Police post eviction notices at large homeless camp in Colorado Springs

(UPDATE)

Residents of a large illegal homeless camp in Colorado Springs learned Tuesday that they have two weeks to move out.

A day after a KRDO NewsChannel 13 report focusing on the camp, police posted notices in and around the camp southeast of downtown Colorado Springs.

The notices state that the camp will be cleaned Dec.11 and campers must leave or face fines in violation of the city’s anti-camping ordinance.

Stephen Wood, executive director of the community nonprofit group Concrete Couch, was at the camp Tuesday helping to notify residents.

“Many of them have trouble accessing resources that can help them, or they’re not interested, or they have some structural problem like mental illness that makes it really tough, and they may have moved three times in the last three weeks,” he said. “So I think at a certain point, people here are like, what does it matter? Nobody cares.”

Wood is trying to acquire part of the camp property to build a new headquarters.

“Several months ago, there were only 10 campers here when I was looking at the property and I tried to help them transition to something else,” he said. “But word got out and soon there were more than 100 campers here. That’s just too large for me to make a homeless program work. I’d like to see someone try to start a legalized homeless camp.”

(STORY FROM MONDAY, NOV. 26)

More than 100 people are believed to be occupying a tent city homeless camp just southeast of downtown Colorado Springs.

The camp is bordered by Shooks Run Creek and BNSF railroad tracks, which makes it much less visible than other camps and has grown as a result.

Most of the tents are on bluffs above the creek and many of the campers were previously evicted from other camps.

But as the camp has grown, it has developed the usual problem of trash, health concerns and disputes among campers.

Compounding the matter is the camp is on several parcels of private property and one of the owners hasn’t been determined.

“There are four parcels,” said police Lt. Mike Lutz, of the Homeless Outreach Team. “We thought the railroad may have owned one, but the railroad sold it. A parcel in the middle of the camp is in question because the owner died and we don’t know who inherited it. It’s the new owner’s responsibility to maintain it.”

Police said the other owners say they want the campers to leave, which puts officers in a touchy situation.

With the recent addition of bed space at the city’s two main shelters, police have said they can strongly enforce the city’s no-camping ordinance, but they have no authority to do so on the parcel in which ownership is unclear.

Police said they would rather work with the homeless to find them shelter instead of issuing citations to them.

Police plan to visit the camp this week and renew their efforts to convince the campers to leave.

Some campers said the camp offers several advantages — there are no restrictions on pets or living with an opposite-sex partner, campers can come and go as they please and they are less likely to catch colds or other illnesses while in a shelter.

A camper known as Caveman said he moved to the camp after being evicted from a nearby camp behind Rocky Top Resources.

“People wouldn’t mind this camp so much if residents kept their area as clean as I keep mine,” he said. “I clothe myself, I feed myself, I shelter myself and I clean up after myself. So I’m not using up resources. People on the streets never see me.”

Caveman, a Massachusetts native, said he chose to be homeless after his marriage failed and a physically demanding career left him disabled.

“Shelters are OK but I wouldn’t be allowed to have my woodworking tools,” he said.

Jason Harrison said he recently arrived at the camp after traveling from Texas with a friend, and plans to be homeless only temporarily. He shook his head in disappointment at some of the camp’s messy areas.

“This is what’s left when you keep pushing a people through,” he said. “This is what’s left. Look at it. The solution is not to just keep pushing them through. There’s a whole lot of turmoil and aftermath that goes with that.”