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I just wrote about homelessness in Colorado last week, and it popped back into the news this week. Denver’s Road Home and Common Ground did a survey that showed that 44 percent of Denver’s homeless people are at high risk for dying prematurely if they are left on the streets. To be classified as high risk for a premature death on the streets, homeless people had to meet one of the following criteria:
- more than three hospitalizations or emergency room visits in the last year
- more than three visits to the emergency room in the last three months
- age 60 or older
- cirrhosis of the liver
- end-stage kidney disease
- history of frostbite, immersion foot, or hypothermia
- HIV+/AIDS
- combination of mental illness, substance abuse, and a chronic medical condition
Last year, 155 homeless people died on Denver’s streets. The oldest was 74 and the youngest was three months old. They died of exposure, violence, accidents, and drug- and alcohol-addiction related causes such as kidney or liver disease.
As I’ve said before, it’s heartbreaking to have to turn a homeless person out of a self-storage unit in the middle of winter. We do rent to homeless people. Sometimes homeless keep their stuff in self-storage but live in a shelter, or live in a car. Our rent is much, much less than the rent for an apartment, and our units are clean and dry. But it’s not a good idea to sleep here for so many reasons. Self-storage units don’t have plumbing. Not all the units are heated, and with concrete floors and metal siding, they can get awfully cold in the winter and awfully hot in the summer. And it would be frighteningly easy for someone living in a self-storage unit to start a fire, just by cooking. Those are just a few of the reasons why we’re not zoned as apartments.
I was glad to find out that Denver has an emergency shelter plan for especially frigid winter nights. On very cold nights — most of Denver’s cold winter nights, in fact — Denver’s emergency overflow shelters open for business. The Salvation Army has an emergency overflow center at the Crossroads and the Lambuth Center, and at The Delores Project. I was glad to find out that there is something self-storage operators can do to help, when we find a homeless person trying to camp out in a unit. We can take the time to make a phone call or check with a local shelter, to help that person find a safe and legal place to sleep.
Denver’s Road Home maintains a list of resources for the homeless. If you know someone who is homeless or at risk for becoming homeless, print out this list and give it to that person. Or have them dial 2-1-1 for the homeless assistance hotline. You could end up saving a life.
Tags: Common Ground, Denver's Road Home, homelessness, self storage