Feature: Navigating the Recession - Cuts to education and human services possible in Colorado

Published February 2009 Vol. 13 Issue 1

by Hank Lacey

The nation’s economy is sinking deeper into the worst recession in decades. More and more Coloradans are suffering stagnant wages, loss of health insurance, unemployment and even the loss of their home.

Driven by deteriorating economic conditions, the Office of Legislative Council says Colorado is facing a budget shortfall of more than $600 million this year and about $300 million for the 2009 fiscal year, which starts July 1. The consequences are likely to be big cuts to many government services that people all over the state, but especially in the Denver urban area, take for granted.

The state has been down this road before. Between 2001 and 2003 Colorado faced budget shortfalls that eventually reached about $850 million in FY 2003 and about $900 million in FY 2004. The General Assembly balanced the budget, as the state constitution compels it to do, by imposing across-the-board cuts to state agencies and by using a variety of accounting measures to move expenditures into future years.

This time a solution might not be found so easily. Gov. Bill Ritter said as much during his annual State of the State speech on January 8.

DV StaffFebruary 1, 2009February 2009, Hank Lacey, budget cuts, recession

Local Buzz: A Second Chance for Dearfield

Published February 2010 Vol. 13 Issue 1

On the north eastern plains of Colorado, just off State Highway 34, a small ghost town surrounded by sage and dry soil sits like a dilapidated signpost of African American heritage in the West. The town of Dearfield, founded in 1910, was one of several black settlements in Colorado established so African Americans might have a place of their own, free from persecution, in the U.S.

DV StaffFebruary 1, 2009Black history, Dearfield, February 2009

Feature: A Bump in the Road Home

Denver’s 10-year plan has accomplished a lot since it started in 2005, but can it keep up with growing poverty?

by Tim Covi
photographs by Ross Evertson

Looking at him now, you can still vaguely make out the silhouette of Bruce Wright’s youth. He sits in a dimly lit chair in his homey ground floor apartment, shadows rolling across the walls from passing cars. Barrel chest, heavy hands, his history of work and wander is etched subtly into him like a living tattoo. A hoarse cough shakes his body for a minute and pulls us out of his story about the past. He has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. He sips water from an old plastic coke bottle and regains composure. His eyes are meek and honest as he takes us back to Arizona, California, Oregon.

Bruce Wright photo by Ross Evertson "I was living off and on in hotel rooms, just kickin' it around wherever I could, you know. I spent quite some time sown at 11th Avenue Hotel. I started out at $10 a night just for the bed."

DV StaffJanuary 1, 200910 year plan to end homelessness, Denver's Road Home, Housing First, Tim Covi

Feature: Outsmarting Crime

text by Margo Pierce
photo by Adrian Diubaldo

Christie Donner, Executive Director of the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition, works at her desk

When a street cop says that simply throwing criminals in jail isn’t the way to protect the public, it’s worth listening. And when that street cop has worked his way up to a top position in the Colorado Department of Corrections, it carries that much more weight.

Denver VOICEJanuary 1, 2009Adrian Diubaldo, Margo Pierce