Local News - April 2020
Appeal Battle over Denver Camping Ban Begins
By Robert Davis
By declaring Denver’s urban camping ban unconstitutional, federal Judge Johnny Barajas ignited debate in cities throughout Colorado regarding how to best handle the state’s growing homeless population.
On March 6, attorneys for the City of Denver were back in court for the first procedural hearing of the city’s appeal against Judge Johnny Barajas’ December 2019 ruling that declared the urban camping ban unconstitutional.
The hearing was about whether a document can be entered into the record as evidence, but it is the first step toward the next round of fights over the camping ban.
Civil rights attorney Andy McNulty believes the City will rely on an argument the Denver County Court rejected in the original case. The City essentially argued they could finagle shelter for people living on the streets and that there is enough bed space to shelter everyone.
The County Court reasoned that the number of beds available is not equivalent to equal shelter access. Currently, several categories of individuals are barred from utilizing shelters, including fathers with children, people with disabilities, and youths.
But, the City’s appeal is troublesome for another reason, according to McNulty. The County Court’s ruling said the urban camping ban violates the 8th Amendment because it is cruel and unusual punishment.
“The fact that the city is fighting a ruling against the use of cruel and unusual punishments against its own residents is problematic,” McNulty told the Denver VOICE. ■
Survey: 54 Percent of Denver Homeowners Support “Missing Middle” Housing
By Robert Davis
A recent survey by Zillow found that 54 percent of Denver homeowners support the idea of selling their single-family homes to a developer who will build multifamily units on the land.
Known as “missing middle housing,” this approach to increasing density utilizes buildings like duplexes, fourplexes, and bungalow courts to support walkable and transit-oriented development. It’s considered the “middle” because the developments are between apartments and single-family homes, and are “missing” because these housing options have been typically illegal to build since the 1940s.
Denver is no exception, either. In 2010, the city actually down-zoned approximately 75 percent of properties because of the pushback against high-density development. Now, the few pockets of the city that allow for high-density zoning are targeted by developers, making the land and property built on it more expensive for their customers.
“Among many economists, there is growing consensus that adding more homes incrementally on existing lots could help curb a growing housing affordability crisis that stems in large part from a shortage of available units in areas that are popular but where it is difficult to add new supply,” the survey said.
Even though there is a plethora of research describing the economic benefits of increasing density, homeowners have had a tough time getting zoning and building proposals past neighborhood associations and approved by City Council.
The Denver VOICE reported on one contentious fight between a developer and the Hilltop Neighborhood Association in early 2019. Five homeowners in the Hilltop neighborhood agreed to sell their land to a developer who planned to build 23 affordable brownstone-style units. The average price of the units would be between $350,000 and $500,000, according to developer Jason Lewiston. Meanwhile, the median home value in Hilltop is more than $800,000.
Because of overwhelming voices on both sides of the issue, the development needed a supermajority vote to pass through City Council. The measure ended up failing by an 8-5 vote.
This fight became a springboard for District 5 Councilwoman Amanda Sawyer to beat incumbent Mary Beth Susman in the 2019 municipal elections. Susman wrote on her Facebook that she voted for the project because “it would have given my neighborhood more control on the scale and design of the project.”
Sawyer countered this argument in a letter she wrote to City Council, stating “We also want places in the neighborhood where older residents can move when they are ready to leave their larger homes, and there simply aren’t enough of them right now.”
While City Council prefers to keep multifamily developments out of some neighborhoods, it has approved several mixed-use housing options in Capitol Hill and Lincoln Park.
Most recently the city approved over $5 million in loans to support the La Tela and Olin Apartments project at 6th Ave. and Lincoln St. This building will bring 92 affordable units to an area with a high concentration of poverty.
Still, housing advocates would like to see the city do more to support affordable housing. On the other hand, some older homeowners would rather have their cake and eat it, too.
“My neighbors and I are not unsympathetic to those experiencing housing issues,” one Hutchinson Hills resident told the Denver VOICE in an interview. “We just don’t want to lose the neighborhood we love to a social engineering plan from Denver.” ■
Credit: Paula Bard
Housing Advocates Protest Meeting Between City and Federal Homelessness Agencies
By Robert Davis
In what many called an affront to the City of Denver’s progress on solving its homeless problem, housing advocates gathered at the steps of the Colorado State Capital on February 21 to protest a meeting between U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) Director Richard Marbut, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson, and stakeholders of Denver’s homeless services, including Britta Fisher, the head of Denver’s Department of Housing Stability.
The protest of more than 50 supporters took place the day after a campaign rally for Donald Trump in Colorado Springs, where the president spoke at length about how well the economy is doing and the country’s low unemployment rate.
“We are not a priority. We are pretty low on the food chain,” one supporter said at the rally. “The only way we get that to change is by being the squeaky wheel. We can’t wait for politicians to bring solutions.”
Advocates at Denver Homeless Out Loud initially organized the protest because it was believed the federal officials would be meeting with Mayor Michael Hancock. But the organization argued that service providers taking meetings with Marbut and Carson is just as bad.
“Marbut does not believe in Housing First but instead believes all homeless individuals have to be ‘fixed’ before they deserve housing,” the organization wrote on its website.
“Marbut offers the same basic advice to most cities: Cut the goodies and build shelter-like jail facilities. He believes food sharing, public sleeping, and other survival activities should be criminalized so as to push people into facilities where they have to behave.”
As a consultant to cities in Texas and Florida, Marbut pushed for policies that put an end to programs that feed homeless people because doing so is “ineffective”.
“There’s no accountability of the food, no services connected to the food at all,” Marbut told the Tamp Bay times in 2012. “No one has got out of homelessness just because they got fed. That has never happened.”
Now as the head of a department that works with 19 federal agencies to solve the nation’s homeless problem, Marbut advocates for what he calls a “velvet hammer strategy”— a model that utilizes police force to ban panhandling, centralize services for the homeless in warehouse-like buildings far from urban centers, and provide food and shelter only as a reward for good behavior, according to a report by CityLab.
Marbut’s velvet hammer strategy is similar to the approach Mayor Hancock has used to address Denver’s homeless problem since he was elected in 2011. In 2018, a report by University of Denver law students found Denver issued 475 percent more move-along orders than it did in 2015. These orders are designed to motivate homeless people to go to one of the city’s homeless shelters.
In early January 2020, city council representatives toured several of the city’s shelters, an experience that was “eye-opening” according to Lisa Calderon, Chief of Staff to District 9 City Council Representative Candi CdeBaca.
“We are literally warehousing people and calling it humane,” Calderon wrote on her Facebook page. “I think we need to stop enabling our dysfunctional shelters system. You’re having people — 200 and 500 people in a room sleeping side-by-side.”
Marbut and Hancock share similarities in the housing advocacy community’s dismay at their leadership. When Marbut was tapped as the USICH director in December 2019, 75 members of Congress sent President Trump a letter expressing their disapproval.
A similar thread of disapproval rang clear in a Denver Auditor’s Office report that found several areas where the Hancock Administration mismanaged the city’s affordable housing program.
In 2018, Denver voters voiced their disapproval with Hancock by casting 61.3 percent of their votes for other candidates in the municipal elections.
“They say we are going to be defeated because they have an answer,” one of the protestors said at the event. “They have an answer for immigration. It’s not correct, but they have an answer. They have an answer for poverty. It’s not correct, but it’s still an answer.” ■
Protester Comments
By Paula Bard
Jerry Burton
Former Marine, currently living in Veteran Housing
“We got to come together. The housed along with the unhoused, the poor along with the rich. We got to come together,
find a middle ground. If we can do better, why aren’t we
doing better?”
Benjamin Dunning
Member of Denver Homeless Outloud
“What’s the solution to homelessness?”
(Enthusiastically, the crowd shouts, “housing!”)
Loren Wallis
Former Social Worker from Texas
“This whole thing is un-American! We’re sleeping like animals.”
“A guy froze to death outside the other night. I think five young ladies jumped off buildings. How damned hopeless does it get? The big thing is, love each other. Stand together.”
Marcus
Lived on the streets in five different cities and three different states.
“We need love and support. I’m living proof that a person from the streets can get off the streets because of family. Let’s talk to people. Let people know that we are people. Let them know that there is something inside of what they see on the outside.
“If I were mayor, I would go to neighborhoods; I would introduce housed people to unhoused people by name. Go down to the local rec center and have chili and spaghetti and talk to one another. When Wellington Webb was mayor, he walked the city. He and his wife slept in 42 different homes, night after night. Just to build community.”
Dayvon Moss
Former college student
“I can’t go to school because I don’t have stable housing. I do know about speaking up for what is right. The fact of the matter is, people need stable housing.”