Pueblo authorities tour homeless camps Friday along Fountain Creek
Pueblo area authorities checked out homeless camps Friday along Fountain Creek, with some significant differences from the more common homeless camp responses in Colorado Springs and El Paso County.
The campers were not evicted, and no crews came to clean up the camps, messy with tents, trash and other debris.
Authorities said Friday’s action was simply a welfare check of an unknown number of camps along the creek from the north end of Pueblo to the south end.
“A lot of them have no authorities down there (to monitor them),” said Sgt. Franklyn Ortega, of the Pueblo Police Department. “That might be a potential problem for people, and obviously it’s starting to be (a problem) up north (in Colorado Springs) with the hepatitis A outbreak they’re having. So we want to take care of these problems before they are bigger problems.”
The Pueblo County Health Department provided free shots of the hepatitis vaccine to several homeless people.
“If someone needs more care, we recommend them to places that provide it,” said Zak Van Ooyen, of the Health Department.
Ortega said the top objectives of the homeless outreach include determining how many camps exist and where they’re located, informing the homeless of services available to them and assessing the fire danger and environmental risk of the camps.
Authorities said they’re also informing campers about where property lines are, to avoid trespassing on private property; becoming more familiar with affected areas not controlled by any jurisdiction; preventing crime and working with nearby businesses to prevent future problems.
Police said the campers are not being evicted because they’re on private property, and it’s the property owner’s responsibility to decide whether to evict them.
It’s unclear whether the property owner plans to evict the campers or is even aware that the campers are there.
In addition, there’s currently no homeless shelter open in Pueblo. The Pueblo Rescue Mission is seeking donations to renovate its facility, and only a temporary warming shelter during cold weather is available.
As for trash at the camps, police said their code enforcement office is monitoring the situation.
A possible reason why the camps haven’t been cleaned is they’re in a remote, low-lying area east of Interstate 25 between the creek and railroad tracks, which is not clearly visible to most people.
Authorities said they check the creek area once a year beacuse that’s where most camps are.
The Pueblo Police and Fire departments, the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office, Pueblo County Health Department, the Beulah Fire Department, Colorado Parks and Wildlife and the Union Pacific and Burlington Northern/Santa Fe railroads conducted the homeless camp check.
The railroads are involved because camps are on or border railroad property; camps are commonly located on or near such property.
