Denver, CO. Letter Delivered to Mayor, Hear the Voices of Houseless People

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Yesterday we delivered the letter to the Mayor from 30 orgs calling on the Mayor to end the street terrorization and spoke to City Council about what is happening. 

Here are a couple of the 5 pages of quotes from houseless people we interviewed in the last couple month that we read out yesterday. 

 “Its below freezing here. We have to worry about the fucking police rolling up and fucking with us. I mean we put up tents, we can’t put up tarps, its fucking cold here we live below the rockies, like do the science of it… They (police) tell us to move, I’ve been called a homeless piece of shit before, I’ve been called a homeless whore, all kids of shit. They are disrespectful and it is out of control. And then they wonder why we are so like hostile with them, and its like, we have nothing to lose… They’ll take people to jail for trying to stay warm… And then they throw our stuff away. This has happened many times. I walked off for a bit to try to get hand sanitizer (to burn to stay warm) and then I came back and all my stuff was gone, I seen the police, they have done it many times.
I just hope they see there is people behind us. I’m someone’s daughter, I’m someone’s sister, I’m someone’s niece, I’m a person and we are all people out here.” (Young woman who lives outside trying to stay warm)

“I was walking around last night… I went and ate my sack lunch at the library and I got tired so I decided to go to the grass outside the library to take a nap. And I got told that you are not allowed to sleep, you have to lean up against a tree or get up and go. So I went up across the street to the Capital park where the grass area wasn’t closed, and laid down to take a nap and a state trooper did the same thing, saying you have to be against a tree you have to be awake, or get on. There is nowhere to sleep. I’m exhausted.” (Man who walks the streets at night due to nowhere to sleep) 

“They came in and woke us and told us they were not going to offer us storage or they were just throwing it all away started grabbing everything and just chucking it, and I am sitting there screaming and begging them to stop let me get my important stuff and they didn’t care they were just sitting there laughing at us. One of the cops started laughing saying ‘oh look at her trying to get all her stuff’, she said, ‘all I see is a pile of garbage.’ They took my dogs food, she is pregnant, her kenal, her food and water dishes, her leash, all my clothes my tent my sleeping bag, literally everything I own. They grabbed my purse which had my ID, my debit card, my phone, everything in it. My medication. It was DPD. It was 2 degrees, according to the phone. Personally I never saw any notice. My dog is pregnant, I had no place to go, my dog’s feet froze to the ground last night, I had to pour hot water on her feet to break them loose because I had no place to take her cause they took my tent they took everything. I have been just walking. Nobody will let me stay with them, cause they are afraid that my dog is gonna have her babies in their house. I’d do anything to have them (the cops) spend a week in my shoes, just 7 days, live my life for 7 days. They couldn’t do it.” (Woman swept on Fox street in 2 degrees)

Hear the people cry to stop this inhumanity…!

Treat us like humans!