In a pre-dawn operation along the South Platte River on Monday, Denver officials began uprooting a street camp where people live in tents, in parked cars and under tarps, telling them to move to another location.
Except most of the people there said they had nowhere else to live.
“This does nothing,” said Petar Frakes, 52, who had been camping at the site for about a week. “It just makes for a lot of headaches for a lot people. There’s no place for them to go.”
When Denver police, health department officials and other city workers arrived at the camp, waking residents and telling them it was time to move, several dozen activists met them to protest. In a brief clash, police fired pepper balls as they pushed back the protesters to establish a fence line. Four people were arrested for failing to obey a lawful order, said Jay Casillas, a Denver police spokesman.
The site has been a camp off-and-on for years and during the past year has grown into a place where — depending on who is providing the estimate — 100 to 300 people live. The encampment covers the perimeter of an entire city block, where people live in tents, under tarps and in parked cars. One patch of space even had old wooden pallets built into a makeshift picket fence.
The sweep and site clean-up is expected to last several days.
Danica Lee, director of public health investigations for Denver’s Department of Public Health and Environment, said the camp had been on the city’s radar for months as it grew larger. It’s nearness to the South Platte River was an environmental threat, too, and broken and abandoned RVs were starting to be a problem, she said.
Even though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends cities leave street camps alone during the pandemic, Lee said she and her staff had spoken with CDC experts who told them the recommendation doesn’t trump any other health or environmental concerns.
“In this case, for the people living there it’s not safe,” Lee said, citing a homicide at the camp earlier this month.
“Everybody deserves to have a roof over their heads,” she said. “There’s a lot of effort and work going toward solutions. The demand exceeds the resources we have right now. We are trying to use compassion.”
However, activists noted that the grassy parcel that is between Arkins Court, 29th Street, Delgany Street and Denargo Street is slated for rezoning to a mix-used development that would bring more apartments and businesses into the once industrial area in RiNo. A public hearing on the rezoning is scheduled for 3 p.m. Dec. 16.
“That’s the reason,” Terese Howard, of Homeless Out Loud, said about the sweep’s timing.
Lee said she did not know about the proposed development until she went to the site Monday morning.
And while Lee said city outreach workers had been contacting people at the camp for weeks about mental health help, addiction treatment, COVID testing and other services, Howard and some people living in the camp disputed those claims.
The one thing the people need is a place to live and housing was not being offered, Howard said.
John, a resident at the camp for eight weeks who did not want to give his last name out of embarrassment over being homeless, said he was not offered any resources. He and a friend managed to leave with a shopping cart of clothes and blankets, and their bicycles, before police put up the fence. A man, who had come to help people but did not give his name, loaded John’s belongings into the back of a pickup truck and agreed to drive John and his possessions to a church parking lot at 16th Avenue and Pearl Street, where a sanctioned camp is being established.
John knew the sweep was coming Monday morning but with no other place to go he decided to stay put until police arrived.
“We can’t keep doing this,” he said. “We’re living like everyone else. It’s hard on us. They don’t understand.”
