By Linette Hidalgo | Photo by Sarah Harvey
Quiet and unassuming are two words that initially come to mind upon first meeting vendor Richard Moore. However, you will quickly learn that Richard is humorous, kind, thoughtful, and incredibly interesting to speak with. His life is a myriad of hands-on work experience: diesel mechanic, rancher, heavy equipment operator. This is a man who has worked hard and overcome setbacks and struggles.
By Andrew Kenney
The Springs Rescue Mission may serve 700 meals in a single day, but it only has two laundry machines—and no showers. Aiming to address a lack of daytime services and shelter beds in Colorado Springs, the mission is raising nearly $14 million and starting construction in 2016 to effectively double its capacity.
By Vicki Lynn Tenney, VOICE vendor
Winter is such a beautiful time of year!
It will be nice to see the mountains
and cities sprinkled with the magic
and beauty of winter.
By Sarah Harvey
The Right to Rest Act could reverse the decades-long trend toward the criminalization of homelessness in Colorado.
Denver Homeless Out Loud (DHOL), a group that advocates for the rights of people experiencing homelessness across Colorado, will reintroduce the Right to Rest Act in the state legislature this year—maybe even as early as next month.
Recycling mattresses is merely a vehicle for change for Spring Back Colorado Mattress Recycling. Re-integrating drug addicts and alcoholics back into society is its real business.
Since Spring Back’s establishment in August 2012, owner and founder Christopher Conway and his crew have recycled over 65,000 mattresses and box springs, diverting from landfills 1.4 million pounds of lightweight steel, 992,485 pounds of mattress ticking, 867,283 pounds of prime foam, and 328,130 pounds of plastic. And 57 drug addicts and alcoholics found a sense of purpose.
Eddie Maestas Park, also known as Triangle Park, is transforming. Some of the hands behind that transformation belong to those who have experienced homelessness.
The mission of RedLine’s Reach Studio is to give the power of self-expression to Denver’s homeless artists. Before it was re-imagined as a city-controlled public garden, Triangle Park was a popular resting place for many of Denver’s homeless. Now, it is a blank slate for self-expression for several formerly homeless artists through Redline Art Gallery’s Reach Studio. Reach artists installed four murals in the park in August, working from a P.S. You Are Here grant, a Denver city initiative.