They stood up one by one, some wearing the yellow T-shirts of the Colorado Springs Homeless Union, some with clerical collars, others in hoodies. Some held neatly typed speeches, some read from handwritten notes, and others shared unscripted emotions.
Their message was, for the most part, the same: Many were or had been homeless and, while Colorado Springs proposed allocating funding for the police department’s Homeless Outreach Team, which the homeless and their advocates consider heavy-handed, the fire department’s Homeless Outreach Program, which they like, and shelter bed operations, those weren’t what they were asking for.
They wanted to be able to use a bathroom or wash their hands before eating. They wanted “luxuries” like trash cans in parks so they can throw things away, rather than littering in the city they love and risking the outsized wrath of law enforcement and a fine they can’t afford to pay…