.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-stacked .elementor-drop-cap{background-color:#69727d;color:#fff}.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-framed .elementor-drop-cap{color:#69727d;border:3px solid;background-color:transparent}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap{margin-top:8px}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap-letter{width:1em;height:1em}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap{float:left;text-align:center;line-height:1;font-size:50px}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap-letter{display:inline-block}
Samantha Kelly was teaching a private class at her Pilates studio in downtown Colorado Springs one morning last April when she noticed a man with a blanket draped over his head staring in through her front windows. One Body Fitness Studio sits in an alley just off Tejon Street, and Kelly, a self-described “bleeding heart,” prides herself on knowing the names and faces of the unhoused who pass by throughout the day. She regularly offers food, water, clothing, and information on support services to those who need it. But she didn’t recognize the man beneath the blanket that morning. Then, after a few minutes, she noticed that he was masturbating.
“When I stood up, I saw that what he was doing and I was, I just… I was screaming, I was yelling. And then that just made him more excited about what he was doing. And then I felt completely helpless and alone and scared. And I have the responsibilities of business owner, inviting vulnerable people into this space, to protect them.”
Kelly was one among more than 50 business owners at a recent meeting seeking feedback on a draft of Mayor Yemi Mobolade’s forthcoming Homelessness Strategic Plan. The six-part plan aims to: “Increase street outreach and availability of need-based shelter options; Enforce and protect people, property and the environment; Expand employment opportunities, such as the WorkCOS program, which provides jobs; Prioritize prevention of homelessness through mental health care; Increase the number of housing units for very low-income residents and housing that provides supportive services for people exiting homelessness; and Provide transparent, proactive and accessible communications to the public.”
The wide-ranging plan addresses problems across the whole spectrum of homelessness — from individuals and families in shelters experiencing temporary homelessness to the chronically unhoused. According to the most recent count, roughly 1,300 people per year in Colorado Springs experience some form of homelessness. Approximately two-thirds of those on that continuum, most of whom go unseen, are actively using public and private services to address their housing issues, says Catherine Duarte, HUD Programs Manager for Colorado Springs. The other third, she says, struggles with chronic homelessness, which often goes hand-in-hand with mental health and drug addiction issues. And those 450 to 500 individuals who fall under the chronically homeless category are often much more visible in the heavily trafficked retail areas where their needs frequently conflict with those of business owners.
After listening to the presentation by city administrators, many in attendance expressed feelings of burnout, frustration, and skepticism about the city’s management of the chronically homeless. Public defecation, urination, drug use, dirty needles, sleeping in doorways, theft, harassment, sex offenses like what Samantha Kelly experienced, and violent crimes were among the more egregious offenses cited.
.elementor-widget-image{text-align:center}.elementor-widget-image a{display:inline-block}.elementor-widget-image a img[src$=”.svg”]{width:48px}.elementor-widget-image img{vertical-align:middle;display:inline-block}
Teona Shainidze-Krebs, the Pikes Peak Library District’s chief librarian and chief executive officer, spoke up at the meeting to say that harassment at the Penrose Library downtown has gotten so bad that she’s having trouble retaining employees.
“We cannot hire people to keep our doors open. So, at this point, as a library district, we feel like there is no support … When it comes to the downtown area, we take certain matters in our hands because our responsibility is to make sure [of] the safety of our employees and our patrons. It is really hard for me to get calls from my security officers that one of my employees was assaulted, or like one of my security officers had to go to the ER because his ribs were shattered.”
Samantha Kelly knows that the individuals causing the most acute problems are the exceptions. And she’s in full support of the mayor’s strategic plan.
“The plan to help our community is exceptional. I was moved by everything that they’re doing,” she said after the meeting. However, she noted, “I’m losing business.”
Sergeant Olav Chaney, head of the Colorado Springs Police Department’s Homeless Outreach Team, or HOT Team, says that the majority of the worst offenders are wrestling with some form of drug addiction, and that existing laws make it difficult to get anyone off the streets for long, even if it’s to get them help.
“It’s a continual problem. I mean, we’ll get out there and we’ll cite, and we’ll take people to jail on warrants, and we’ll get areas cleaned up, and then the minute we’re gone and going to somewhere else in the city, many times people come right back.”
Chaney oversees a team of six HOT Team officers charged with covering more than 200 square miles of the city. He says there’s simply no way to keep up with all the enforcement needs.
The Downtown Partnership — a 501c4 not-for-profit organization that advocates for the city center’s cultural and economic vitality — hired Mercurial Security Services to increase safety and enforcement, and other business have resorted to hiring their own private security. But not all businesses can afford it, and security is often needed most during early-morning or late-evening hours when officers and security guards are off duty.
Susan Edmondson, president and CEO of the Downtown Partnership, has been working with the city and the numerous charitable organizations that provide homeless services to help find solutions to these complex problems for the past 10 years. She’s also encouraged by the mayor’s strategic plan to address homelessness, but sees firsthand the way these problems land on the doorsteps of downtown business.
“What do we do about severe mental health conditions and severe addictions when folks aren’t readily in a place for treatment? And what is our responsibility, collective responsibility as a community, when those things happen?” Edmonson asked.
Colorado Springs doesn’t have so much as a detox center. And what limited addiction and mental health services there are, when they aren’t provided by emergency responders, get handled by a variety of non-profits, most of which lack the resources to provide long-term recovery and housing services, which can take years and resources beyond what the city has. Businesses end up bearing the brunt of those missing services. And it’s not that they don’t care, said Edmondson, but that they aren’t equipped to provide those specialized services that so many of the chronically unhoused need.
“No one at that meeting said anything about not having compassion about the condition of being unhoused, but that their businesses are being impacted more by a small but visible portion of the population that really needs deep help in addition to the housing. They need help with mental health conditions and help with addictions.”
Between general operating funds and grants, the city distributes about $2.8 million per year to the various agencies, shelters, and providers that serve the homeless, said Catherine Duarte. The city is also in the process of trying to calculate the cost per unhoused person per year, including unbudgeted expenses like emergency services (current estimates range between $30,000-$60,000 per person). But without more resources, large portions of the mayor’s strategic plan will likely go without funding.
Most people who work directly with the homeless agree that, along with housing, mental health and addiction services are desperately needed along with enforcement.
“I think we need to figure out the mental health piece,” said Sergeant Chaney of the HOT Team. “Lawmakers, they need to come up with something with the mental health piece. And it breaks my heart when we give somebody a ticket, but we can’t get them the help they probably need.”
Until the funding realities match the public desire to address the most acute aspects of homelessness, the far-more visible, chronically unhoused community will likely continue to land on the doorsteps of local businesses.
“It’s really hard, and I understand, but that’s what we deal with daily in this downtown area,” said Shainidze-Krebs of the Pikes Peak Library District at the end of the recent meeting with downtown businesses. “And what we need, we need support from the Colorado Springs city administration that when we make calls, that it’s taken seriously.”
She praised the mayor’s plan and all the work the city administrators and their partners put into it, then added, “But at this point, it’s hard for us. It’s hard for me to make an eye contact with my staff members every day when they see them in the morning with bags of feces and dirty clothes and then tell me, I want to work for a library, but I cannot work at Penrose Library. That’s a serious issue that we literally face that every day.”
Samantha Kelly says that she’ll keep doing whatever she can for the people who stop by her studio downtown for as long as she can afford it.
“This is my community. And it’s been my community for 20 years. I will be so sad if I have to leave. But I will.”
The post Compassion Fatigue: Business owners voice frustration as mayor unveils new homelessness plan appeared first on Colorado Springs Independent.