Last week - I think it was a Friday night - I was doing my walk from the bookstore where I work to Denver's Union Station, and couldn't help but notice the number of homeless people lying on the sidewalk, on bus benches, and in doorways. Maybe it was the time of day or day of the week, but I didn't think Colfax was like that anymore. Maybe it was because the city dismantled their shacks along the Platte River, or forced them from the 16th Street Mall, but it seemed the homeless were everywhere. Sometimes they hang out right on the street, and sometime they hang out in nearby alleys, such as the fellow in the photograph on the left. And is that a person lying in the alley behind him, or just his bedding? The city is trying to help them, building more shelters, but many of the homeless absolutely refuse to go - the alcoholics, the insane, the hard core individualists, etc.
There are a lot of poor, but not homeless people, who also hang out on Colfax, like the ones waiting for the bus in the photo on the right. Maybe they work around here, maybe they don't, but at the end of the day they take the East Colfax bus to Aurora, where the cost of living is substantially less. Because even though they hang out here, the neighborhood around Colfax is actually pretty pricey. Many if not most of the bars and restaurants are pretty upscale, catering to an affluent young population that lives in the area. They wander from bar to bar and share the streets with the homeless and poor, not even noticing them. A sad commentary on today's world. Colfax used to be called "America's longest, wicked street" in the days Jack Kerouac hung out here, but it is no longer wicked, just sad - Denver's own little India.
The houses off Colfax are large Victorians, and many were once rooming houses for the poor. Now most have been restored to single family residences and are quite expensive. The houses that are still multi-tenant units are now occupied by the trendy young people who populate the area, or people who work in the stores and bars in the area. Not too long ago the middle and upper middle classes abandoned the city for the suburbs, where they could raise their children in safety and get away from the poor. At some point they began to realize that the poor were occupying the most desirable real estate in the metro area, and gentrification began. Now, everywhere in the country, the middle and upper middle classes are beginning to reoccupy the city and the poor are being driven off to the suburbs. I took the photograph on the left of the sun-dappled Victorian just around the corner from where I took the previous photo. What a contrast.
As I have mentioned ad nauseam on this blog, if you walk downtown on Colfax (also known as 15th Street), you see both the upscale and the downtrodden, often having to step over the homeless as they lay on the sidewalk. If you take the same walk down 17th Street (a mere two blocks north), you see nothing but fancy bars, restaurants, and both new housing and restored Victorian era apartments and homes for the affluent. And you only see the affluent on 17th Street, walking between trendy bars and dining outside on the patios, enjoying the fall weather. And what it the solution to this problem? I myself blame the Reagan Administration, which eliminated funding for the institutions that housed the insane and treated the others who currently live on the streets, and now the country doesn't have the money and its citizens the desire for the increased taxes needed to bring them back. And so I have no solution. Sad.
There is no solution, but the silver lining is that things might be as good as they're going to get, so enjoy them now. As one of those trendy young people that lives there (I'm a few blocks from where you took the picture with the barber pole, in between there and Cheesman Park) I can also say, it's not that we don't notice them, it's that we're doing our best to ignore them. Whether it says more about my character or the situation, I used to be someone that had massive sympathy and occasional empathy with the disenfranchised - I almost walked out of the Red Room in SanFran because the doorman blocked one of the less desirables from following my group inside, and I hated the separation I felt from the unwashed masses. I've now lived in Denver, work downtown and live near Cheesman, for 4 years, and the city has taken the majority of my caring. I now donate strictly to charities and not to individuals, as we're supposed to do, and do my best to avoid eye contact when confronted. Part of the problem is that I pay a pretty penny to live in the area. We have the nicest park (opinion) and so many great restaurants and watering holes, and yet are subjected to the harsh reality of America's underbelly every time we want to enjoy said locations. At times, it's a safety issue as well, one of my friends was recently robbed and assaulted close by.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally -- the working poor you've noted, such as the fellow in the construction neon vest, mostly tend to come from a temp agency across the street from The Squire. It attracts the absolute lowest end of those that are able to show up for work on a reasonably regular basis, and they then cross the longest street to purchase their nightly weed and hooch.
To refer back to the top, it's only going to get worse. It's possible that the Cap Hill - Congress Park stretch of Colfax could gentrify to the point at which one doesn't see the downtrodden on such a regular basis, but they still have to go somewhere. Downtown isn't much better, with DPD throwing a large chunk of budget at cleaning the human waste (literal) from the alleyways and reducing the number of assaults. You're right about tearing down the housing near Confluence -- that did result in a large displacement, and I read a decent cover story on it in the WestWord last year. I for one am okay with the tax increase we would have to shoulder to help those at the bottom of the totem pole, but I'm in a small minority there. After the pathetically moderated debate on Monday night I know there's pretty much 0 likelihood of that ever going into effect. The taxes and funding are part of a sinister triumvirate of problems. At the root is a general lack of caring and more than anything else, an epidemic of selfishness. From there arises the lack of funding and the 3rd issue -- population. As population increases, there will be more money and more jobs! Unfortunately, that's more money that is thrown at gentrifying desirable locations, and it's not considering that there will be even more of the working poor and homeless.
There isn't a solution, I don't think. At least, no solution to address the issue at hand. Larger societal changes could absolutely have the effect of solving the problem, but in the current age of instant gratification and shallow selfishness, those changes won't ever be supported because they're self-contradictory.
But I'm meandering off into more serious and vague waters. I'm glad I found your blog! It's nice to see local stuff on the web. I found it because I was searching for Colorado License Plate tag info and a post from you, last year, came up. Have to agree -- finding the 5 points DMV is a legendary quest.
Cheers!
P.S. In no way is this proofread, nor did I scroll back up to see if any of my sentences actually correlate with their neighbors. :D