Give Homeless People Land for Tiny Homes
- by: Althea Goodrich
- recipient: Denver, CO Mayor Michael Hancock
Denver has a homelessness problem, and it won't be solved by criminalizing homeless people. Instead of spending so much time and money on arresting those without homes, the city should provide housing as quickly as possible and then focus on providing services.
I know firsthand how well this Housing First approach works. My friend is a veteran with disabilities, and he was chronically homeless until the VA and the Denver Housing Authority gave him a voucher for an apartment in a "Housing First" building. Now that he has a roof over his head, he is able to get the care he needs. I have seen other people who could not get a job because their lives were too unstable on the street start to put there lives together once they got housing.
Across the country, cities like Salt Lake City and Portland are finding that Housing First works. In Eugene, OR, faith leaders and volunteers built a village of tiny houses out of donated materials so that the homeless could have a place to say the night.
Following the Eugene model, Denver Homeless Out Loud raised $6000 on a community funding campaign to buy materials to build its own tiny house village in Denver. On the evening of October 24th, however, police came to the village and destroyed houses in progress, even arresting 10 people for trespassing.
The Denver Housing Authority plans to build an apartment building on the "tiny house" lot in March 2016 with only 22 "affordable" units in it. But this doesn't do much for the over 6000 homeless people living in Denver. It gets cold in Colorado in the winter - it's already in the 40s at night, and will be below zero in January and February. Mayor Michael Hancock needs to take care of the homeless in his city.
Please sign this petition to demand that Mayor Hancock provide land for Denver Homeless Out Loud's Tiny Homes project. This war on the homeless needs to stop!
To Mayor Hancock,
There are people in Denver who work minimum wage jobs, those who are just starting out, those who have fallen on hard times and don't have families they can go to. There are people who are older or have mental health issues, and whose only income are social security checks. These people may not be able to afford Denver's skyrocketing rents, but they have a right to live in the city, too.
Since the legalization of marijuana over 200,000 people have moved to Denver - it's the fastest growing city in the US right now. All around, we see new apartment buildings going up with higher and higher rents. And yet the social security checks for a homeless mentally challenged adult is still just $802 per month. Even with a part-time job making $15 per hour, a regular person cannot afford a $1900 a month rent.
Denver Homeless Out Loud created a crowdfunding campaign and raised almost $6000 to buy materials to build tiny homes to show Denver that housing for the homeless can be created quickly and affordably.
The city's response was to send out police to destroy their efforts.
The city and county of Denver owns many acres of undeveloped land. Please donate some of this land for Denver Homeless Out Loud's Tiny Homes project. Ths war on the homeless needs to stop!
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