The “Ask a Vendor” column allows us to share the thoughts and wisdom of the diverse group of people who make up the Denver VOICE vendor pool.
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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.
In October, a street paper in the Netherlands scored an incredible opportunity: an interview with Pope Francis exclusively for the world’s street papers. The pope sat down with a formerly homeless vendor to discuss poverty, his childhood, and his life in Rome.
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This year the Denver VOICE is joining street papers around the world in celebrating our vendors during the holidays. For part of this international collaboration, we interviewed veteran VOICE vendor Brian Augustine. Through the International Network of Street Papers, Brian’s responses below will be shared with a worldwide audience.
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In 2012, I was staying in shelters here in Denver. My friend Wilhelm, who is now my spouse, and I had camped out in an abandoned church somewhere near 38th and Lawrence with some other people who were homeless too. Around Christmas that year, we were staying sometimes at a friend’s place when we could, other times at Samaritan House, Crossroads, and the Denver Rescue Mission.
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On December 16, hundreds will come together on the front steps of the Denver City and County Building for Denver’s annual Homeless Persons’ Memorial Vigil. The candlelight vigil and name reading ceremony will take place at 1437 Bannock Street from 5:30 p.m.-6:15 p.m.
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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.
Dirt Coffee: No, it’s not coffee for worms.
On Friday mornings, the Dirt Coffee truck can be found at 2303 E. Dartmouth Ave. The truck sits outside of the Joshua School, which serves students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD); some of those students may serve you coffee.
As EarthLinks enters its twentieth year of serving the Denver metro area, participants, staff, and volunteers are celebrating not only another bountiful harvest, but also the friendships blossoming within their community.
Bette Ann Jaster, OP (Order of Preachers), and Cathy Mueller, SL (Sisters of Loretto), started EarthLinks as an outreach program in 1996. They wanted to give people experiencing homelessness an opportunity to take nature trips, garden, and make arts and crafts. EarthLinks now has about 50 participants from around the Denver metro area.
Formerly homeless 51-year-old Utrecht native Marc has been selling Straatnieuws for two years near the Oudegracht—the “old canal” that runs through the center of his hometown. He also works a couple of days a week in the Straatnieuws office. It gives him a livelihood, a daily routine, and he really enjoys it in the office because of the “fantastic” atmosphere. When Straatnieuws asked him if he fancied going to Rome for a top secret interview with a “world famous man,” he didn’t need to be asked twice—even if he didn’t know who it was he was going to meet until two days before they left.
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Our feature story this month, “Searching for Home” (page 7), gives readers a sneak peek into a fascinating new exhibit opening Nov. 7 at the History Colorado Center. This exhibit educates museumgoers about the history of homelessness in Colorado, and also exposes them to the day-to-day challenges of homelessness (like trying to make a healthy meal with just a few dollars and a microwave).
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Denver VOICE vendors give thanks.
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By Marilyn Lindenbaum
Searching for Home, which opens on November 7, invites visitors to experience the bigger picture of homelessness and how it affects all of us through the lens of our state’s boom-and-bust economic and social history.
This month, Searching for Home: Homelessness in Colorado History opens at the History Colorado Center. The new exhibit features artifacts like Baby Doe Tabor’s dress, a former Miss Colorado’s pageant sash, and a panhandler’s makeshift cardboard sign. What do these objects have in common?
Colorado Springs To Hold Vote On Controversial Sit-Lie Ban
By Sarah Ford
After months of debate, the Colorado Springs City Council has decided to postpone the vote on a proposal to ban sitting or lying on streets and sidewalks in downtown Colorado Springs.
By Adam Sennott
For decades laws criminalizing homelessness have been on the rise, but recent statements from the Department of Justice and the Department of Housing and Urban Development might stop this trend.
In recent summers, the Denver Police have regularly swept the banks of the Platte River, rousting homeless people who have violated the city’s ordinance against unauthorized camping and removing them and their belongings.
Chilly Morning Miracle
By Matt Davidson, VOICE vendor
Just the other day, on a very chilly morning, I was out of money and out of newspapers. It was a Sunday, so I couldn’t go get more papers, and I was cold. My jacket was doing its job by keeping my arms and chest warm, but my ears and head were cold, as I didn’t have a cap.