A long time ago, I was a nineteen-year-old homeless kid. The circumstances aren't particularly important, but basically I just surfed too many couches and polished off too many bottles of my hosts' booze until, chronically unemployed and perpetually drunk, I had nowhere to go. But even then, I stayed the hell out of downtown — too loud, too weird, too much hassle — in favor of sleeping in quiet parks around Glendale and Cherry Creek, though that also meant having to move around, sometimes several times, on sprinkler nights. (There is no experience more degrading than being awakened by a sprinkler.)
Britt Chester
Britt Chester
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Today I'm housed and sober, but I still don't get why any homeless person would bother with downtown. So last Monday night, I packed my bag and a thermos of coffee and headed for the 16th Street Mall, ground zero in this city's fight over "urban camping" — an odd term to describe a practice that has historically never involved a single s'mores cookout. A proposal to ban urban camping — and so to ban the homeless from sleeping on the mall and in any other public spots that aren't already off limits — is grinding its way through the machinations of bureaucracy toward a vote next month. It's already been the subject of endless discussion, but one group has been conspicuously absent from the proceedings: the homeless themselves.
10:35 p.m., Colfax and Broadway
Supporters of the proposed ban deny that it has anything to do with the Occupy Denver protests, and while the timing is a little suspect — after all, the homeless have been around forever, while Occupy started occupying Denver's sidewalks just seven months ago, shortly before talk of an "urban camping" ban began — downtown businesses have been very vocal lately regarding their concerns over people sleeping on the 16th Street Mall. No doubt, Occupy is unsightly — sleeping bags, slogan signs and random garbage litter a block-long section of the sidewalk across from Civic Center Park, while an assortment of grizzled old bums and crust-punks smoke weed and loiter — but on the other hand, there aren't any businesses in the immediate vicinity to wring their hands over what effect this might be having on their customers. Even Lil Bear, a nineteen-year-old Occupier who stands in the center of his group and monologues on how the movement is a "combination Great Depression, revolution and I don't even know," seems to get that the impetus behind the proposal is bigger than a congregation of protesters on the corner. "This sucks. This sucks," he muses. "This sucks that people have to live this way. If we're such a great country, then why are all these people out here?"
A little way down from Lil Bear's party, sitting cross-legged on his sleeping bag and staring meditatively toward Civic Center Park (which, like all Denver parks, is closed after 11 p.m.), Occupier Michael McPheron — in his forties, probably, wearing a neat beard, a hat and thick glasses — mulls it over. "Some of them thought it might be directed at us," he says, "although I also think it might be a thing where the government is being hit by problems they can't solve, and they think this might work. I've noticed as long as I've been here, there's always somebody sleeping in a doorway. It seems like any conceivable place where a homeless person might be sleeping, there they are. So I think they might think this might stop that. But I can't see how it would. A person's homeless, they don't really have the ability to go, 'Oh, well, this is illegal, I guess I won't be homeless anymore.'"
Then again, McPheron acknowledges that for him, that exact scenario might be the case. "I'm probably not...I don't know how this is going to sound, but I'm probably not as homeless as some of the people out here. I think I have the ability to claw my way up off the streets pretty quickly. But a lot of these guys couldn't do that," he says. "And even if I do, I'm still going to be occupying."
11:20 p.m., 16th Street Mall at Welton
Picture a homeless guy, and chances are you picture someone who resembles Kent Mollohan — a lot. Out on the streets since 1987, he sports a houndstooth coat and double orthopedic boots — the result of multiple small amputations on his feet over the years because of frostbite — and looks exactly like Gandalf, with an easy smile that, though toothless, is oddly charming. He's hands-down my favorite homeless guy of the night. His explanation for his presence on the mall is simple: "It's the safest place there is."
That seems counterintuitive, but this sentiment is echoed by everyone I talk with this night. On the mall there's a lot of light, patrols come by, people look out for one another. "You know, down here, we're kind of like family," Mollohan reflects. "A couple of nights ago, these guys at Maggiano's over there come out — they're pretty good about giving food to people. I'd already had something to eat, so I said, look, there's three of my friends back in the alley, you know, you have some food, I'll bring some food back to those fellas. And that's what I did. That's kind of the way it works. You know, you get to know people. I know a few people who work around here. I got another guy over there, come out of the Pinkberry some nights and give me a little frozen yogurt. I said to him, hey, no offense, but I'm going to be sleeping in your doorway tonight." He laughs at this.
