Denver, CO. The Salvation Army Needs to GO! Protest April 8th!

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The Salvation Army (TSA) currently runs the majority of Denver shelters. This month, one of their staff members, with a known record of aggravated kidnapping and sexual assault convictions, sexually assaulted a resident at the Doubletree (Aspen) hotel shelter. This is the LAST STRAW. We cannot sit back silently letting TSA run these shelters and allowing this horror to continue. 

There will be a protest of the Salvation Army where statements from TSA shelter residents will be shared:

• WHEN: Tuesday April 8th at 4pm
• WHERE: In front of their headquarters at 1370 Pennsylvania St, Denver, CO 80203

After this assault, the City Council is finally starting to question if TSA should be running our houseless services. Council voted down one of the smaller service contracts with TSA last week, denying them a $3 million dollar contract. Now, we need ALL these contracts to end when they come before Council again. 

The stories of incidents and horrible conditions at Salvation Army run shelters could go on and on. We hear them every day in the houseless community:

• Double homicides took place at the Doubletree (a.k.a. Aspen) not long after it opened. One body was not discovered for two weeks. The trauma of being right near these murders still affects residents. 

• Since then, the Doubletree started doing invasive security checks of every resident coming in, treating the place even more like a prison. Staff take items like cooking pans, laundry soap, or anything they can claim is a weapon or drugs. 

• In a survey of Doubletree and Best Western residents, staff was the number one reason named for not feeling safe at the shelters – followed by deaths. One resident of Doubletree summed up the feeling of no safety at the shelter well: “Helps people die out of the public eye! So the upper class won’t be disgusted to see a dead gutter in the drain”

• At the Doubletree, running water was out in the building for months, leading residents to have to go outside and use a shower trailer to shower. At Best Western, the laundry has also been out for months and no alternative washing on-site has been offered. The walls have black mold and some rooms have exposed asbestos. This has led to many residents seeking medical attention for new diagnoses related to mold and asbestos exposure. 

• Families at the Tamarac Family shelter have been kicked to the streets for nothing but the word of one staff member. Families are told they must work with a case manager on further housing options to stay past a set time, but often, families are completely unable to get in touch with a case manager and still get kicked to the streets.

• The Connection Center phone line where families are directed to call to get shelter rings non-stop with no answer. Families have shown call logs of upwards of nearly 500 calls in a day – including days of harsh weather conditions, like downpour and even snow. Many of these families have been calling for months, as far back as November of last year, however they were recently told they only appeared on the waiting list since this March. Now, it seems that the Connection Center is attempting to try a lottery strategy that still leaves many children and their families banking on luck-of-the-draw.

• Complaints about the food are consistent, with 67% of respondents in a survey saying the food was not up to their standards or nutritious.

• At Crossroads, a congregate shelter they run, guests are kicked to the streets if the staff deem them ‘unable to care for themselves.’ This includes one elderly man who had recently undergone surgery on his foot and was using a walker whom we met on the streets outside the shelter after he had been denied shelter.

• Complaints of Crossroads staff involving extreme harassment of guests is rampant – from racism to ableism. 

• There was a Crossroads Shelter staff member who was having sex with a shelter resident and then refused him entry when she was no longer interested in continuing the relationship. Her coworkers, which included a family member of hers, upheld that decision. When HAND got involved in advocating for him, TSA leadership quickly moved him to a different Salvation Army-managed microcommunity to keep him from going public. 

• Crossroads facilities are in grave condition with frequent complaints from guests of water being out, permanent rodent and bed bug infestations, filthy and inaccessible bathrooms, drinking water jugs filled with a hose in the mop closet and more. 

• Discrimination against and mistreatment of queer people seeking shelter is rampant at their shelters. Records of staff-completed trainings that we have seen show that their staff get NO training on how to treat LGBTQIA people in their shelters. 

These nightmarish stories go on and on… Enough is Enough! It is time to get the Salvation Army out of the shelter and services business. They should not be profiting off the suffering of poor and houseless people any more. Join us April 8th to protest this inhumanity. We CANNOT stand for another murder or sexual assault at the hands of Salvation Army.

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