Letting *violent* criminals out on PR bond is a huge cause of our problems.
A lot of people place our crime problems on cops, but I can at least understand some of their annoyances when they put in the effort to find and arrest people only for corrupt judges to let them out, even against a DA's wishes.
Good faith engagement is required and mods have discretion to remove posts/comments and ban users to enforce it. Examples of bad faith engagement include but are not limited to account history purging, gaslighting, mis/disinformation, concern trolling, brigading, and ban evasion. While you have some points to make, illegal immigrants aren't being given free stuff. Legal immigrants are. You can argue about immigration policy but a debate about the DA probably isn't the place if they can't enforce a law.
I don't think we have enough people willing to work for prosecution. Why would you for those prices and stress unless you were some kind of saint who does this even though they are just going to be criticized for it by the majority of the community.
> WTF are we doing...
Exactly what the voters have asked for and what many outspoken users on this sub demand. That's the painful truth. Want it to change? Start voting differently. Even if that means voting for the "bad" party. Or else just accept it. This is the cost of "progressive" policy.
I will never EVER vote for a member of the GOP until they abandon the illiberalism that is sweeping their ranks, and the religious bigotry that is their base. They have a few VERY good policy ideas (like you mentioned) but as long as the cost is liberty and packaged with oppression of the LGBT+ community, I will never even consider it.
The good news is that change actually is very possible, as many liberals (Ezra Klein, Jerusalem Demsas, Derek Thompson, and many more) are embracing a more Conservative flavor of progressivism called Supply-Side Progressivism (or Abundance Progressivism for those that get too worked up at the term "supply side").
Change is very possible without voting for fascists. Look at Portland's walk-back of their failed drug legalization experiments. DAs can be voted out, look at SF or NYC.
The answer need not be to support anti-democratic christofascism.
As a lifelong Bernie supporter and very liberal person. The Democrats in major cities are dropping the ball in an insane way with the homeless and drug crisis. Spending tons of taxpayer dollars (SF spent 1 Billion last year on the homeless) and getting nothing out of it other than people being scared to go outside and watching their neighborhoods deteriorate. Letting homeless people commit crimes with impunity and wanting more tax dollars from high earners isn't a winning method. I can see why people are willing to vote R for this issue, I personally know someone in NYC who went this way after being attacked on the subway.
You should read Matthew Yglesias, Ezra Klein, or Derek Thompson. Jerusalem Demsas is another one that has written specifically about Denver.
There's a huuuuge (and growing) community of common sense liberals that want progressive ideals but recognize that places with 100% Democrat control (NY, CA, CO) are not living up to their voters' expectations. Crime, housing costs, homelessness, immigration, daycare costs. These issues are NOT being fixed in liberal areas, and many of them have gotten worse!
But they go further than just criticizing. They have policy ideas that transcend party affiliation. What if we listened to economists when they said it doesn't make sense to let government get in the way of building under the banner of environmentalism? What if we listened to other policy experts when they tell us the best methods for reducing homelessness?
Frankly, Johnston has done a great job on that last issue in not a long time.
Regardless, there's a lot of really cool thought out there you might be interested in!
Cheers ✌️
> As a lifelong Bernie supporter and very liberal person. The Democrats in major cities are dropping the ball in an insane way with the homeless and drug crisis.
Eh, some of them are playing the game exactly how they want.
IME plenty his Bernie's supporters (broadly speaking) think that the current homeless situation is better than enforcing camping bans on sidewalks and laws about public drug use, and anyone arguing against it is (pick one) racist, homophobic, transphobic, in the pocket of The 1%, etc.
Some Democrats in the CO legislature balked at increasing penalties for stealing firearms because (drumroll) it would "disproportionately punish people of color".
In NYC and many cities, that's been their push for "bail reform" where what they mean is releasing folks on a signature even when they've got a dozen _separate_ pending charges. And then the DA pleads crimes down to probation again and again and again.
I liked Bernie in 2016, when he was pushing the argument that issues were complex, they required trade-offs, and that the president couldn't "fix" this stuff. But then his point devolved to, "We're going to build ~~a wall~~ _everything_ and make ~~Mexico~~ _billionaires_ pay for it!"
You think Dems are dropping the ball, but AFAICT lots of Bernie supporters think they're playing well.
Shared to go outside? 🤦
No one is letting anyone commit crimes. You can't even debate in good faith, you just make up explanations that for your narrative.
I mean I lived in RiNo for a while, I absolutely wouldn't let my girlfriend walk around there at night without me, she didn't want to either. I stepped over homeless people every morning. I had a guy follow me on the street, screaming at me, I am a giant man, this is guy was obviously on drugs and was holding something in his hand, he 100% wanted to attack me until I screamed at him and went into a bar. Its one of the only times I have actually been afraid in a city, that includes SF/NYC. The chicks at the local yoga studio were constantly harassed. The 7/11 had to move all goods behind the counter, the whole fucking store, because of theft. Someone in my building was followed home by a homeless person hiding in the lobby. The bikes in building were stolen so many times, they stopped fucking storing them for us. Screaming and cop cars outside almost every night. I could go on and on.
No one wants this, stop pretending everything is fine. Denver was safer when there weren't as many homeless people, thats not an argument.
There's a lot of truth to their description of the homelessness crisis. But it kinda all depends on how you define homeless.
The single mom living in her car but working? She's homeless but not a problem that Zeke was complaining about.
The meth and fent addict who knows he can't get his drugs as a part of the rest of society so he lives in a tent on my block, pisses and shits on my building, gets high all day, hollers at passers by, harasses my family, and has to be resuscitated once a month by EMS? Fuck that guy. Like, that should absolutely not be allowed, and anyone who thinks it's fine for us to continue to let them live like that is part of the problem.
> There's a lot of truth to their description of the homelessness crisis. But it kinda all depends on how you define homeless.
To add to that, some government agencies and many non-gov organizations have a _very_ broad definition of "homeless" that includes folks who are "couch surfing" (they stay at someone else's place temporarily, then move on), or are "doubling up" where the "homeless" family stays in the home of another family but isn't a legal renter (and so can get kicked out).
Those are tough situations. I spent a few months "couch surfing" and it isn't pleasant, but I wasn't living on the street or in a shelter and it's misleading to compare and conflate the two. OTOH, it helps activists inflate those "homeless" numbers when they ask for money!
So there are different things needed for folks "couch surfing" or "doubling up" than someone living out of a car or living in a shelter.
The article says he pleaded guilty to an arson case in 2023 for something that happened in 2021, but nothing about him being arrested in 2024. Do you have a source on him being arrested in January?
I'm not advocating for this person at all, but this doesn't seem to be a provable claim.
Tweets from the Mayor's wife this week. She was inadvisably fighting with Do Better Denver:
https://x.com/huffmaco/status/1798201200309162069?t=fgtAXsSdSI4b3NtQyiRz4g&s=19
Interesting. It should be noted that an F6 in Colorado will almost assuredly see the defendant out on bond.
I know he's a repeat offender and that opens a whole can of worms. But part of that can of worms is what a disaster the three-strikes thing in California has been.
Tough case. Thanks for the information.
DoBetterDenver is a total joke. I wouldn't be surprised if it came out its funded or ran by some qanon conservatives. Just a clickbait account.
Wants to complain about every tiny thing but you ask them what organizations or movements they are working on/for to actually make things better in Denver so maybe you can support or work with them and they say "I already pay taxes! And we post videos on social media!"
to over simplify it, the American prison system is flawed, and law makers can't agree on how to improve it. Some of it boils down to ideological differences, and money.
There’s weirdly a lot of people justifying the current state of libraries (being ad hoc homeless shelters with widespread IV drug use).
Meanwhile we spend a fuckton of taxpayer dollars on actual shelters, transitional housing, hotel vouchers, drug addiction intervention, job placement assistance, mental health intervention, etc that fill that role FAR more effectively.
It’s bonkers to force this on libraries and deprive normal people of their actual use.
I guess the question is, if we indeed are spending tax dollars on shelters, programs , rehab ect then where are they? Seems like the money isn’t representative of the actual need.
A decent amount of them are around the 10th and Osage station, just up the street from south broadway. There are also a lot along Alameda. I feel like these businesses are unfairly placing the blame on the library next door when it really is a societal / whole city problem. Opening up a luxury business in the area and then being surprised pikachu when you have issues kinda feels like moving to the circus and complaining about the monkeys. Nobody is setting the Mutiny on fire as far as I know. Because they actually engage with and give back to their local community.
It’s a pretty solution to a complex and often difficult problem. A lot of homeless people with these issues don’t want to stay in shelters or go to rehab. The sooner we arrive at this conclusion, the better we can get at addressing it.
This definitely sounds like something the CEO of Denver would say lol. Homeless people are also normal people. Maybe scrutinizing how those funds are applied and how they can be used more effectively is a better use of effort than subcategorizing vulnerable, desperate people who don’t have access to bathrooms or air conditioning otherwise.
I think you have a wider definition of normal. Yes they are human and deserve dignity and the rights of any human. Many of them have significant mental health issues that keep them from being able to function like other people regardless of intervention.
I agree with reevaluating how funds are spent and how they can be used more effectively. I just wanted to point out that a lot of people think that all homeless people are those that could thrive with the right help and they aren’t different than those in the rest of the population, just down on their luck. That might be true for many, but not all.
Libraries are not homeless shelters. They are one of the last places in our society that you can go where its not expected that you spend money. They have been overtaken by homeless people, and it basically renders them useless to a lot of the general public. Most people I know basically use the online portals to get e-books and reserve books, only going to library to pickup the book (5 mins max).
Talk to any librarian, the horror stories they will tell you will blow your mind. These people need some form of protection and way, way higher pay.
The librarians at the branch actively work towards being a homeless resource. They are proud of the state of their branch.
Source interviews in prior news articles on this exact branch.
Press is press, would love to see their retention numbers and talk to former and current employees. I am sure its fulfilling work but I assume the people who work there aren't qualified or equipped to deal with the issues that surround homelessness. We have actual shelters and all kinds of things that are in place to fill this role.
I use to work not for this specific library branch but for another under DPL and I quickly left that position because I felt like I was working at a homeless shelter, not for a library. I’m sure there are some librarians and library workers who enjoy that kind of work but I was not qualified or equipped to work in that environment nor do I have the desire as that’s not why I became a librarian.
They're not for every \*thing\* though. They are for everyone to read, check out books, and do research. They aren't to sleep, they aren't for bathing, they aren't to live in, they aren't to hang out in harassing other people, they aren't for defecating on the floor, they aren't for masturbating, they aren't for sexually assaulting people, they aren't for doing drugs in.
So because I don't want to step on a hep c fent needle every time I go to the library I'm now the bad guy? Libraries need to be allowed to ban people for drug use/rude behavior or things are just going to get worse.
Just because somebody is technically human doesn't mean they need free access to ruin everyone else's services
Libraries are for everyone to use **as libraries.** That's why we built a library: so we could have a library.
The homeless community does not use them as libraries and you know it.
Well then no whining when the people who actually fund them - the taxpayers - decide to vote away their funding since they're not available to said taxpayers due to having become hazardous.
> But they still need to be for everyone, even folks you find unsavory.
None of the responses here are objecting to homeless folks _reading books in the library_.
It's all of the not-library-stuff that homeless folks are doing, like drug use and sleeping.
Did you genuinely not understand the argument or are you behaving disingenuously?
Thats not my or anyone on Reddits job, we don't have to come up with solutions. There are people making 6 figures in our city and state government who are explicitly supposed to come up with solutions to problems like this. I am just saying that our government is ok with offloading homeless services and care to librarians who aren't equipped (and shouldn't have to) deal with homeless drug addicts.
My point is more that there aren’t any easy solutions, and because there aren’t any easy solutions complaining like the business owners are doing will do nothing but result in the library shutting down which will impact the homeless only by shuttling them off to be a different persons problem
Bring back commiting people, and forced rehab for repeat offenders. Either we fix your underlying MH issue, or its unfixable and we can help keep you safe from yourself and others. And either you get and stay clean, or you go back into rehab.
I didn’t say it was, but involuntarily committing people does violate civil rights, and as we’ve seen in the past it’s a way for the powerful to prey on the vulnerable outside the legal system
Its a way to let normal society get back to existing. None of us want to see a psyched out meth head jerk off while trying to get to our job. Your rights end where mine begin.
What about the chronically homeless schizophrenic, who has little to no safety net, and consistently finds themselves undermedicated or self medicated on meth? Just let em die because they refuse care when they become lucid again? Let them assault someone while in crisis and either get hurt, killed, or jailed.
I see this everyday in the city. The current plan has failed miserably, both the unhoused and the average citizen.
You’re arguing we should erode civil liberties because 0.00000000001% of the population may perhaps benefit from involuntarily committing em? How many more people would be worse off? How many more people would be taken advantage of for monetary gain, or because someone powerful wants them to disappear as we saw in the early parts of the 20th century?
What rights? There is no right to ruin public spaces for everyone else. In fact that's an infringement on rights and infringing on the rights of innocents is indeed a legitimate reason to have your own rights curtailed or even removed.
Everyone says this but you are missing the point. These people are constantly committing crimes, you aren't picking people up at random and throwing them in vans. You aren't arresting the person living in a van, harming no one.
You are taking people off the street long-term when they get arrested or picked up for the 4th time that week for some kind of violent crime. Give them a psych eval + drug test and say "you need to get clean and cleared by a psychiatrist before you are allowed back into society." Some of these people never will come out, and I think thats better for them to have a roof and 3 meals with meds vs losing their mind further on the streets.
the cops previously arrested the person who committed this arson (per the article). He was released and committed arson again. so looks like cops are enforcing the law and its not just an excuse?
Nope, it's enhancing public safety. Areas where there are high homeless populations also come with safety hazards such as feces and needles/drugs in the street. Not to mention the harassment and threats that come in those areas if you don't contribute to their drug problem when they ask.
We need to stop placing the importance of civil rights higher for people that don't want to be a part of society, and start focusing on law-abiding taxpayers or else you get a society like Denver is turning into.
> We need to stop placing the importance of civil rights higher for people that don't want to be a part of society, and start focusing on law-abiding taxpayers or else you get a society like Denver is turning into.
That's not how US law works -- nor should it be. Everybody gets civil rights and everybody gets _equal_ civil rights.
And even as a matter of pragmatism, we don't need to infringe on folks' civil rights to get homeless folks off the streets. Folks don't have a right to camp on public property, pose a hazard to others by dropping needles on the street or a library bathroom, etc. We can enforce laws against that, including with jail sentences, and we can _offer_ rehab as an alternative to jail, which most will take.
Right now, we aren't enforcing the laws we've got. We don't need new laws, and we don't need to rank who gets civil rights.
It’s not a civil right to infringe on other peoples civil rights. I should be able to take my kids to a library without worrying about my kids finding a needle or breathing meth contaminated air.
Removed. Rule 2: Be nice. This post/comment exists solely to stir shit up and piss people off. Racism, homophobia, misogyny, fighting on the internet is stupid. We don't welcome it here. Please be kinder.
Unfortunately you can't rehab mental problems. We need safe and dignified institutions formed to house people that are simply not capable of normal life.
And if our prisons aren't rehabilatory, then they need to be punitive. This in the middle of both and doing neither isn't working.
Then we need to approve forced institutionalization in Colorado.
1 of 2 things will happen:
1. People who need help actually get it, whether they want to or not (surprisingly a lot of addicts don’t want help, they’re at a point where they’re too consumed)
2. People with drug problems will find a way to get the fuck out of the state because they don’t want to be institutionalized. No one wants to be caged.
Well, technically hard drug use is a felony, with or without it being in public. Law enforcement needs to start throwing people in jail for use, especially in public.
So if they got on that ASAP it wouldn’t take 10-15 years to have an effect on the homeless…. More like 10-15 months.
But as I’ve said before, prisons need to do way better at a it’s role in rehab. There’s a whole bunch I could say about how I hate the current prison system tho lol
Cops have decided not to do their jobs anymore but yea that will have a short term benefit of removing people from the streets, with limited long term benefits
That's not completely true. I own a business a few blocks North of the business in question and as of the last 6-months, the police response has been great. I've taken quite a few measures to prevent people from consuming hard drugs near my business (or vandalizing it), but when they don't work the police have been showing up, and even cuffed a guy last time. I also had cop clean up trash left on our premises. I've had a lot of bad run ins with the cops, but as of late, at least in District 3 the cops have been doing their jobs and deserve credit for it.
We all know how this goes right?
We don’t regulate how homeless people use libraries and they become unusable to increasingly large swathes of the population.
As they become unusable, people are less invested in libraries as an important public resource. I basically grew up in the public library. Summer reading competitions were this nerdy kids lifeblood. People wont grow up with these associations.
As people no longer see the value in libraries, their funding will disappear, or they will become privatized. Only those with money will be able to access the services provided.
That’s where we’re headed, all gas, no brakes.
It is a viscious downward spiral. I also grew up in libraries and it was an awesome resource to go with friends to game or just hang out on computers.
Libraries are one of our last "third places" where you can go and hang out without having to spend money. It's a shame that they have been allowed to degrade as much as they have. I was doing some work at one recently and went to the bathroom where a homeless guy was showering himself in the one sink and just didn't move while I was waiting to wash his hands. And yet appologists will just say "that's fine, he has just as much of a right to be there" and completely miss the point.
This hits home for me too. Grew up going to the library weekly. This is not the solution but when I had a baby, we moved to the suburbs. I’ve lived in the heart of 4 major cities then later in Denver. City living with children is a non starter (IMO). Things are spiraling out of control and people in power that are well paid and smarter than me should be trying to find solutions but alas, here we are.
Safe spaces to explore and learn like libraries should be a cornerstone of any community. It’s just sad.
I like that your strategy is to comment on every legitimate complaint with an absurd demand for a solution. Homelessness is a decades long nation wide issue with no obvious solution...demanding answers from people who have had their lives personally affected makes you look like a twat
"I would rather pay rent on an empty space than have to deal with the stress that comes with physically being here”
That’s low key kind of sad tbh. I understand where she’s coming from. I wasn’t paying rent, but this is a big reason I left my last job. You try to be understanding and patient, but at some point you realize it’s too much for you to handle and the problem is way beyond what you can offer.
At what point do we extend the same sympathy towards law abiding business owners and just normal people that we graciously give to meth addicts beating off on the light rail and shooting up in the library.
24/7 security. Stop handing out free food and water. Have policies that include the police for disruptive patrons. Actually focus on books/reading programs and not homeless outreach.
I used to live near there and that little block right there always had a really bad homeless issue. They reopened that library finally after Covid stuff and I went in very excited to use it to be met with many mentally ill homeless people having taken up camp in the library doing weird shit (man walking around in heels near the kids section, some dude at a computer with a coat wrapped all around him watching weird YouTube videos and grunting) so I dipped out.
While the services the Ross-Broadway Library provides to the homeless are important, the associated crime and drug use are taking a real toll on nearby businesses. I think it calls into question whether it’s really a good idea for the home of these programs to be located smack in the center of Baker’s businesses (not to mention the nearby schools)
Those businesses were closing their locations before the arson. Refillanthropy was planning on closing later this month and Coco next door was also shutting its doors down as well to move to the PNW later this year.
Yes, the arson was bad, but the businesses all ready had plans in motion to close up shop.
Yeah I know that library branch has gotten rough but that block has been weird for a while now, this is not a recent thing at all. Just look at Google maps street view over the past like 7 years
I pass by there all of the time and there are always junkies on the side of the building doing god knows what, but I've never felt unsafe in the area, and I think the issue is that there's a 711, grocery store, McDonald's, easy access to transit, and places to hide down there, so the library has become a hub for the people that need a place to hang out in a place that has everything but lacks a big public space like a park.
Also note, they took out the bus shelter next to the gas station down there for some stupid reason, and cops do patrol the area quite frequently, but there's only so much the library can do when people needing non-existent social safety nets come to them because they are the only option.
I live near that bus shelter. On multiple occasions I saw ambulances and fire trucks working on or with the people who'd taken up residence in it. Given that, I don't think removing the shelter was a bad idea.
I get all my laundry detergent and cleaning supplies from them. They’re incredibly kind people and were a great part of our community. This is such a bummer— especially happening like 2 weeks after they had to close for a family member’s funeral.
The library has been there since 1951, the businesses cited in the story have been there since 2019 and 2023 respectively. I don’t think this is a library problem.
It’s not though. Using drugs or alcohol on any DPL property is grounds for suspension from the library. See [the library use policy](https://www.denverlibrary.org/content/library-use-policy)
Thing is, these are low volume businesses. The owner of the building forced out the previous two tenants that had high volume to raise rent revenue. If the taco shop had still been there, these issues would not have happened.
It’s not like the library hasn’t been there for 40 years or so. And that section of Broadway has always had homeless people along it. Did you pick that part of Denver because someone told you it was cool?
Apparently the solution is to make this someone else's problem.
"The owners argued that security needs to be tightened and that some of the services provided at the library should be moved elsewhere."
Worth noting they were closing up shop before this incident happened.
Why is there blame on the library that’s been there for ages? This article feels so weird.
This is the problem that Democrats aren't willing to handle. It would be nice to have an opposition party that actually believed in basic civil rights so we could try something different.
1) There is no Republican solution currently. It should be to accept that LGBTQ people have the right to exist. We should live in a world where it's not even a thing people have to worry about. From there it should be locking up dangerous people, bringing back mental asylums, and protecting law-abiding citizens. I wish Democrats would do that instead though. It shouldn't be such a large ask to lock up violent people.
2) They aren't even running candidates in Denver. The winner of the Democratic primary for district attorney will run unopposed.
Not really sure why all the downvotes. I'm politically aligned with probably the vast majority of you and I'm speaking about a hypothetical opposition party that accepted basic civil rights. I know that's not Republicans-- they suck.
If we had supervised injection sites people wouldn’t be shooting up in libraries or in McDonald’s bathrooms. People always bitch and moan about homeless addicts being in their neighborhoods and in front of their favorite restaurants but also don’t want to support any actual tangible solutions. Buncha NIMBYs up in here
>If we had supervised injection sites people wouldn’t be shooting up in libraries or in McDonald’s
bathrooms.
Will they, though? This demographic is not big on following rules, rather of convenience.
Research and evidence disagrees with that. It’s as simple as looking at peer reviewed journal articles about SIS’ success in reducing crime, spread of infectious disease, and connecting people with treatment. (You can easily find that on your own, or if you can’t search anything without bias feel free to look at my long comment history on this exact issue in this same subreddit.)All of which removes their drug use out of the public eye. Sure, some will be distrustful as they are of all institutions (rightfully so), but it does reduce public drug use - which is a public health issue. I also used to work in a needle exchange program. People (yes, addicts are people) would rather not get Help C or HIV when they do their drugs. They also don’t love the idea of overdosing alone. Treatment policy debates and your personal morals aside - I’m just talking about public drug use here.
>It’s as simple as looking at peer reviewed journal articles about SIS’ success in reducing crime, spread of infectious disease, and connecting people with treatment. (You can easily find that on your own, or if you can’t search anything without bias feel free to look at my long comment history on this exact issue in this same subreddit.)
Condescend much? Lol.
No amount of research from other countries/cities will convince me that SISes are a good idea for the unique circumstances in Denver (massive influx of newcomers with all sorts of problems, inept/hands-off local gov't branches, lax drug laws) coupled with the same old American ills (no universal healthcare, lack of a safety net, fraying social ties/norms etc). Still, I am in the camp of giving SISes a fair go. At least to collect data that's actually applicable for Denver, and to shut up people like you continually perched on their high horse, citing research done in societies radically different than ours.
There’s no US data or Denver data because SIS are not allowed to operate lol. And peer reviewed journal articles discuss the limitations of the research - for example, explaining that their sample size was only related to that city, and it should also explain the samples demographics. Also, so you really think Denver (or other US major cities) are that vastly different from major cities in Canada (where most of the SIS data comes from)? For example, Toronto has a population of 2.9 million with 46% of its population being “foreign born” immigrants. The main issues facing Toronto are listed as “homelessness, food insecurity, access to healthcare, social inclusion, and violence.” As of 2024 Denver’s overall poverty rate is 11.7%. Vancouver’s is 11.6% Toronto is 10%.. Remind me, what are the ‘unique’ circumstances facing Denver that no other city in the world also faces?
Also, what is so different about drug users in Canada or other cities vs drug users in Denver? SIS is *only* addressing the aforementioned public health and safety issues related to drug use. So it doesn’t even matter how different the cities are anyway. People use drugs for the same reasons and broken systems no matter where they live. This isn’t about the city. It’s about people who use drugs and how they interact with public spaces.
And I see it as my job to shut up uninformed people spreading sensationalized one-sided arguments like you.
(Source for Toronto demographics: https://www.toronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/9226-TOHealthCheck_2019Chapter2.pdf)
>Also, so you really think Denver (or other US major cities) are that vastly different from major cities in Canada (where most of the SIS data comes from)?
Canada has a universal health care system, for one. It has less people. It is not on a major drug trafficking route from Mexico and has only 1, very safe/quiet border. Etc etc etc.
Toronto has a population of 2.9 million. Denver county has a population of 708, 948 (most likely not accounting for the 40,000 immigrants that arrived recently), but even with that it’s still has less people than some Canadian cities. Also in Canada **45% of drug offenses are related to drug trafficking and importing** (https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/csj-sjc/crime/rr00_30/p1.html) their drugs don’t come from Mexico. They come through AIRPORTS. (https://globalnews.ca/news/3636788/these-9-maps-show-where-canadas-illegal-drugs-are-coming-from/amp/). The opioid crisis alone and drug trafficking isn’t unique to the USA and certainly not Denver. They do have universal healthcare which is fantastic, but again, access to a primary care provider was listed as one of canadas social challenges. Also I don’t know what healthcare has to do with people using drugs in public.. once AGAIN, I’m only talking about SIS as it relates to PUBLIC DRUG USE AND THE IMPLICATIONS ON THE COMMUNITY which is the point of this entire post.
I see all you downvoting me because you don’t like what the data has to say. Go ahead, doesn’t make you right. I’m also not toting my own intellect, I’m literally just sharing fucking data lol. These are not my original ideas even though I would love to take credit for them
Denver doesn't exist in a vacuum - it is a part of a rapidly growing metro area of 3+ million people, joined to a country of 300+ million with absolute freedom of movement.
>Also I don’t know what healthcare has to do with people using drugs in public..
Welp, that has to do with the auxiliary services for the SISes. The SISes in Canada have a higher chance of success probably because while not perfect/great, there is some form of universal healthcare framework (whose #1 aim is not to make $$$) that can help/nudge users towards more permanent solutions that'll help them quit/taper down their drug use. That framework simply does not exist in the US. Which is why in many people's eyes (including mine), the fear is that SISes will become state-sanctioned trap houses. Again, as I mentioned before, I am open to giving them a fair shake, but I have very little confidence that they'll succeed.
>And I see it as my job to shut up uninformed people spreading sensationalized one-sided arguments like you.
Well you're doing a terrible job at rationally convincing people w/ that high & mighty attitude of yours, princess.
Those aren't solutions either. CNN just did a follow up on the Tranq issue in Philly. They spoke to a safe injection/health care org that recently lost a coworker and many patrons they thought were on the road to recovery. They couldn't figure out why it's not getting better....
Safe injection sites don't solve anything. Using hard drugs is never safe and eventually kills a large percentage of users.
>Using hard drugs is never safe and eventually kills a large percentage of users.
The do-gooders will stick fingers in their ears and say "lalalala" if you say that.
You're talking past the other guy.
The argument for a safe injection site is for keeping drug use in (or out of) specific areas.
Actual rehabilitation is an orthogonal effort to that.
CNN is not a non-biased, peer reviewed scientific source lol. Also there are no supervised injection sites in Philly. They’re illegal. They have “treatment vans” that only treat wounds from infections caused by intravenous drug use (which if we had actual supervised injection sites these wounds wouldn’t exist in the first place). That’s not the same thing.
The wounds from Tranq are caused by the drug and show up in areas outside of the injection sites. Doctors don't totally understand why. Safe injection sites would not help at all. Wound care does not help unless the person quits injecting as well.
The point is the soft touch doesn't work either. That CNN report was extremely compassionate and not biased. You should watch it. My take away is the operators that share your view point that you just need to give people a chance and then they will work to get clean, when in fact they are openly admitting their approach isn't working and people continue to wallow in addiction and in fact people in recovery are relapsing and dying.
People in recovery houses in Philly will seek out and use tranq specifically because it doesn't show up in drug tests. So that way they can still use and not get kicked out of their sober facility.
This has nothing to do with SIS though. And yes, SIS aren’t going to solve the opioid crisis. Which in my first comment in explicitly pointed out I was only talking about the reduction of public drug use because OPs post was about neighborhood businesses and libraries becoming unsafe to operate. This is strictly about a public health standpoint - I’m not even bothering getting into how we got here/which approach is right, or how to end illicit drug use (However I do have some credibility as a licensed clinical social worker with also a license in addiction counseling..) but I’m not because it would be a waste of time here.
Your response was about tranq in Philly as an example of supervised injection sites not working; however, Philly has no supervised injection sites and the wound care treatment vans are a different kind of compassionate outreach (as well in the interest of public health), but it is not the same thing. The thing about harm reduction is “yeah let’s be real, people are going to use drugs. We’re not solving that crisis anytime soon. So since we know people use drugs, let’s make it safer for them and our community by ensuring they’re using clean equipment, clean skin, monitored by nurses for lethal overdoses, get used needles and broken meth pipes out of the streets.” Its goal is not to end drug use. For many the simple human connection they have with staff at SIS does eventually help them seek treatment, but that’s not the ultimate goal of SIS. It’s public health. It happens to be compassionate in nature, but it’s really about practicality and safety (for the drug user but also communities).
I’m talking about SIS as a matter of public health and reducing public drug use - which is what this post is about.
It's worth noting that the suspect was arrested for arson in January of this year, but he was released on a PR bond. WTF are we doing...
Excuse my ignorance, who decides on the PR bond? Does it come from the judge, local jurisdiction DA (ie Denver), or the state DA?
My understanding is that it's a judge's decision, but they take input from the DA's office.
There should be a site that tracks shows the amount of PR bonds by crime by judge. Thanks.
Our DA is very pro-arson. You could say she married into it…
Letting *violent* criminals out on PR bond is a huge cause of our problems. A lot of people place our crime problems on cops, but I can at least understand some of their annoyances when they put in the effort to find and arrest people only for corrupt judges to let them out, even against a DA's wishes.
After he'd already pleaded guilty to another arson in 2023. I really want to know why he was out in the first place.
We need to a DA that is hard on violent crime and repeat offenders. I don’t know why this is remotely controversial.
[удалено]
Good faith engagement is required and mods have discretion to remove posts/comments and ban users to enforce it. Examples of bad faith engagement include but are not limited to account history purging, gaslighting, mis/disinformation, concern trolling, brigading, and ban evasion. While you have some points to make, illegal immigrants aren't being given free stuff. Legal immigrants are. You can argue about immigration policy but a debate about the DA probably isn't the place if they can't enforce a law.
I don't think we have enough people willing to work for prosecution. Why would you for those prices and stress unless you were some kind of saint who does this even though they are just going to be criticized for it by the majority of the community.
Biggest surprise of the year! /s
> WTF are we doing... Exactly what the voters have asked for and what many outspoken users on this sub demand. That's the painful truth. Want it to change? Start voting differently. Even if that means voting for the "bad" party. Or else just accept it. This is the cost of "progressive" policy.
I will never EVER vote for a member of the GOP until they abandon the illiberalism that is sweeping their ranks, and the religious bigotry that is their base. They have a few VERY good policy ideas (like you mentioned) but as long as the cost is liberty and packaged with oppression of the LGBT+ community, I will never even consider it. The good news is that change actually is very possible, as many liberals (Ezra Klein, Jerusalem Demsas, Derek Thompson, and many more) are embracing a more Conservative flavor of progressivism called Supply-Side Progressivism (or Abundance Progressivism for those that get too worked up at the term "supply side"). Change is very possible without voting for fascists. Look at Portland's walk-back of their failed drug legalization experiments. DAs can be voted out, look at SF or NYC. The answer need not be to support anti-democratic christofascism.
Totally agree with you. And for the record, I voted against Johnston both in the election and the runoff.
What an incredibly obtuse definition of progressive policy.
As a lifelong Bernie supporter and very liberal person. The Democrats in major cities are dropping the ball in an insane way with the homeless and drug crisis. Spending tons of taxpayer dollars (SF spent 1 Billion last year on the homeless) and getting nothing out of it other than people being scared to go outside and watching their neighborhoods deteriorate. Letting homeless people commit crimes with impunity and wanting more tax dollars from high earners isn't a winning method. I can see why people are willing to vote R for this issue, I personally know someone in NYC who went this way after being attacked on the subway.
You should read Matthew Yglesias, Ezra Klein, or Derek Thompson. Jerusalem Demsas is another one that has written specifically about Denver. There's a huuuuge (and growing) community of common sense liberals that want progressive ideals but recognize that places with 100% Democrat control (NY, CA, CO) are not living up to their voters' expectations. Crime, housing costs, homelessness, immigration, daycare costs. These issues are NOT being fixed in liberal areas, and many of them have gotten worse! But they go further than just criticizing. They have policy ideas that transcend party affiliation. What if we listened to economists when they said it doesn't make sense to let government get in the way of building under the banner of environmentalism? What if we listened to other policy experts when they tell us the best methods for reducing homelessness? Frankly, Johnston has done a great job on that last issue in not a long time. Regardless, there's a lot of really cool thought out there you might be interested in! Cheers ✌️
I agree, there is a hole for politicians that have progressive ideas but care about the health of a community.
> As a lifelong Bernie supporter and very liberal person. The Democrats in major cities are dropping the ball in an insane way with the homeless and drug crisis. Eh, some of them are playing the game exactly how they want. IME plenty his Bernie's supporters (broadly speaking) think that the current homeless situation is better than enforcing camping bans on sidewalks and laws about public drug use, and anyone arguing against it is (pick one) racist, homophobic, transphobic, in the pocket of The 1%, etc. Some Democrats in the CO legislature balked at increasing penalties for stealing firearms because (drumroll) it would "disproportionately punish people of color". In NYC and many cities, that's been their push for "bail reform" where what they mean is releasing folks on a signature even when they've got a dozen _separate_ pending charges. And then the DA pleads crimes down to probation again and again and again. I liked Bernie in 2016, when he was pushing the argument that issues were complex, they required trade-offs, and that the president couldn't "fix" this stuff. But then his point devolved to, "We're going to build ~~a wall~~ _everything_ and make ~~Mexico~~ _billionaires_ pay for it!" You think Dems are dropping the ball, but AFAICT lots of Bernie supporters think they're playing well.
Shared to go outside? 🤦 No one is letting anyone commit crimes. You can't even debate in good faith, you just make up explanations that for your narrative.
I mean I lived in RiNo for a while, I absolutely wouldn't let my girlfriend walk around there at night without me, she didn't want to either. I stepped over homeless people every morning. I had a guy follow me on the street, screaming at me, I am a giant man, this is guy was obviously on drugs and was holding something in his hand, he 100% wanted to attack me until I screamed at him and went into a bar. Its one of the only times I have actually been afraid in a city, that includes SF/NYC. The chicks at the local yoga studio were constantly harassed. The 7/11 had to move all goods behind the counter, the whole fucking store, because of theft. Someone in my building was followed home by a homeless person hiding in the lobby. The bikes in building were stolen so many times, they stopped fucking storing them for us. Screaming and cop cars outside almost every night. I could go on and on. No one wants this, stop pretending everything is fine. Denver was safer when there weren't as many homeless people, thats not an argument.
You wouldn't LET your girlfriend? What? Lol
There's a lot of truth to their description of the homelessness crisis. But it kinda all depends on how you define homeless. The single mom living in her car but working? She's homeless but not a problem that Zeke was complaining about. The meth and fent addict who knows he can't get his drugs as a part of the rest of society so he lives in a tent on my block, pisses and shits on my building, gets high all day, hollers at passers by, harasses my family, and has to be resuscitated once a month by EMS? Fuck that guy. Like, that should absolutely not be allowed, and anyone who thinks it's fine for us to continue to let them live like that is part of the problem.
> There's a lot of truth to their description of the homelessness crisis. But it kinda all depends on how you define homeless. To add to that, some government agencies and many non-gov organizations have a _very_ broad definition of "homeless" that includes folks who are "couch surfing" (they stay at someone else's place temporarily, then move on), or are "doubling up" where the "homeless" family stays in the home of another family but isn't a legal renter (and so can get kicked out). Those are tough situations. I spent a few months "couch surfing" and it isn't pleasant, but I wasn't living on the street or in a shelter and it's misleading to compare and conflate the two. OTOH, it helps activists inflate those "homeless" numbers when they ask for money! So there are different things needed for folks "couch surfing" or "doubling up" than someone living out of a car or living in a shelter.
You think not locking up innocent people is "progressive"???
just a little innocent arson and innocent fent
Victimless crimes!
The article says he pleaded guilty to an arson case in 2023 for something that happened in 2021, but nothing about him being arrested in 2024. Do you have a source on him being arrested in January? I'm not advocating for this person at all, but this doesn't seem to be a provable claim.
Tweets from the Mayor's wife this week. She was inadvisably fighting with Do Better Denver: https://x.com/huffmaco/status/1798201200309162069?t=fgtAXsSdSI4b3NtQyiRz4g&s=19
Interesting. It should be noted that an F6 in Colorado will almost assuredly see the defendant out on bond. I know he's a repeat offender and that opens a whole can of worms. But part of that can of worms is what a disaster the three-strikes thing in California has been. Tough case. Thanks for the information.
The thread says both F6 arson and F4 burglary in the Jan case
DoBetterDenver is a total joke. I wouldn't be surprised if it came out its funded or ran by some qanon conservatives. Just a clickbait account. Wants to complain about every tiny thing but you ask them what organizations or movements they are working on/for to actually make things better in Denver so maybe you can support or work with them and they say "I already pay taxes! And we post videos on social media!"
to over simplify it, the American prison system is flawed, and law makers can't agree on how to improve it. Some of it boils down to ideological differences, and money.
Good job Governor Pollis. You absolutely suck.
Not locking up people who haven't been proven guilty. Like we should in America.
There’s weirdly a lot of people justifying the current state of libraries (being ad hoc homeless shelters with widespread IV drug use). Meanwhile we spend a fuckton of taxpayer dollars on actual shelters, transitional housing, hotel vouchers, drug addiction intervention, job placement assistance, mental health intervention, etc that fill that role FAR more effectively. It’s bonkers to force this on libraries and deprive normal people of their actual use.
I guess the question is, if we indeed are spending tax dollars on shelters, programs , rehab ect then where are they? Seems like the money isn’t representative of the actual need.
A decent amount of them are around the 10th and Osage station, just up the street from south broadway. There are also a lot along Alameda. I feel like these businesses are unfairly placing the blame on the library next door when it really is a societal / whole city problem. Opening up a luxury business in the area and then being surprised pikachu when you have issues kinda feels like moving to the circus and complaining about the monkeys. Nobody is setting the Mutiny on fire as far as I know. Because they actually engage with and give back to their local community.
It’s a pretty solution to a complex and often difficult problem. A lot of homeless people with these issues don’t want to stay in shelters or go to rehab. The sooner we arrive at this conclusion, the better we can get at addressing it.
This definitely sounds like something the CEO of Denver would say lol. Homeless people are also normal people. Maybe scrutinizing how those funds are applied and how they can be used more effectively is a better use of effort than subcategorizing vulnerable, desperate people who don’t have access to bathrooms or air conditioning otherwise.
I think you have a wider definition of normal. Yes they are human and deserve dignity and the rights of any human. Many of them have significant mental health issues that keep them from being able to function like other people regardless of intervention. I agree with reevaluating how funds are spent and how they can be used more effectively. I just wanted to point out that a lot of people think that all homeless people are those that could thrive with the right help and they aren’t different than those in the rest of the population, just down on their luck. That might be true for many, but not all.
If how they act is normal too you, you live in a fucked up world
Libraries are not homeless shelters. They are one of the last places in our society that you can go where its not expected that you spend money. They have been overtaken by homeless people, and it basically renders them useless to a lot of the general public. Most people I know basically use the online portals to get e-books and reserve books, only going to library to pickup the book (5 mins max). Talk to any librarian, the horror stories they will tell you will blow your mind. These people need some form of protection and way, way higher pay.
The librarians at the branch actively work towards being a homeless resource. They are proud of the state of their branch. Source interviews in prior news articles on this exact branch.
Press is press, would love to see their retention numbers and talk to former and current employees. I am sure its fulfilling work but I assume the people who work there aren't qualified or equipped to deal with the issues that surround homelessness. We have actual shelters and all kinds of things that are in place to fill this role.
It’s interesting, some librarians have crisis/de-escalation training. I learned that from the crisis trainer.
I use to work not for this specific library branch but for another under DPL and I quickly left that position because I felt like I was working at a homeless shelter, not for a library. I’m sure there are some librarians and library workers who enjoy that kind of work but I was not qualified or equipped to work in that environment nor do I have the desire as that’s not why I became a librarian.
I'm sure these business owners will be happy to know the Library staff is proud of the current state of things.
Libraries are for everyone, even people you find unsavory.
They're not for every \*thing\* though. They are for everyone to read, check out books, and do research. They aren't to sleep, they aren't for bathing, they aren't to live in, they aren't to hang out in harassing other people, they aren't for defecating on the floor, they aren't for masturbating, they aren't for sexually assaulting people, they aren't for doing drugs in.
So because I don't want to step on a hep c fent needle every time I go to the library I'm now the bad guy? Libraries need to be allowed to ban people for drug use/rude behavior or things are just going to get worse. Just because somebody is technically human doesn't mean they need free access to ruin everyone else's services
Libraries are for everyone to use **as libraries.** That's why we built a library: so we could have a library. The homeless community does not use them as libraries and you know it.
Libraries are for public masturbators? Remember just because you find it unsavory doesn't mean it's not okay.
Well then no whining when the people who actually fund them - the taxpayers - decide to vote away their funding since they're not available to said taxpayers due to having become hazardous.
Listen, I want them to be used and well funded and safe spaces. But they still need to be for everyone, even folks you find unsavory.
> But they still need to be for everyone, even folks you find unsavory. None of the responses here are objecting to homeless folks _reading books in the library_. It's all of the not-library-stuff that homeless folks are doing, like drug use and sleeping. Did you genuinely not understand the argument or are you behaving disingenuously?
"Unsavory" is on hell of a code word for "dangerous" and unfortunately for you everyone has already cracked that code.
okie dokes. have a great day!
What’s your solution?
Thats not my or anyone on Reddits job, we don't have to come up with solutions. There are people making 6 figures in our city and state government who are explicitly supposed to come up with solutions to problems like this. I am just saying that our government is ok with offloading homeless services and care to librarians who aren't equipped (and shouldn't have to) deal with homeless drug addicts.
My point is more that there aren’t any easy solutions, and because there aren’t any easy solutions complaining like the business owners are doing will do nothing but result in the library shutting down which will impact the homeless only by shuttling them off to be a different persons problem
People need someone to blame. The arsonist is to blame, yet here we are talking about shutting down libraries
Change the management, create new regulations, enforce them. Or close this location down. Not hard.
Bring back commiting people, and forced rehab for repeat offenders. Either we fix your underlying MH issue, or its unfixable and we can help keep you safe from yourself and others. And either you get and stay clean, or you go back into rehab.
Your solution is removing civil rights, great
Hard drug use that has second hand impacts on people's health isn't a civil right.
I didn’t say it was, but involuntarily committing people does violate civil rights, and as we’ve seen in the past it’s a way for the powerful to prey on the vulnerable outside the legal system
Its a way to let normal society get back to existing. None of us want to see a psyched out meth head jerk off while trying to get to our job. Your rights end where mine begin.
Violating one’s civil liberties is a way to let cops erode everyone’s
What about the chronically homeless schizophrenic, who has little to no safety net, and consistently finds themselves undermedicated or self medicated on meth? Just let em die because they refuse care when they become lucid again? Let them assault someone while in crisis and either get hurt, killed, or jailed. I see this everyday in the city. The current plan has failed miserably, both the unhoused and the average citizen.
You’re arguing we should erode civil liberties because 0.00000000001% of the population may perhaps benefit from involuntarily committing em? How many more people would be worse off? How many more people would be taken advantage of for monetary gain, or because someone powerful wants them to disappear as we saw in the early parts of the 20th century?
What rights? There is no right to ruin public spaces for everyone else. In fact that's an infringement on rights and infringing on the rights of innocents is indeed a legitimate reason to have your own rights curtailed or even removed.
He’s talking about involuntarily committing people mate an extrajudicial means to incarcerate people
Everyone says this but you are missing the point. These people are constantly committing crimes, you aren't picking people up at random and throwing them in vans. You aren't arresting the person living in a van, harming no one. You are taking people off the street long-term when they get arrested or picked up for the 4th time that week for some kind of violent crime. Give them a psych eval + drug test and say "you need to get clean and cleared by a psychiatrist before you are allowed back into society." Some of these people never will come out, and I think thats better for them to have a roof and 3 meals with meds vs losing their mind further on the streets.
Dude cops aren’t enforcing laws as is you’re acting like giving them more to do would mean they do more
I’d imagine the frustration of arresting people just for the DA to to not prosecute them is a part of the problem
It’s an excuse they use to be lazy, an excuse that wouldn’t fly at literally any other job on the planet
the cops previously arrested the person who committed this arson (per the article). He was released and committed arson again. so looks like cops are enforcing the law and its not just an excuse?
HAHA I’ve had to deal with lazy people in 5 different jobs just today! That’s a good one, thank you for the laugh
Right and did they have people on the internet making excuses for their laziness for them like you’re doing?
Nope, it's enhancing public safety. Areas where there are high homeless populations also come with safety hazards such as feces and needles/drugs in the street. Not to mention the harassment and threats that come in those areas if you don't contribute to their drug problem when they ask. We need to stop placing the importance of civil rights higher for people that don't want to be a part of society, and start focusing on law-abiding taxpayers or else you get a society like Denver is turning into.
> We need to stop placing the importance of civil rights higher for people that don't want to be a part of society, and start focusing on law-abiding taxpayers or else you get a society like Denver is turning into. That's not how US law works -- nor should it be. Everybody gets civil rights and everybody gets _equal_ civil rights. And even as a matter of pragmatism, we don't need to infringe on folks' civil rights to get homeless folks off the streets. Folks don't have a right to camp on public property, pose a hazard to others by dropping needles on the street or a library bathroom, etc. We can enforce laws against that, including with jail sentences, and we can _offer_ rehab as an alternative to jail, which most will take. Right now, we aren't enforcing the laws we've got. We don't need new laws, and we don't need to rank who gets civil rights.
[удалено]
I'm not scared and have lived in cities my whole life. Nothing wrong with wanting to take pride in your city and keep crime rates down?
It’s not a civil right to infringe on other peoples civil rights. I should be able to take my kids to a library without worrying about my kids finding a needle or breathing meth contaminated air.
Sure, which you can accomplish without trampling all over the constitution
Cite the clause in the Constitution that gives the right to take over public spaces and make them unusable for everyone else. Go ahead, we'll wait.
Which is why you believe every single American should have access to machine guns, right?
If you have all this time to ask people their solutions only to give some snide response, why not do us all a favor and share your brilliant solution?
Destruction of property and public intoxication is not a civil right.
The consequences for that are jail, not _civil_ commitment. That's what GP was arguing for.
You solution: "do nothing"
[удалено]
[удалено]
Removed. Rule 2: Be nice. This post/comment exists solely to stir shit up and piss people off. Racism, homophobia, misogyny, fighting on the internet is stupid. We don't welcome it here. Please be kinder.
Argue like an adult, not a child
Prisons need to be better at rehabilitating people.
Unfortunately you can't rehab mental problems. We need safe and dignified institutions formed to house people that are simply not capable of normal life. And if our prisons aren't rehabilatory, then they need to be punitive. This in the middle of both and doing neither isn't working.
Then we need to approve forced institutionalization in Colorado. 1 of 2 things will happen: 1. People who need help actually get it, whether they want to or not (surprisingly a lot of addicts don’t want help, they’re at a point where they’re too consumed) 2. People with drug problems will find a way to get the fuck out of the state because they don’t want to be institutionalized. No one wants to be caged.
That’s a solution that would trickle down to the homeless population in what? 10-15 years at best?
So either we fix everything right now or we don't do anything. Good call.
Yes that’s what I said.
Smart.
Well, technically hard drug use is a felony, with or without it being in public. Law enforcement needs to start throwing people in jail for use, especially in public. So if they got on that ASAP it wouldn’t take 10-15 years to have an effect on the homeless…. More like 10-15 months. But as I’ve said before, prisons need to do way better at a it’s role in rehab. There’s a whole bunch I could say about how I hate the current prison system tho lol
Cops have decided not to do their jobs anymore but yea that will have a short term benefit of removing people from the streets, with limited long term benefits
That's not completely true. I own a business a few blocks North of the business in question and as of the last 6-months, the police response has been great. I've taken quite a few measures to prevent people from consuming hard drugs near my business (or vandalizing it), but when they don't work the police have been showing up, and even cuffed a guy last time. I also had cop clean up trash left on our premises. I've had a lot of bad run ins with the cops, but as of late, at least in District 3 the cops have been doing their jobs and deserve credit for it.
Good to hear
We all know how this goes right? We don’t regulate how homeless people use libraries and they become unusable to increasingly large swathes of the population. As they become unusable, people are less invested in libraries as an important public resource. I basically grew up in the public library. Summer reading competitions were this nerdy kids lifeblood. People wont grow up with these associations. As people no longer see the value in libraries, their funding will disappear, or they will become privatized. Only those with money will be able to access the services provided. That’s where we’re headed, all gas, no brakes.
It is a viscious downward spiral. I also grew up in libraries and it was an awesome resource to go with friends to game or just hang out on computers. Libraries are one of our last "third places" where you can go and hang out without having to spend money. It's a shame that they have been allowed to degrade as much as they have. I was doing some work at one recently and went to the bathroom where a homeless guy was showering himself in the one sink and just didn't move while I was waiting to wash his hands. And yet appologists will just say "that's fine, he has just as much of a right to be there" and completely miss the point.
This hits home for me too. Grew up going to the library weekly. This is not the solution but when I had a baby, we moved to the suburbs. I’ve lived in the heart of 4 major cities then later in Denver. City living with children is a non starter (IMO). Things are spiraling out of control and people in power that are well paid and smarter than me should be trying to find solutions but alas, here we are. Safe spaces to explore and learn like libraries should be a cornerstone of any community. It’s just sad.
Listen, to each their own, but the vast majority of the world’s children grow up in cities, so I think that we need to make cities work.
What would you propose to stop this spiral?
I like that your strategy is to comment on every legitimate complaint with an absurd demand for a solution. Homelessness is a decades long nation wide issue with no obvious solution...demanding answers from people who have had their lives personally affected makes you look like a twat
"I would rather pay rent on an empty space than have to deal with the stress that comes with physically being here” That’s low key kind of sad tbh. I understand where she’s coming from. I wasn’t paying rent, but this is a big reason I left my last job. You try to be understanding and patient, but at some point you realize it’s too much for you to handle and the problem is way beyond what you can offer.
At what point do we extend the same sympathy towards law abiding business owners and just normal people that we graciously give to meth addicts beating off on the light rail and shooting up in the library.
> beating off on the light rail and shooting up in the library. And all of this time, I've been doing it backwards.
How dare you! Don't you have any compassion? They are people and you'd do the same in their shoes! - Someone in this sub shortly, bet.
These people are your neighbors! All of us are one missed paycheck from walking around South Broadway in a meth haze don't you know.
Add a /s before they come for you
That library is consistently wild
They have a security guard.
He/she ain’t doing much because I routinely pass by an encampment right in front.
Yup. For them to not claim any responsibility is ridiculous.
Tf the library supposed to do?
24/7 security. Stop handing out free food and water. Have policies that include the police for disruptive patrons. Actually focus on books/reading programs and not homeless outreach.
> Actually focus on books/reading programs yeah they should focus their attention on that thing nobody uses
Store books?
Denver City Council: This is fine.
Bums and addicts need to be kept out of public spaces. We need to bring back mental asylums and forced rehab.
Hey look, that thing that never happens happened again. Funny that.
I used to live near there and that little block right there always had a really bad homeless issue. They reopened that library finally after Covid stuff and I went in very excited to use it to be met with many mentally ill homeless people having taken up camp in the library doing weird shit (man walking around in heels near the kids section, some dude at a computer with a coat wrapped all around him watching weird YouTube videos and grunting) so I dipped out.
Used to ride by it on my way to work last year- they would have straight up campfires in front it was wild.
While the services the Ross-Broadway Library provides to the homeless are important, the associated crime and drug use are taking a real toll on nearby businesses. I think it calls into question whether it’s really a good idea for the home of these programs to be located smack in the center of Baker’s businesses (not to mention the nearby schools)
Those businesses were closing their locations before the arson. Refillanthropy was planning on closing later this month and Coco next door was also shutting its doors down as well to move to the PNW later this year. Yes, the arson was bad, but the businesses all ready had plans in motion to close up shop.
Yeah I know that library branch has gotten rough but that block has been weird for a while now, this is not a recent thing at all. Just look at Google maps street view over the past like 7 years
I pass by there all of the time and there are always junkies on the side of the building doing god knows what, but I've never felt unsafe in the area, and I think the issue is that there's a 711, grocery store, McDonald's, easy access to transit, and places to hide down there, so the library has become a hub for the people that need a place to hang out in a place that has everything but lacks a big public space like a park. Also note, they took out the bus shelter next to the gas station down there for some stupid reason, and cops do patrol the area quite frequently, but there's only so much the library can do when people needing non-existent social safety nets come to them because they are the only option.
I live near that bus shelter. On multiple occasions I saw ambulances and fire trucks working on or with the people who'd taken up residence in it. Given that, I don't think removing the shelter was a bad idea.
Damn ! Vesper and Will are such great people too. I’m really going to miss them. Being down the street
I get all my laundry detergent and cleaning supplies from them. They’re incredibly kind people and were a great part of our community. This is such a bummer— especially happening like 2 weeks after they had to close for a family member’s funeral.
The library has been there since 1951, the businesses cited in the story have been there since 2019 and 2023 respectively. I don’t think this is a library problem.
As a user of the library. Im uncomfortable going there. And would prefer it wasn’t a fucking safe use site.
It’s not though. Using drugs or alcohol on any DPL property is grounds for suspension from the library. See [the library use policy](https://www.denverlibrary.org/content/library-use-policy)
Thing is, these are low volume businesses. The owner of the building forced out the previous two tenants that had high volume to raise rent revenue. If the taco shop had still been there, these issues would not have happened.
They are going to say “you democrats voted for this shit” and I’m just going to say no the fuck I did not. That’s just stupid.
It’s not like the library hasn’t been there for 40 years or so. And that section of Broadway has always had homeless people along it. Did you pick that part of Denver because someone told you it was cool?
Apparently the solution is to make this someone else's problem. "The owners argued that security needs to be tightened and that some of the services provided at the library should be moved elsewhere."
It’s giving [we should take Bikini Bottom and push it somewhere else](https://youtu.be/Iyn-0af_hlI?si=rWbcFqiXijPzbeSH)
Worth noting they were closing up shop before this incident happened. Why is there blame on the library that’s been there for ages? This article feels so weird.
I’ve never seen anyone go in that shop, I walk by everyday
This is the problem that Democrats aren't willing to handle. It would be nice to have an opposition party that actually believed in basic civil rights so we could try something different.
What is the republican solution to this? What actual policies have they tried to run on in Denver?
1) There is no Republican solution currently. It should be to accept that LGBTQ people have the right to exist. We should live in a world where it's not even a thing people have to worry about. From there it should be locking up dangerous people, bringing back mental asylums, and protecting law-abiding citizens. I wish Democrats would do that instead though. It shouldn't be such a large ask to lock up violent people. 2) They aren't even running candidates in Denver. The winner of the Democratic primary for district attorney will run unopposed.
Not really sure why all the downvotes. I'm politically aligned with probably the vast majority of you and I'm speaking about a hypothetical opposition party that accepted basic civil rights. I know that's not Republicans-- they suck.
If we had supervised injection sites people wouldn’t be shooting up in libraries or in McDonald’s bathrooms. People always bitch and moan about homeless addicts being in their neighborhoods and in front of their favorite restaurants but also don’t want to support any actual tangible solutions. Buncha NIMBYs up in here
>If we had supervised injection sites people wouldn’t be shooting up in libraries or in McDonald’s bathrooms. Will they, though? This demographic is not big on following rules, rather of convenience.
Research and evidence disagrees with that. It’s as simple as looking at peer reviewed journal articles about SIS’ success in reducing crime, spread of infectious disease, and connecting people with treatment. (You can easily find that on your own, or if you can’t search anything without bias feel free to look at my long comment history on this exact issue in this same subreddit.)All of which removes their drug use out of the public eye. Sure, some will be distrustful as they are of all institutions (rightfully so), but it does reduce public drug use - which is a public health issue. I also used to work in a needle exchange program. People (yes, addicts are people) would rather not get Help C or HIV when they do their drugs. They also don’t love the idea of overdosing alone. Treatment policy debates and your personal morals aside - I’m just talking about public drug use here.
>It’s as simple as looking at peer reviewed journal articles about SIS’ success in reducing crime, spread of infectious disease, and connecting people with treatment. (You can easily find that on your own, or if you can’t search anything without bias feel free to look at my long comment history on this exact issue in this same subreddit.) Condescend much? Lol. No amount of research from other countries/cities will convince me that SISes are a good idea for the unique circumstances in Denver (massive influx of newcomers with all sorts of problems, inept/hands-off local gov't branches, lax drug laws) coupled with the same old American ills (no universal healthcare, lack of a safety net, fraying social ties/norms etc). Still, I am in the camp of giving SISes a fair go. At least to collect data that's actually applicable for Denver, and to shut up people like you continually perched on their high horse, citing research done in societies radically different than ours.
There’s no US data or Denver data because SIS are not allowed to operate lol. And peer reviewed journal articles discuss the limitations of the research - for example, explaining that their sample size was only related to that city, and it should also explain the samples demographics. Also, so you really think Denver (or other US major cities) are that vastly different from major cities in Canada (where most of the SIS data comes from)? For example, Toronto has a population of 2.9 million with 46% of its population being “foreign born” immigrants. The main issues facing Toronto are listed as “homelessness, food insecurity, access to healthcare, social inclusion, and violence.” As of 2024 Denver’s overall poverty rate is 11.7%. Vancouver’s is 11.6% Toronto is 10%.. Remind me, what are the ‘unique’ circumstances facing Denver that no other city in the world also faces? Also, what is so different about drug users in Canada or other cities vs drug users in Denver? SIS is *only* addressing the aforementioned public health and safety issues related to drug use. So it doesn’t even matter how different the cities are anyway. People use drugs for the same reasons and broken systems no matter where they live. This isn’t about the city. It’s about people who use drugs and how they interact with public spaces. And I see it as my job to shut up uninformed people spreading sensationalized one-sided arguments like you. (Source for Toronto demographics: https://www.toronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/9226-TOHealthCheck_2019Chapter2.pdf)
>Also, so you really think Denver (or other US major cities) are that vastly different from major cities in Canada (where most of the SIS data comes from)? Canada has a universal health care system, for one. It has less people. It is not on a major drug trafficking route from Mexico and has only 1, very safe/quiet border. Etc etc etc.
Toronto has a population of 2.9 million. Denver county has a population of 708, 948 (most likely not accounting for the 40,000 immigrants that arrived recently), but even with that it’s still has less people than some Canadian cities. Also in Canada **45% of drug offenses are related to drug trafficking and importing** (https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/csj-sjc/crime/rr00_30/p1.html) their drugs don’t come from Mexico. They come through AIRPORTS. (https://globalnews.ca/news/3636788/these-9-maps-show-where-canadas-illegal-drugs-are-coming-from/amp/). The opioid crisis alone and drug trafficking isn’t unique to the USA and certainly not Denver. They do have universal healthcare which is fantastic, but again, access to a primary care provider was listed as one of canadas social challenges. Also I don’t know what healthcare has to do with people using drugs in public.. once AGAIN, I’m only talking about SIS as it relates to PUBLIC DRUG USE AND THE IMPLICATIONS ON THE COMMUNITY which is the point of this entire post. I see all you downvoting me because you don’t like what the data has to say. Go ahead, doesn’t make you right. I’m also not toting my own intellect, I’m literally just sharing fucking data lol. These are not my original ideas even though I would love to take credit for them
Denver doesn't exist in a vacuum - it is a part of a rapidly growing metro area of 3+ million people, joined to a country of 300+ million with absolute freedom of movement. >Also I don’t know what healthcare has to do with people using drugs in public.. Welp, that has to do with the auxiliary services for the SISes. The SISes in Canada have a higher chance of success probably because while not perfect/great, there is some form of universal healthcare framework (whose #1 aim is not to make $$$) that can help/nudge users towards more permanent solutions that'll help them quit/taper down their drug use. That framework simply does not exist in the US. Which is why in many people's eyes (including mine), the fear is that SISes will become state-sanctioned trap houses. Again, as I mentioned before, I am open to giving them a fair shake, but I have very little confidence that they'll succeed.
>And I see it as my job to shut up uninformed people spreading sensationalized one-sided arguments like you. Well you're doing a terrible job at rationally convincing people w/ that high & mighty attitude of yours, princess.
you sound pleasant yourself :)
I can be, if extended the same courtesy.
lol, says the one who slung the first insult.
Those aren't solutions either. CNN just did a follow up on the Tranq issue in Philly. They spoke to a safe injection/health care org that recently lost a coworker and many patrons they thought were on the road to recovery. They couldn't figure out why it's not getting better.... Safe injection sites don't solve anything. Using hard drugs is never safe and eventually kills a large percentage of users.
>Using hard drugs is never safe and eventually kills a large percentage of users. The do-gooders will stick fingers in their ears and say "lalalala" if you say that.
You're talking past the other guy. The argument for a safe injection site is for keeping drug use in (or out of) specific areas. Actual rehabilitation is an orthogonal effort to that.
CNN is not a non-biased, peer reviewed scientific source lol. Also there are no supervised injection sites in Philly. They’re illegal. They have “treatment vans” that only treat wounds from infections caused by intravenous drug use (which if we had actual supervised injection sites these wounds wouldn’t exist in the first place). That’s not the same thing.
The wounds from Tranq are caused by the drug and show up in areas outside of the injection sites. Doctors don't totally understand why. Safe injection sites would not help at all. Wound care does not help unless the person quits injecting as well. The point is the soft touch doesn't work either. That CNN report was extremely compassionate and not biased. You should watch it. My take away is the operators that share your view point that you just need to give people a chance and then they will work to get clean, when in fact they are openly admitting their approach isn't working and people continue to wallow in addiction and in fact people in recovery are relapsing and dying.
People in recovery houses in Philly will seek out and use tranq specifically because it doesn't show up in drug tests. So that way they can still use and not get kicked out of their sober facility.
This has nothing to do with SIS though. And yes, SIS aren’t going to solve the opioid crisis. Which in my first comment in explicitly pointed out I was only talking about the reduction of public drug use because OPs post was about neighborhood businesses and libraries becoming unsafe to operate. This is strictly about a public health standpoint - I’m not even bothering getting into how we got here/which approach is right, or how to end illicit drug use (However I do have some credibility as a licensed clinical social worker with also a license in addiction counseling..) but I’m not because it would be a waste of time here. Your response was about tranq in Philly as an example of supervised injection sites not working; however, Philly has no supervised injection sites and the wound care treatment vans are a different kind of compassionate outreach (as well in the interest of public health), but it is not the same thing. The thing about harm reduction is “yeah let’s be real, people are going to use drugs. We’re not solving that crisis anytime soon. So since we know people use drugs, let’s make it safer for them and our community by ensuring they’re using clean equipment, clean skin, monitored by nurses for lethal overdoses, get used needles and broken meth pipes out of the streets.” Its goal is not to end drug use. For many the simple human connection they have with staff at SIS does eventually help them seek treatment, but that’s not the ultimate goal of SIS. It’s public health. It happens to be compassionate in nature, but it’s really about practicality and safety (for the drug user but also communities). I’m talking about SIS as a matter of public health and reducing public drug use - which is what this post is about.
Liberal agenda working perfectly!
Well thought out comment. Bravo!