Houseless Parents Fight for Emergency Shelter for their Children in Spite of City’s Refusal to Address Crisis
A handful of desperate parents, including a mother holding a not even month-old infant close, as they’re backed against the wall by 5 security guards and twenty armed police officers, just for attempting to talk to someone from the Denver Department of Housing & Stability (HOST). Here we give you the rundown of what a group of fearless parents facing the cold with their children experienced when attempting to advocate for their kids to stay off the streets. Stay til the end for ways to support HAND’s group FUND – Families United in Necessity & Dignity.
THE RUN DOWN:
On Tuesday afternoon, at the very end of a meeting with HOST, they informed us that the rumor was true – yes, they would be closing down the cold weather shelters (including family shelter) on Wednesday, in spite of the predicted weather conditions going right back to below the 25 degree threshold (at which cold weather shelter must open) the following day. Families had been reaching out to us scared about the coming closure and wanting to push the City to keep it open.
The following day, we gathered with these families and many others who have no where to go and went to City Hall to talk to City decision makers about their immediate need for shelter. Throughout the day, an initial group of 10 families stood together making their demands heard. These families included one with a 23-day old baby and mother whose recent C-section was leaking, a 4 month old baby, and around 30 children in total. Most of these families have no vehicle and no place to stay with family or friends and have been sleeping in parks, under bridges, in gas stations, the like. How has this come to be ok in the City of Denver$%^!
We went to the Mayor’s office first and were greeted by a locked door. We caught Councilman Hinds and Councilwoman Alvedrez in the hall and spoke with Hinds, and then spoke more at-length with their aides. These council aides heard the stories from these families and took it to heart, spending all day making emails and calls trying to advocate and find options for these families! (Thank you to these aides!) In spite of contacting 50 PLACES for shelter for these families for the night, and will all their authoritative power as City leaders, they found NO OPENINGS for immediate crisis family shelter. This minors the experience of these houseless families who make calls and emails every single day seeking shelter to no avail.
We then went to the Webb Building to try to meet with HOST, who we were told are responsible for making the call to open or close the Cold Weather Shelters. By this time, the kids were hungry, so we got pizza and a community member brought big pans of food for all to eat. We were forced to eat outside in spite of the building having tables in the main lobby, which are used for eating every day. When we headed up to HOST’s office, we ran into a HOST staff member who said she did not think anyone was still there – but we went up anyway in hopes to find a decision maker. The doors were locked and no HOST staff came out. Instead they sent out a City Attorney to talk with us. Eventually another City Attorney came out, they talked, and then the first one came back to us and said there as nothing they can do because the decision was made already by Cole Chandler (Czar of Homelessness Resolution in the Mayor’s office), and that he had said we had already communicated and our demands were too unreasonable.
To clarify, the communications we had with Cole were responding to his email to us asking us to call of the protest (which was not really a protest at all but families coming together to talk to City leaders), to which we made this clarification and laid out what would be needed for things to change course (as he asked in his email). The demands made by families were:
- to keep the Emergency Cold Weather shelter open tonight and as weather teeters at the threshold,
- to have outreach workers meet with families about shelter options before the cold weather shelter closes, and
- to schedule the meeting with the Mayor regarding family shelter which the Mayor has already promised us.
Some of the families begged this City Attorney again to hear their cry. The City Attorney responded by saying, “can’t you all go to a shelter tonight?” The fact that even after all this, the City Attorney did not understand that the whole reason these families were here was because there is NO SHELTER for houseless families is appalling!@$ The families all responded saying “NO! There is no shelter” and explaining more in their situations. After this the City Attorney got a heart… went back into her office to make some calls, and came back telling us that she had talked to police and they could issue hotel vouchers for these families for the night!! A huge win which all the families were so grateful for!!
Next, they sent at least 20 cops on top of the 5 security guards present to issue the vouchers$%& (inspite of us specifically asking for as little police presence as possible due to families’ and children’s trauma surrounding police enforcement). Eventually, all the families got transported to the hotel and our group, which had grown to 15, checked in for the night. A big relief!
Still, it is worth nothing that we attempted to connect with HOST, the department of housing, only to be told THE POLICE were the only ones in Denver with access to funding for emergency hotel shelter – this is concerning, to know that armed enforcers are the only ones with the most flexible authority to help when HOST and City Council/mayoral leadership can’t, and should be addressed.
That night happened to be our bi-mothly FUND meeting – Families United in Necessity & Dignity. These families, along with many others who are houseless in shelters, made plans for next steps together. They decided to go back to City hall the next day to ask again for shelter, saying “if they see all of us back there again, maybe they’ll take our needs seriously”.
The next day, Thursday, the families went to City Hall again and tried to find decision makers to speak to. Eventually Evan Dryer (Mayor’s chief of staff) and Cole Chandler, came out to speak with the families. Families shared their stories of sleeping on the streets, of being kicked out of family shelter by Salvation Army with less support than they’d entered with, and all they had done to try and seek shelter to no avail.
In response, Evan and Cole refused to open Cold Weather Shelter, even though they saw the temperature was below 25 that night – saying it had not been predicted to be that low before they made the decision to keep it closed and they could not activate now. Furthermore, they refused to extend the stay of the 15 families the City had paid for in the hotel last night, saying it had been outside of process and they could not break the process again. They said HAND could cover it – that the City could only do so much and we needed to rely on churches or community now. When we responded that we would be doing all we can to support the families we are connected with, but that there is no possible way we could connect with and provide shelter for all the over 200 families who were staying in the Cold Weather Shelter and are now out on the streets because they refuse to open it, there was no reply.
Evan and Cole did promise to connect the families we are working with with City outreach workers to pursue longer term shelter options. We gave them the list and will hold them to this. They also agreed to set the meeting with the Mayor and Families – and we will hold them to this, too. To date, no one has been contacted yet by City outreach workers.
After this meeting, in order to not send all the families we are supporting back to the streets, we started spreading the word that the City won’t help and we need help to keep these families off the streets on this Cold night. We were able to raise enough to keep all 15 in a hotel that second night and even extra funds, which we used to get one single mom with three kids’ car out of repo, providing them with at least a vehicle to stay in and a means of being able to restart work!!
The following night, the CIty did activate Cold Weather shelter – just for Friday night. On Saturday, when the temperature remained below threshold but the shelter closed, the community stepped up BIG TIME in spreading the call for support, and in less than a day we raised enough to keep 10 families in a hotel for one week each!!!! Thank you to all who supported and continue to do so!!!
But reality check – this is 10 out of 207 families that had been staying at the Cold Weather shelter, and over 400 families – 850 parents and their children – currently on the WAITLIST for emergency shelter. This crisis is bigger than community donations can continue to address!! This requires City action, who represent us as a community and use our tax dollars, to open shelter at the scale of the need for all these families! This is the City’s job. This is not about whether the community should support families in need – absolutely the community should support all they can! But creating shelter for over 400 families requires the resources and infrastructure of the City.
HOW YOU CAN SUPPORT::
- On Monday, these families are going to Denver City Council to speak on their desperate need. Please feel free to join and support them Monday at 5pm on the 3rd floor of the City and County Building.
- We have volunteers running a meal train to provide those staying at our HAND/community-paid for hotel with food desperately needed this week. Reach out to 701-484-2634 or info@housekeysactionnetwork.com to be connected and provide a meal!
- We continue to be contacted by more families on the streets hoping for hotel stay nearly every day. Any more support in adding these families to the 10 we are paying for this week would be greatly appreciated! You can donate via PayPal @HouseKeysAction or via Venmo at @V-R15 – please write “family shelter crisis” in the memo so we know how to allocate those funds.
When the government refuses to draw a moral line in the sand, WE must define that line and dictate it to those using our tax payer funding – NO. MORE. BABIES. ON. OUR. STREETS!
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