Mayor Johnston showed up mostly unannounced in the Overland neighborhood this week to allegedly hear residents’ concerns about the towns of tiny shacks for hundreds of Denver’s homeless going up, uhm, now.
Mostly, he was there to tell residents what was going to happen whether they liked it or not.
The city had gathered all the experts, conducted all the planning, and everything was ready to go, so stop complaining, Westword instructed the locals, whom the writer described as “clutching their pearls” at the prospect of living next to the camp.
Buried at the end of the article, Westword revealed some sloppy planning by the city and reported Johnston and Chandler were caught flat-footed when residents expressed concern about the bus stop for elementary school students across the street from the new and improved homeless camp.
Chandler, specifically, was berated by locals after he asked “Where is it?” in reference to the bus stop.
“You guys should know that!” shouted resident Lee Ann Montoya. “I’m so blown away by all this! You guys really seem to be clueless with everything.”
Chandler responded, “Well, that’s why we’re here. We’re learning, too.”
Learning should be done before, not after the site is already selected and dirt is about to be turned.
The city’s response to residents’ concerns doesn’t offer a lot of confidence about their planing process.
Johnston swooped in to save his flailing “senior advisor on homelessness” and assured residents not to worry about a thing, because they will identify and talk about the bus stop later.
There is a lot to be questioned about the mayor’s plan to hastily erect shacks and round up 1,000 drug addicted or mentally ill homeless folks and deposit them into fenced and guarded gulags ghettos.
The four neighborhoods of camps in Overland will be overseen by “at least two security officers on patrol at any given time, so there will always be a minimum of eight people standing guard.”
More guards will be brought into the camp during the day when case managers are present.
Chandler described a “good neighbor agreement” that determines what is, and is not any of the neighborhood’s business:
“What that intends to do is to make sure there are really clear lines of communication between the neighborhood and the operator and the city around anything that happens at this site. It’s not the neighborhood’s business to decide how the operator operates their site. It is the neighborhood’s business to decide what happens outside of this site. Anything that happens outside of these gates is your business, and we don’t want anything happening outside these gates that negatively impacts your neighborhood.”
Meanwhile, the city is announcing plans Thursday to revive its working committee with Denver Public Schools for communication purposes. We’re guessing there will be some communication about where the schools should move their bus stops.