Brooks has also complained about the amount of stuff that homeless people tend to surround themselves with; this, too, seems exaggerated. The people sleeping on the mall tonight tend to keep their things neatly organized and packed in tight — and why wouldn't they? When a few shopping bags contain all your earthly possessions, you want that shit close at hand.
5 a.m., 16th Street Mall at California
Britt Chester
Britt Chester
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As if roused by some internal alarm clock issued only to the homeless, a large chunk of the sleeping population awakens almost exactly at 5 a.m. That's when the mall bus begins its daily grind, and a few early-bird fitness freaks jog by. Street noise picks up, and the city slowly comes to life. There's still no sign of light in the east, and it's about 25 degrees colder than it was at midnight, but across the street in the doorway of a souvenir shop, one guy rustles in his sleeping bag and sits up. Slowly, he folds his bag and gathers his things, then just stands there for a few minutes, dazed, before he starts walking west.
6:15 a.m., 16th Street Mall at Champa
When the wake-up call comes, it's in the form of a purple-shirted Downtown Denver Partnership worker who prefers not to think of himself as a wake-up call. "Hey, it's my job to make sure they're all right," he says, hurrying to his truck after rousing a couple asleep in the doorway of Wild West Souvenirs. "I'm not waking them up; I'm making sure they're living." The Partnership, which has the contract to maintain the thirty-year-old mall for the city, estimates that it spends half a million dollars a year making sure it's cleared of snoozers and ready for business every morning.
If they weren't in a cold, stinking doorway, Matthew and Brittney Adams would look like almost any other young couple stirring awake against their will, groaning, stretching, folding into each other for just a few more minutes. They're both nineteen years old and look it; Brittney sports short, dense dreadlocks and baby fat. They used to stay at Urban Peak, a youth shelter on the south side. "It was too much drama," she says, stifling a yawn. "That's why we sleep out here."
"See, what happened was, we came from Colorado Springs," Matthew adds, "but they got a law like that down there, and they kicked us out. So we came up here. Honestly, I don't know what we'll do if they kick us out of here. Guess we'll just keep migrating."
For now, though, they've got a more immediate destination. "Personally," says Brittney, "I'm going to Civic Center and go back to sleep."
