Dear Safety, Housing, Education, and Homelessness Committee,
We are writing to you to ask for your no vote on the proposed contract renewal with the Salvation Army to run the Crossroads Shelter. Crossroads shelter residents have been telling us about deplorable conditions and operations by TSA for years. Our members who lived at Crossroads witnessed first hand and shared too many stories of inhumane treatment at Crossroads by TSA.
At Crossroads we worked with an elderly man who had recently undergone surgery on his foot and was using a walker who was kicked to the streets because the staff deemed him ‘unable to care for himself.’
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, laundry machines broken, permanent rodent and bed bug infestations, filthy and inaccessible bathrooms, drinking water jugs filled with a hose in the mop closet and more.
Here are a few quotes from Crossroads shelter residents about the shelter we have noted at meetings or on outreach –
‘At Crossroads shelter employees have committed sexual crimes against clients, been paid for sex, done dope with clients. I’ve got evidence of everything I’m telling. Some of the employees shouldn’t be there. They are biased and opinionated against clients for whatever reason and that makes clients get out of services for whatever reason.’
‘At the Crossroads shelter it’s definitely very unsanitary. I’d love to see how funds could be re-allocated and how other agencies plan on doing much better to keep it sanitary and also providing a need which needs to be met for the homeless population.’
‘Someone had cookies that were by their bed for 2-3 weeks & small ants arrived, they should’ve asked him to clean up instead of kicking him out.’
‘One time people got in a fight at 11pm & they kicked every out onto the streets & it was cold, I saw everything & it was very dishonest, it was 3 people against 1 person & they kicked all of them out but the 3 people came back after some days but I never saw that 1 person again, that was very unjust.’
‘They were without dryers & washers for 4 months after a fire when the lint built up in the dryer & they never cleaned it out, kept saying next week they’d bring them but they lied.’
‘There was one morning, when I woke up to a man who used a walker begging staff to help him get off a mat on the floor, so he could use the restroom. He begged for a couple of more minutes, then stopped when we heard a staff member say, “Just leave him, he reeks of whiskey, he’s just an old drunk”. Finally another person staying there helped him’
Data from outcomes at Crossroads shelter published in a Gazette article, shows very clearly that TSA is not prioritizing the work needed to connect shelter guests to any housing opportunities.
In 2023, 40% at Crossroad had been there for longer than 12 months, and 50% there for 6-12 months.
From Jan-Nov 2023 just 4 residents at Crossroads ended up in permanent housing.
In the same timeframe residents had only 57 case management appointments.
This goes totally counter to the City’s stated goal of housing focused sheltering.
The Crossroads building was bought by the City a few years back. For a long time there was talk of the City turning the building into housing (or using the site to build housing since the building is in such poor condition). What ever happened to these plans? This is the time for these plans to be reconsidered and to stop contracting with a known awful operator such as the TSA. Other providers could step in to operate the site in a more humane way as plans are solidified to transition this site into housing for shelter guests instead of keeping them living in these dangerous conditions for years on end.
Thank you for hearing the voice of shelter residents directly affected by the operations of the TSA. Please do not renew the contract with The Salvation Army.
Housekeys Action Network Denver
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