Cost adding up to clean up homeless camps in Colorado Springs

Location after location in Colorado Springs, from Old Colorado City to the shadow of the Drake Power Plant, homeless camps have been asked to move on.

“It’s pointless,” Trig Bundgaard with the Coalition for Compassion in Action said.

Bundgaard said the unending cycle of dismantling camps, only to repeat the process a few weeks later isn’t working.

“These displacements are just a push,” Bundgaard said. “Push the problem down the road.”

Documents obtained from the City of Colorado Springs by KRDO NewsChannel 13 show just how much the city paid to clean up camps over the past six months. Between pay-outs to Keep Colorado Springs Beautiful, and Waste Management it totals $60,118.56.

“We’re going to keep after it to make sure that everyone has safe enjoyment of this beautiful environment in Colorado Springs,” Dee Cunningham with Keep Colorado Springs Beautiful said.

Cunningham said she doesn’t know what the solution is to the number of homeless camps.

The documents also show Keep Colorado Springs Beautiful’s contract with the city has increased $45,000 in 2018, to a total of $225,000.

“I don’t think we’re going to get slowed down or stopped. It is discouraging when we go to the same spots over and over,” Cunningham said.

What the $60,118.56 doesn’t include are all the man hours police and city workers put in to deal with the clean-ups.