Advocates: Cuts will cost lives of homeless
By David Montero, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
Published December 17, 2008 at 1:22 p.m.
Updated December 17, 2008 at 11:57 p.m.
Photo by Preston Gannaway / The Rocky
Robb King coordinates moving homeless men from the Denver Rescue Mission to an emergency shelter Wednesday.
Rising unemployment and home foreclosures are putting a strain on homeless services, and advocates fear cuts at the state and local levels will put people at "great risk of significant deaths on the streets," officials said Wednesday.
John Parvensky, president of the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, said 2008 has seen more than 140 people die on the streets of Denver - a 30 percent increase in homeless street deaths from 2007.
The coalition will hold a candlelight vigil tonight for those who died this year.
"Colorado stands at a crossroads," Parvensky said. "The safety net in our state and our nation is seriously frayed and stretching to the breaking point."
Standing inside the Stout Street Clinic, where the coalition handles patient visits for the homeless, a line already was forming outside as Parvensky and other advocates pleaded for government, individuals and corporations to increase giving.
The plea comes at a time when people are facing dire financial predictions and with state joblessness closing in on 6 percent.
Parvensky said he is worried about the state's budget crunch and the projected $100 million shortfall, and noted that Colorado spends only $2 million of its general fund on affordable housing development.
He's worried, too, about the $1.4 million in proposed cuts by Denver's Department of Human Services.
Parvensky asked Gov. Bill Ritter to consider the at-risk population in his budget priorities.
Evan Dryer, Ritter's spokesman, said the governor is concerned about the homeless population.
"We're mindful of the need to maintain vital safety-net services for the growing numbers of people seeking assistance," Dryer said. "Working with the legislature, we will be surgical in how we continue to tighten our belt, and the depth of the cuts will always depend on the breadth of the shortfall."
Jamie Van Leeuwen, project manager of Denver's Road Home effort to end homelessness, said the organization has extended existing services through March, but acknowledged tough times are ahead.
"We anticipate there will be cuts to homeless services and we know the economic impacts to both the city and the homeless providers," he said. "There has never been a more important time for us to work as collaboratively as possible."
In his own words
Since he took a buyout with a major telecommunications company in 2001, 53-year-old Ralph Murray has ranged from being on the cusp of homelessness to being homeless during the past seven years.
The past four months have been the toughest.
He describes how he finds a place to sleep at night.
"Now I'm staying wherever I can stay at. Like last night, I stayed the night in the hospital. What I did was, well, I ran into a guy - we had both been trying to get into a shelter - so we couldn't get in.
"So we went to the hospital and he checked himself in as a patient. So I waited out in the waiting room and stayed there until morning until he got out of there in the morning. Each day, I start thinking about where I might stay. For tonight, I might try the same thing. A different hospital, though."
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December 17, 2008
2:30 p.m.
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HopiMedicineMan writes:
Businesses are closing. People are losing health insurance. The IRS is aggressively pursuing every cent it can, using tactics Stalin wished he’d had such as “imputed income” and “retroactivity.” People are losing their homes. We’re setting loss records as never before. The economy has de-industrialized. There’s no net income. The confiscation crowd has always defined the wealth they would plunder as static, something in a strong box, not stocks. America is flat broke. There’s nothing left to plunder but uncomfortable designer furniture in Greenwood Village. These billions in Washington aren’t real dollars, but a loan that cannot be repaid. That answers why the banks are holding on to the money, not lending it. The population divided into all federal debt and future legal mandates such as Medicare, your fair share is $300,000, the average family, living on Border Street, $1.2-million. The Saudis are quietly buying US oil properties at a discount by buying depressed shares. Where will the inner city gangs strike? Where will they look for food, trade goods and weapons? Thank the environmentalists. And thank George Bush, weakest coward of a man to ever stride the carpet of the Oval Office. Barack Obama gets it and that’s why he’ll be dispatching the military in our neighborhoods. Why else would he announce such a thing? His media never asked the question.