OUR Streets: Nizhoni

By Paula Bard

Credit: Paula Bard

This is how we live, basically, day by day.

“We stay outside. It’s cold. Sometimes we have enough to stay in a hotel. We don’t do shelters; people get sick. Basically, we take care of ourselves, we have sleeping bags and stuff, we have our own camp. 

You are limited in the places you can sleep. Security will wake you up and tell you to leave. You try to find a secure place, but then security will chase you off no matter how cold it is or if it is raining. 

People give us money, socks, gift cards, clothing. Police officers, doctors. I love Denver! You never go hungry in Denver. You’ve got the light rail, buses, I get a monthly bus pass. Best place to go is Father Woody’s down here. You get showers, clothes, pick up mail at St Francis. 

I am from New Mexico. When I first came here, I worked at a KFC. I worked on the counter, and sometimes I cooked. I am going to take myself to rehab, should be by Friday or maybe tomorrow.” ■

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Author’s Note: In the fall of 2015, just ahead of Colorado’s winter, Denver sent the full force of its police department and SWAT team to destroy five tiny homes that people “living without homes” had built north of downtown.

Something in me snapped: Denver is behaving like a bully!

Denver has more than 6,000 people without homes, and more than 3,000 trying to survive on its streets. It is an ugly business. In 2012, Denver passed an urban-camping ban making it illegal for the homeless to protect themselves with “any form of cover or protection from the elements other than clothing.” Violations can bring a $999 fine or a year in jail.

I began walking those streets where the homeless are trying to survive, photographing the faces and collecting the stories of those my city has abandoned. So began OUR Streets – stories of Denver’s unhoused residents.