Today, Wednesday 9/18/19, police escalated enforcement of the camping ban at 24th and California with threats of arrests tomorrow saying Xcel Energy will have a permit to fence off the whole sidewalk and public strip where people sleep. Xcel has had this permit under public process for over 2 weeks and never did a police officer or the city point to that notice of permit application – there was plenty of time for the city to follow the lawsuit settlement and give people a week’s notice but instead they come in the day before and escalate camping ban enforcement with reference to a fence coming the next day.
Why all of a sudden Xcel needs to “landscape” or extend the wall the minute a group of homeless people start staying on that strip is certainly suspect. This is code for “fence out the homeless.”
Last week we held off the city from a sweep they had threaten that would have violated the 7 day notice requirement from the pending lawsuit settlement to be voted on by the Judge Monday 9/23/19. Now the city and Xcel together find a way to try and bypass this basic due process requirement.
Meanwhile…this very day council was meeting about funding for a couple hundred (if that) 0-30% AMI (actual low income) housing to be funded next year – to meet the need for about 10,000 homeless people plus countless more living rent burdened facing homelessness at the drop of a bucket.
People are on the streets now with no where to go, scared of what the city is doing to them.
This inhumanity must end.
Contact:
info@denverhomelessoutloud.org
720-940-5291
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