Denver Targets Homeless With Proposal To 'Ban Unauthorized Camping,' Critics Say

Homeless U.S. military veterans stand in line to receive free services at a "Stand Down" event hosted by the Department of Veterans Affairs on November 3, 2011 in Denver, Colorado. (AP)

A major American city wants to make it illegal to sleep on the streets.

Denver's City Council is considering an ordinance to "ban unauthorized camping" throughout the city, the Denver Post reports. The bill would make it illegal for hundreds of homeless people to sleep outside in tents or sleeping bags in the city.

The decision would come at a time when Denver has cut homeless aid, even as the number of homeless in Denver and around the country grows. Indeed, homelessness continued to rise in cities across the country in 2011, according to the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

Critics say that the bill would criminalize homelessness, the Denver Post reports. These homeless people may have nowhere to go as Denver's shelters are largely full, and many are set to close or have fewer beds by this summer, according to the Denver Post.

You can read the full article in the Denver Post here.

The bill could have consequences not only for the homeless, but also for Occupy protesters. City police evicted protesters from a tent city last October, closing the park indefinitely at the time. Some expect an Occupy comeback in New York and across the country this spring.

Denver isn't the only city with controversial policies towards its homeless population. The United Nations wrote in an August report that U.S. cities' provisions for homeless people violate international human rights standards. The right to safe drinking water and restrooms is part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and many homeless people in the U.S. cannot access restrooms or running water.

A Maryland county has ordered a tent city in Glen Burnie, Maryland, to relocate by April 4, according to The Capital. Sacramento officials shut down a tent city in their city in 2009, according to The Los Angeles Times.

Comments

[Melissa Irlandez]

11:06 AM on 04/02/2012

Next article will be Denver builds new prison for homeless people. If people can't sleep in public places they will camp out in foreclosed properties. But the homeless are not going anywhere.

[gerald4]

09:50 PM on 03/30/2012

The USA was a land of opportunity, until starting 20 years ago the US presidents and the US congress created the FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS that economically required that US businesses relocate their US jobs to foreign nations.

The USA needs to make the things that we consume, not sell title to privately owned in-country located farms, land, businesses, hotels, factories, breweries, etc and other assets to pay for the things that we import for consumption, and also to pay for our own government expenses, especially when we consume more wealth than we create.

Brazil, Russia, India, China, (BRIC) nations, plus Pakistan, South Korea, and the other industrialized manufacturing countries of the world have a positive net foreign trade balance because those nations are NET CREATORS of NATIONAL WEALTH (and the associated manufacturing jobs) for their own nations.

The de-industrialized USA (plus France and most other European PIIGS nations) with a negative net trade balance are NET CONSUMERS and/or destroyers of our own existing NATIONAL WEALTH and also DESTROYERS of our own associated manufacturing jobs, who live “high on the hog” by continuously borrowing wealth US Dollars back from the industrialized countries using title to US located farms, land, businesses, hotels, factories, breweries, etc. as collateral for the loans and also as payment for our freshly printed paper US Treasury Bonds.

[DSevere]

04:58 PM on 03/30/2012

We live 10 blocks from L.A.'s skid row so there are a lot of homeless people in our immediate neighborhood, and I think letting people have a permanent spot is better than making them cart everything around in shopping carts.

There are 3 guys who have a permanent encampment across the street from us and they keep their spot clean (including sweeping the sidewalk), pack everything away when they're gone during the day (they collect cans as a full time job, we give them all our recyclables) and don't bother anybody.

The guys with carts tend to wheel them in traffic, which is dangerous for them and oncoming drivers, tend to litter more because there's only so much room in the carts, so it has much more effect on the neighborhood. (One guy in particular is clearly mentally ill and often stops in the middle of traffic with his two carts, to scream at voices in his head...)

BTW I know the real solution is to find housing but that doesn't seem to be happening any time soon, so, this is just today's reality.

[lofttypeofaview]

08:05 PM on 03/30/2012

Thank you for helping them out by giving them your recyclables.

[cuoi]

06:43 PM on 04/02/2012

Slightly off topic- thanks to you for turning me on to "Republican Stockholm syndrome". An apt term. Now, off to researching a group by that name...

[cuoi]

06:46 PM on 04/02/2012

Here was my first stop... http://neoconcure.newsvine.com/
For those who may accuse me of "off topic", I say this is intimately inter-related to present topic.

[babybates]

03:42 PM on 03/30/2012

The Denver City Council is also considering having law enforcement drive the homeless person to a nearby bridge, where a chorus will yell "Jump!, Jump!".

What a grotesque country we've become.

[stargazer13]

02:39 PM on 03/30/2012

Dear Colorado

WTF are you doing to your people and For the love of G-d why ???

as privatization of every thing under the sun grew so did Our homeless

profits have blinded many to this cause and effect !!

[stargazer13]

02:31 PM on 03/30/2012

camping should never be confused with homelessness

I bet if they could
they would out law life giving air for the homeless !!

[smarteeeee]

01:33 PM on 03/30/2012

TO MY LIB FRIENDS IN DENVER:

The solution to this problem rests with you. Open your hearts. Open your homes. Open your yards.

Issue solved. Next problem . . .

[Sue She]

06:47 PM on 03/29/2012

So being homeless is now a crime? If they pass this act, then they have to responsibility to provide these people with other accomodations.

[cuoi]

06:48 PM on 04/02/2012

Immediate openings now available at private prisons, no reservations required.

[ECJIM 3ABTPA BONHA]

01:25 PM on 03/29/2012

This is pretty sad and pretty shocking. I think the whole Idea here is to eliminate the occupy movement with an additional plus of "herding" the homeless away because Denver's Pooh doesn't stink. I wonder if one day...as a nation....we will designate a island and dump all the poor on the island. Might be "extreme" but just an example of how stories like this make me think and should be Plastered all over the news. But dancing with the stares takes center stage.

[Achilles1963]

07:46 PM on 03/30/2012

The whole thing predates the occupy movement by far, there is no connection. Denver officials told the homeless they could camp on government property before the DNC as a ploy to trap them in the same place so they could be forcibly moved to a detention camp outside of town to hide them from the national news media. This is only the latest gambit by the mayor and the city council to criminalize homelessness.

[Achilles1963]

12:33 PM on 03/29/2012

It is really kind of a moot point. The police if they find a homeless encampment will always throw the persons tent and all their possessions into the nearest dumpster. The only difference is now they will also throw the person in jail.

[Achilles1963]

12:26 PM on 03/29/2012

A law like this would never survive a constitutional challenge in the supreme court, it clearly violates due process.

[OldTulsan]

03:50 PM on 03/29/2012

Who would take the case for the homeless, the ACLU?

[Achilles1963]

07:21 PM on 03/30/2012

May Be.

[lofttypeofaview]

10:55 AM on 03/30/2012

Most of the Supreme Court had recently been siding with the Republicans, so it will survive.

[stargazer13]

02:33 PM on 03/30/2012

Then Fire every one who votes for it,s passage !

for they have to be an alien life form not from this planet :)

[Ashok Hegde]

11:32 AM on 03/29/2012

Isn't "Family" supposed to be the cushion between individual and independent life, and utter homelessness and social disconnection? Where are the families? We expect "society" to make up for the casualties of a risk society (and risk economy), but that's unrealistic.

Why is family life so sparse, or undependable? Why can't cousin stay with other cousins? Or even deep friendships? Seems so easy to become socially disconnected. Have we fractured the family bonds? All the 'baby daddy' situations making words like "brother" or "cousin" irrelevant?

[thefreetradejoke]

01:28 PM on 03/29/2012

All good question, and also easy to answer. These family bonds you speak of are rare in American culture. We took the idea of rugged individualism and super sized it like greasy third pound cheeseburger. We believed our kids should be out of the house and on their own at 18 yrs 1 minute old and not come back. It's a tough world out there, kid.

That said, half of that theory has merit. The other half, which we're much more fond of, destroyed the values you're questioning long ago.

[Ashok Hegde]

06:36 PM on 03/29/2012

To rely on a more nameless State to make up for this is unrealistic.

[wordhorder]

03:56 PM on 03/29/2012

Most (I believe close to 2/3) homeless youth are kicked out of their family homes because they are LGBT. Family is sometimes the problem.

[OldTulsan]

11:11 AM on 03/29/2012

During the Great Depression, unemployed men could relocate by hopping a freight train, but the replacement of box cars by cars carrying containers has ended the practice.

[jay1975]

11:06 AM on 03/29/2012

There had better be enough beds at the shelters then if this law is to be passed. You cannot outlaw being homeless or poor without having some sort of alternative available.

[Killermolls44]

11:04 AM on 03/29/2012

Then offer them somewhere to go, open more homeless shelters and other such things. It'll be nice for them to get off the streets.

[Achilles1963]

12:20 PM on 03/29/2012

Many people would never consider going to a shelter because of the violence, drug abuse, and health issues. In many cases it is safer outdoors.

[stargazer13]

02:36 PM on 03/30/2012

and with all those empty homes just going to waste

I say Homes for every one

we bought and paid for in full any way with bail outs to banks !