Week of Actions Ahead from Denver’s Housing Advocates
Housing advocates across Denver to host events and actions next week recognizing a decade of the city’s unauthorized camping ban
By Andrew Fraieli
May 14 will mark the 10-year anniversary of Denver’s City Council passing an unauthorized camping ordinance, and the days leading up to it will be a week of actions and grievances in the words of Terese Howard.
Image: David Solnit
Howard is a longtime housing advocate and founder of Housekeys Action Network Denver (HAND), which will be hosting various talks, community meals, and events next week — calling it Denver's Decade of Doom — to hopefully bring “some united understanding and realization through Denver that this law is still on the books. It’s been fucking with people for the past 10 years, and it’s still fucking with people.”
The week starts May 8 with community meals throughout the day hosted by Occupy Denver, Food Not Bombs, and Cats Not Cops, with more meals planned during the week. There’ll also be multiple days of support for those in encampments being swept with food, coffee, and moving assistance.
According to Howard, May 9 will be one of the main events where they are organizing people to speak during public comment at the Denver City Council’s meeting that evening.
“Our goal is for as many houseless people as possible to be able to speak. We’re signing folks up with direct experience of the camping ban to speak,” she told the Denver Voice. “Hopefully the council will make space for those houseless folks to be heard.
On May 13, HAND is also hosting an event at The Savoy, where Howard says they’ll be looking back at the last decade through various speakers talking about the effects and history of the ban. Paul Boden of the Western Regional Advocacy Project will be speaking on public housing and Business Improvement Districts, as well as speakers from Five Points talking on gentrification, among others.
She likens the week to a funeral, saying, “there’s certain things you have to do — if someone dies you want to have some sort of memorial to recognize them. In the same way, with this — 10 years of this law — we need to recognize this.”
The final event of the week will be a rally held at the front steps of the City and County Building, with music, food, resources, and other services. There is also a planned march to the Downtown Denver Business Partnership office — a group that strongly supported both Denver’s sit/lie ordinance, and the unauthorized camping ordinance HAND is protesting against.
Howard continues that there needs to be recognition for “all the fighting back we’ve done the last 10 years. The community has not been silent, or quit fighting, and we’re gonna keep fighting, and we have even more resolve to keep fighting.”