[FoxNews] Denver's homeless problem is so bad that one resident resorted to dumping human excrement left by his office on the steps of City Hall to convey his frustration.
Mike Johnston, the Democratic mayor of Denver, may be on the other side of the aisle, but he understood where libertarian think tank owner Jon Caldara was coming from with his viral stunt.
"I've known Jon Caldara for a long time, so we've had more than our handful of discussions, but I think he and I share the same goal, which is what we want is be able to get people housed and be able to get back clean, safe public spaces that everyone can access," Johnston told Fox News Digital. "We know one of the reasons that happens is when folks are living out in tents and encampments, they don't have access to public bathrooms. They don't have access to trash pick-up. And so often they have no place else to drop trash and no place else to go to the bathroom, and so that's one of the reasons why we know it's not the right solution. It's inhumane, it's not good for the city."
While a Democrat, Johnston calls himself a nonpartisan mayor for Denver. The deep-blue city — President Biden took nearly 80% of the vote there in 2020 — is one of many throughout the country struggling with skyrocketing living costs and accompanying homelessness.
According to the Annual Homelessness Assessment Report released late last year, Denver had the 10th-largest homeless population among American cities in 2022 at nearly 7,000, and was fourth-worst among cities outside California. Johnston said he hears constantly from city businesses that have lost foot traffic and revenues, and even had to close down, because their downtown locations were beset by the various consequences of homeless people. To illustrate, Caldara shared photos of used needles, human waste and broken glass around his think tank office.
Johnston, who took office in July, immediately declared homelessness a public emergency and released a $50 million plan to get 1,000 people into transitional or semi-permanent housing by year's end, according to CBS Denver. He then hopes to keep homeless encampments that have marred city streets closed for good.
"We now have one of the highest commercial vacancy rates of any city in America," Johnston said. "We're tied with San Francisco, which also has a very significant homeless population. So we know this is one of the major drivers that changes how people feel about their downtown. It affects visitors, affects tourists, affects who wants to work downtown, affects who wants to keep their businesses downtown."
Johnston said the city has seen a 300% increase in homelessness in just the past five years, accompanied by more deaths of residents on the streets, and called it the top issue for voters and for his administration.
"We view that as a crisis on all fronts," he said. "That also means more encampments. It means more businesses who have people living or sleeping in front of their business, or in front of their home, or in their public parks."
Johnston acknowledged drug use, particularly from the fentanyl epidemic gripping the country, and mental health issues were contributing factors to homelessness, but said primarily the issue was the high cost of living in Denver.
"We believe you stabilize people in the same way that they got destabilized," he said. "We first got them back into housing. We provide wraparound services on mental health, addiction treatment, workforce training and these are meant to be transitional units. So what we're doing is bringing on hotels we've converted into micro units. We have open half-acre, acre vacant lots where we put up tiny home villages… The goal is these are transitional spots where people will come three, six months, get their lives back together, get a job, get some savings, be able to move into their own place, so they can pay rent and get back up on their feet.
"If we can get all those folks that are currently unsheltered into housing and can close those encampments and keep them closed and reactivate the city, we will have done what most other cities have struggled to do, which is actually to get people into housing and to get back vibrant, joyful, safe downtowns and no longer have encampments in them," Johnston added.
He hopes Denver can be a model for the rest of the country in that regard.
Reached for comment on Johnston's approach, Caldara scoffed.
"Another ‘housing first’ plan throwing $ at the homeless," he wrote in a text message, suggesting instead, "Enforce the camping ban. Arrest people. Clean up streets."
Caldara shared a column he wrote about how Denver should look to Colorado Springs, the second-largest city in the state after the capital, as a model on how to deal with the issue. He derided Johnston's approach as "adorable" and said the housing units were effectively a safe place for the homeless "to lay down their heads at the end of a responsibility-free day of criminal activity."
Colorado Springs, Caldara said, enforces its laws against drug use, theft, assault and public defecation in a way Denver fails to do.
"People should be able to walk around and go to work without stepping over bottles, puddles of urine and vomit. And human feces," he told Fox News Digital last month.
#2
It has really gotten bad. My sister lives near there and you can't go anywhere without stepping around a tent or being accosted by a homeless person begging or one wandering the street swearing at some imaginary thing. I don't even go down there now and downtown is pretty much dead because of it.
Well, you voted for it assholes. Now you get it... good and hard.
#4
How about using those "Holiday" camps the Gray and Dark-Net are discussing? The "Holiday" camps that the Fed's are claimed to be building around the nation?
#8
There is a difference between spouting a plan and making a difference. I suspect that Denver residents will continue to have a use for their snow shovels on a year round basis.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
10/13/2023 12:57 Comments ||
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#9
Houston has a modified version of 'housing first' that I think Denver seems to be copying.
Houston's plan really should be called 'supervision in housing first'.
Posted by: lord garth ||
10/13/2023 16:34 Comments ||
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#10
Someone quoted Zephaniah 2:4 online so I looked it up.
4 Gaza will be abandoned
and Ashkelon left in ruins.
At midday Ashdod will be emptied
and Ekron uprooted.
5 Woe to you who live by the sea,
you Kerethite people;
the word of the Lord is against you,
Canaan, land of the Philistines.
He says, “I will destroy you,
and none will be left.”
6 The land by the sea will become pastures
having wells for shepherds
and pens for flocks.
7 That land will belong
to the remnant of the people of Judah;
there they will find pasture.
In the evening they will lie down
in the houses of Ashkelon.
The Lord their God will care for them;
he will restore their fortunes.[a]
Posted by: Super Hose ||
10/13/2023 16:58 Comments ||
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#11
I never go down the hill into Denver anymore. The downtown area used to be a fun place with Coors Field and Mile High Stadium, along with several theaters. It used to be a fun place to go for lunch and a little shopping or meeting a friend. I don't feel safe going to these places anymore, walking the streets even during the day is risky.
The crime has been seeping into the suburbs and even up into the mountains. Seeing graffiti and road rage happening more and more is very sad. Even our mountain trails aren't safe to hike anymore, you read of crazies attacking you or exposing themselves to you.
I love Colorado but it's getting sucked into the woke garbage as well. I'm surrounded by Socialist Democrats who moved here that brought their voting record with them for all the idiotic crap too. I'm screwed, I'm too old to move and that's even if I could afford it these days. At least I feel safe up in the mountains away from these nuts and with a little space around me. At least in my area are long time Republican leaning neighbors. But it sure isn't very comforting being outnumbered by these kooks. Sorry for the rant
Posted by: Jan ||
10/13/2023 20:13 Comments ||
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#12
Perspective from a local is always useful, Jan.
[Breitbart] Democrat reliably Democrat Chicago, aka The Windy City or Mobtown ...home of Al Capone, the Chicago Black Sox, a succession of Daleys, Barak Obama, and Rahm Emmanuel... Mayor Brandon Johnson ...Hizzonner da Mare of Chicago. He was elected in April 2023 to replace the disastrous Lori Lightfoot and immediately set about out-Richtering her. A member of the Democratic Party (naturally), Johnson previously worked as a social studies teacher in the city's public schools system. He became an organizer with the Chicago Teachers Union in 2011, and helped organize the 2012 teachers strike. Prior to becoming Hizzonner, he served on the Cook County Board of Boodlng Commissioners from 2018 to 2023... delivered a bizarre rant shoehorning slavery and racism against black people into the discussion of the criticism he is facing from black Chicagoans for opening a growing list of shelters for illegals in their neighborhoods and for redirecting funds and services from black communities to serve the border crossers there. They never get tired of that stuff, do they? Makes it easier to understand why Africa's such a mess; they don't have anything to talk about.
From the podium on Friday, Johnson attempted to misdirect criticism he faces from black Chicagoans for his efforts to house, feed, clothe, and give medical care for free to thousands of illegal aliens by trying to characterize critics as racists who don’t "love" black people. I'm a sinner. I don't "love" black people. Not fond of Esquimeaux as a group either.
"I’m doing my part to continue to make sure that Chicagoans who have been in this city, who have needed support, and particularly our black families. I know there has been a tremendous burden, particularly on black Chicago," he said adamantly. He's mare of Chi, but particularly black Chi, y'see. Lori was more inclusive. She was mare of black and lesbian Chi.
"I am fully aware of that. Yeah, I know where I live. That'd be black Chi. "Yeah, I know how many schools have been shut down in Austin (not Texas), mental health clinics. Administration after administration has taken away from black people. Not mine." I'm sorry. Could you repeat that? I don't speak gibberish very well.
The mayor’s claim is difficult to reconcile since he is taking heat for ordering city officials to shut down parks and field houses and shutting down services and programs in black communities to use those buildings and resources to house migrants colonists.
In just the last week, Johnson’s administration was blasted by black residents in the West Side neighborhood of Galewood for shutting down their community park district field house and handing the facility over to the illegals.
Chicagoans in the Austin Neighborhood also met to protest the use of their field house for migrants colonists, and the local neighborhood black youth football team rallied to protest over being tossed out of their practice facility in favor of illegals.
The protests to close the Austin district’s Amundsen Park field house grew loud enough for Johnson to temporarily put the plans to redirect the facility to migrants colonists on hold late Monday.
Despite the criticism, Johnson went on with his disjointed tirade in an attempt to soften criticism among black communities over his plans to house migrants colonists among them.
"And I want to make this point very clear, as well," he said from the podium. "We’re trying to make sure that migrants colonists are not on floors. So, when individuals say that black folks want what migrants colonists want, it’s not true. It’s not. Black folks want what they deserve," he said without explaining what that even means.
Johnson then tried to cajole his audience into thinking he was prioritizing the black community and evoked slavery and racism to try and shame critics.
He growled:
And to compare the needs of black people to individuals who are being forced out of their countries because of bad foreign policy who are living on floors — comparing the conditions in which descendants of slaves have had to endure to migrants colonists who are sleeping on floors, I question how much you actually care and love about black people and understand their conditions.
Of course, few of the millions of migrants colonists pouring across the border thanks to Joe The Big Guy Biden ...46th president of the U.S. We get to suffer the consequences... ’s failed immigration policies are fleeing their homes because of oppression or dangerous conditions. Most are simply economic migrants colonists hoping to earn more money in the U.S. and eager to take advantage of the freebies they imagine they will receive once getting to the U.S.A., freebies that Johnson is, indeed, supplying, and to the detriment of the black neighborhoods in his city.
#3
Foreign agent? They are going to go Michael Flynn on Menendez, while the Entire Biden family continues to vend the highest position in the US to every foreign oligarch that has a wallet.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
10/13/2023 13:01 Comments ||
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#4
The cataclysm of a stalemate in a legislative body that has done nothing but rubber stamp Biden policy since 2022. I would nominate Triumph the insult dog or ChuckECheese and achieve an improved outcome. Only Ukraine is sweating bullets (ours) in this current situation.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
10/13/2023 13:05 Comments ||
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#5
He couldn't get a majority from the hard supporters of Jim Johnson so he didn't fight it.
#10
Maybe the Peeholes Democrapic Rethuglic of Allegheny County could be turned into a nice park. You know, if you found a place like the confluence of the Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio rivers today, you wouldn't allowed to build anything near it.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
10/13/2023 12:18 Comments ||
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#11
Jeez, he really is looking more and more like that Ferengi con artist from the Star Wars series.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Breitbart] 
...Hizzonner da Mare of Chicago. He was elected in April 2023 to replace the disastrous Lori Lightfoot and immediately set about out-Richtering her. A member of the Democratic Party (naturally), Johnson previously worked as a social studies teacher in the city's public schools system. He became an organizer with the Chicago Teachers Union in 2011, and helped organize the 2012 teachers strike. Prior to becoming Hizzonner, he served on the Cook County Board of 
"Yeah, I know how many schools have been shut down in 
...46th president of the U.S. We get to suffer the consequences...
[JustTheNews]
[FoxNews] 
