The Denver Gazette

Rejecting ‘squatter’s rights’ in Denver

THE GAZETTE EDITORIAL BOARD

Denver City Hall’s on-again, off-again efforts to contain the squalor of illegal transient camps are, theoretically, on again thanks to a court ruling this week. It’s welcome news. But will it lead to action?

As reported by The Gazette on Thursday, a federal appeals court overturned a U.S. District judge’s order a year ago that had required notice to wide-ranging parties, up to seven days in advance, before the city could move out campers and take down their tents. A three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that the plaintiffs, including the noisy activist group Denver Homeless Out Loud, lacked standing to sue given its prior agreement with the city.

It was a technicality. Not exactly a resounding victory for common sense, but we’ll take it.

What remains to be seen is whether the development will prompt City Hall to put new elbow grease into enforcing the city’s camping ban. After all, last year’s now-moot order by U.S. District Judge William Martinez was only one impediment to a much-needed crackdown on the camps.

The ban is of course overwhelmingly popular. A May 2019 ballot issue — backed by some of the same activists who had sued in federal court — sought the ban’s repeal. Voters said no by a walloping 82% to 18%.

And yet, the wretched encampments of addicts and other vagrants continue to proliferate around Denver. You see them pop up at major intersections along traffic arteries, where the campers can conveniently panhandle motorists. They sprout in parks near playgrounds, which in no time are overtaken by the disorderly behavior and human waste of the campers as well as the refuse of their drug paraphernalia. They harass passersby; they spread petty crime.

What gives? The problem seems to be that City Hall is at war with itself over the issue.

It’s not for lack of clarity from the rank-and-file residents whom the city is supposed to serve. The citizens have spoken, making it clear they are sick of the campers — who consistently and almost uniformly refuse shelter, rehab and other services.

Rather, it’s because the city is trying to please its residents — while clinging to some vague dogma that confers special rights on vagrants and insists on viewing them as “homeless” victims. They are of course homeless only in the strictest sense of the word; true, most of them have no permanent address and probably couldn’t afford one, but it’s not because of economic hardship. It’s because of the self-destructive lifestyle they have chosen.

The average Denverite understands that the campers are not to be confused with the real homeless; only City Hall refuses to acknowledge it.

So, even as City Hall halfheartedly shuts down an illegal camp of vagrants from time to time, it encourages the very same element by setting up publicly funded tent camps of its own. It also undercuts its own ability to enforce the camping ban by entering into agreements like the one it inked with Homeless Out Loud, which supplied fodder for the federal litigation in the first place.

Denver’s elected leaders must wake up and realign their priorities. They must place the community’s interests above those of vagrants passing through. They must ignore the threats and tantrums of activist groups that couldn’t care less about Denver’s quality of life.

A mere court ruling rolling back “squatter’s rights” won’t stop the squalor. It’ll take resolve.

EDITORIAL

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2022-05-06T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-05-06T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://daily.denvergazette.com/article/281874416988571

The Gazette, Colorado Springs