That cost, the past few years have shown, is often human life. To explain away the deaths of fellow citizens as “arrogant” or “uncooperative” is a special kind of genocide, and it’s too long been applauded and allowed. Good on Noreen, and let’s hope we as a city can be a little less heartless this winter.

(I’m ashamed to admit that I had to be tipped on this. Thank Noel for the heads-up.)

Posted by: Aaron Retka in Homelessness in COS | Permalink