Posts tagged homeless
Remembering Raven
Remembering Raven

Rising street paper star found dead on street

By Laura Kelly

Last month homeless activist Raven Canon was found dead in Colorado Springs. Despite experiencing homelessness, Canon had just launched a brand new street paper, The Springs Echo.

On March 4 at 9:30 a.m., a homeless woman was found unresponsive on the streets of Colorado Springs, wrapped against the 29 degree cold in a blanket. Raven Canon was at least the ninth person to die on the city’s streets this winter, activists say. She was also a rising star in her community, an effective community organizer and activist, and the editor-in-chief of the world’s newest street paper, The Springs Echo. 

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Homeless NewsDV StaffRaven Canon, Colorado Springs, homeless, The Springs Echo, Springs Echo, INSP, street papers
Writing Through Hard Times
Writing Through Hard Times

The Hard Times Writing Workshop is a collaboration between Denver Public Library and Lighthouse Writers Workshop. The workshop is open to all members of the public—especially those experiencing homelessness. Each month, the Denver VOICE will publish a selection of the voices of Hard Times.

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Homeless News, Urban Quirks, Local News, Good News, VOICE NewsDenver VOICEDenver Public Library, Lighthouse Writers Workshop, Hard Times Writers Workshop, Hard Times, homeless, Denver VOICE
The Guided Evolution of Arapahoe Square
The Guided Evolution of Arapahoe Square

By Paul Karolyi

More than a million people are projected to move to the Denver metro area by 2040, according to the Denver Regional Council of Governments. For city officials, urban planners, and other stakeholders in Denver’s communities, the expected population boom presents a challenge: How can we uphold our values while managing growth?

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DV StaffChanging Denver, Denver, Arapahoe Square, homeless, gentrification, INSP, Paul Karolyi, Curtis Park, Denver Urban Renewal Authority, DURA
Dry Bones: A different look at life in Denver

By Sarah Harvey

We began just north of Union Station, in the shadow of Coors Field, and made our way southwest along Delgany Street; it was a small stretch of land near the railroad tracks that development had missed (for now). We walked past a warehouse, past dirt lots just waiting for the right buyer. We stopped for a few minutes near an empty lot, where Robbie and Matt, our tour guides, reminded us to think about the meanings behind things we saw. At one point during the walk, Robbie pointed to an orange bottle cap in the dirt, explaining that he knew the group that handed out orange juice with just that color bottle cap. That piece of plastic on the ground was litter—but it was more than that too. It marked a place where someone had received help.

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Denver VOICECherry Creek, Confluence Park, Dry Bones Church, Youth, city engineering, drugs, homeless, substance abuse
Tough Love

By Tom deMers


Home was the third floor of a house with a balcony out front. It was the top floor a few blocks from one of Denver’s busiest streets. It was secure. Three locked doors separated the apartment from the street below. But it wasn’t safe. Renee had keys to none of those doors. She was allowed out once a week when they went to Wal-Mart. She wore oversized sunglasses to hide the bruises and always walked behind him. He pointed to things, she put them in the cart. If the damage to her face wasn’t too bad, they stopped for lunch. He sat between her and the exit.

 

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Denver VOICETom deMers, Tough Love, abuse, homeless, isolation, redemption, rejection, terrorism, victim
Hate Crimes

By Margo Pierce

John Johnson needed 18 stitches in his head and his girlfriend was in fear for her life after an April 10 attack at a camp in Cincinnati where they lived. Johnson, 52, says he was sleeping under a highway overpass at about 3 A.M. when four men attacked him.

“I was awakened by four young men telling me to exit the property,” he says. “As I was complying with them, they started beating me with pipes and bats upside the head and up and down the left side of my body.”

Johnson’s attack is part of a bigger pattern of abuse that is becoming more apparent across the country. Homeless people all over North America are being set on fire, beaten, stabbed, shot, strangled, brutalized by police, harassed and raped. Many of these crimes go unreported, and the ones that do come to light might not necessarily be recorded as hate crimes.That means statistics for tracking the violence in order to find ways to address it are inadequate.

 

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DV StaffCriminalization, Hate Crime, Margo Pierce, NASNA, National Coalition to End Homelessness, homeless