Dear Kelly and Mike,
I love this city.
I want to talk with you about this city I like and a few of the people who live here. I desire you to fulfill some of SAME Cafe's good friends who live outdoors and talk with us about real options to homelessness, psychological wellness and addiction in a city that uses couple of authentic routes out of these problems. I want to share with you that when
Denver does a "homeless sweep," we at SAME Cafe see a rise in stress and anxiety and acting out of vulnerability among our good friends who lose whatever they own to a dump truck spent for by the city. When we as a city criminalize poverty, often individuals break things. (SAME's windows have actually been broken 4 times in the last month-- prior to that, it was only as soon as in seventeen years.).
I like this city.
I've strolled almost every block of downtown, Uptown, City Park and Cap Hill. I love the dumb damaged sidewalks but send out prayers for people in wheelchairs or walkers. I enjoy the gritty appeal of Colfax but wished we included more bike lanes for my banged-up fixie. I know the very best view of
Denver is from the
Denver Museum of Nature & & Science terrace, but that goose shit is almost a tripping threat in City Park in the spring.
I like this city that held me through a seminary degree, excommunication, homelessness, another academic degree from University of Colorado
Denver's School of Public Affairs, a gay marital relationship, a gay divorce and another gay marital relationship. When I was homeless at SAME Cafe and a possibility to begin my profession over at Urban Peak, I love this city that offered me healthy food. I enjoy having a beverage at the Thin Man on 17th Avenue (where I satisfied my 2nd, and probably last, hubby) and marveling at how lucky I am.
I love this city that broke me and offered me a possibility to begin over.
There is a problem with my story. My homelessness came at age 31, after I had an academic degree and understood how to work the system. I understood how to use my queer identity as a property and leverage my profession into not-for-profit language and get another possibility. But I still couldn't get a lease in
Denver when I had a great task because of the nine-month gap in my rental history. I needed to get assist from a member of the queer neighborhood, who actioned in and offered me a location to sleep up until I could use them as a proprietor referral.
I enjoy this city, however it would have killed me if I didn't have the networks of assistance that were built for me: graduate education, gay community members, a career I might develop from the ashes of my past, and a location to stay while I constructed.
Nobody can pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. Not even those of us who have bootstraps.
I like this city and I saw all the indications sprayed around
Denver that said "We can do better" when voters comfortably beat raising the city camping restriction in 2019.
So, let's do better. Let's construct a city that leverages the extraordinary wealth of
Denver to offer obvious paths to real estate, significant mental health reactions, and dependency care that actually works. WellPower (formerly MHCD) is doing unbelievable things for mental health. Food Bank of the Rockies, Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, MetroCaring, the Gathering Place and Urban Peak are doing unbelievable things for food access and homelessness. The STAR effort with the police actually worked!
We said "We can do better," so let's make it take place.
Let's begin with a cup of coffee at SAME Cafe and speak about solutions together. I'll have a fresh pot of Pablo's coffee brewed and some well-known SAME Cafe signature cookies out on Monday, June 5, at 4 p.m.
I love this city. Can we discuss how to make it work for everyone in it?
Brad Allen Reubendale, CEO, So All May Eat.
Westword.com often releases commentaries on matters of interest to the neighborhood on weekends. Have one youd like to send?
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