Today, Wednesday June 17th 2020, hundreds of people showed up to stand against the sweep and demand housing not police. The sweep was scheduled for today along 22nd, Stout, Champa, and Curtis. About 250 houseless people live in tents in this area.
The city started the sweep as usual today with police going along the camp telling people to pack and move, the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure starting to collect trash and property, and the Department of Public Health and Environment directing the show. But as many houseless residents of the area made it clear they were not moving as they have nowhere to go, and housed community members stood up against the sweep chanting “housing not sweeps” and “Move Along to Where?,” the city backed off and drove off as the community marched them off the block.
The message has been made loud and clear: The People, housed and unhoused, are not going to stand for continuing to push homelessness under the rug and treat people like trash.
While we chased the city off today, they are very likely gonna come back tomorrow. We won the battle but we the war is still on…. If you believe that everyone deserves the right to survive, that no one should be criminalized for not being able to afford a house, that we should be funding housing not police… come down tomorrow morning around 8am or before to stand in solidarity with residents of these encampments.
DDPHE is trying to tell residents of these encampments to go to shelters from these sweeps. They are doing this the day after someone was stabbed to death at the National Western Men’s Shelter. Can they really tell people staying on the streets to go to a shelter where someone just got murdered? Similarly, can they really tell people to go to the shelters where hundreds of people have tested positive with COVID while 0 people tested positive in the recent tests at the encampment.
We have had enough. No more sweeps to nowhere… HOUSING NOT SWEEPS. STAND UP FOR YOUR COMMUNITY. YOU COULD LOSE YOUR HOUSING ANYDAY…Where would you go??
Here is one of the many videos
https://www.facebook.com/DenverHomelessOutLoud/videos
https://www.facebook.com/DenverHomelessOutLoud/videos/2
Contact:
info@denverhomelessoutloud.org
720-940-5291
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