OUT OF SIGHT, OUT OF MIND

The mass exodus that followed was a media sensation. Tearful residents were bundled into vans or the blue buses used by the sheriff's department to transport prisoners. Their belongings were stuffed into trash bags. Thirty-two residents were driven off to temporary shelter at Ridge Home, a facility for the mentally retarded, another seventeen to a hotel by Stapleton. One refugee placed in an East Colfax motel was promptly beaten and robbed.

Although advocates for the mentally ill generally supported the move, "it really was external of the people living there," notes Scott Utash. "Many people did not want to leave, and they had very little say, as usual. It was pretty dehumanizing."

When it was over, Harmer was left with four truck-sized dumpsters filled with clothes and other possessions his former tenants had left behind. "Some of them left without any shoes," he says. "It was caregivers that did this to these people. That really burns me up."

Since the closure, he adds, he's fielded calls from relatives of former residents, concerned that the move might mean added expense or other responsibilities they weren't prepared to take on. He talks of one resident who was moved to a "crackhouse" in Capitol Hill, of underpaid social workers ("21-year-old gals") who are expected to monitor clients placed in apartment houses Harold Harmer would be afraid to enter. Ask him what he thinks about the Goebel plan's prospects for success and he turns positively caustic.

"They're coming back from these apartments like flies," he claims. "One of them will move into an apartment, and he's as lonely as can be--because he acts a little strange, he looks strange, and people shun him. So the worst guy on the block will befriend him, and then that guy and five of his friends will be living there. And they'll be stealing his money and eating his food and probably taking his drugs. That's a concept that really works, isn't it?"

Harmer is no longer in the boarding-home business. He filed a lawsuit against the city over the closure of Highlands, but the suit has been put on hold while he develops the cavernous building into loft condominiums. He may drop the suit, he suggests, if the city doesn't mess with his condos.

"I have to see how the city is going to treat me," he says. "I have no faith in city government at this point."

end of part 1