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September 21
May 2
March 24
March 23
Homeless feel betrayed by verdict
March 19
March 17
March 16
March 14
December 10
November 28
Jeffrey John Hubert: Time slips away on streets
Beat on street among Denver's homeless is one of fear, defiance
Richard Steinmetz: Wary life among the 'clowns'
John Bryant & Katherine Livingston: Manhole cover for a bed
Keith Williams: Scars of street life
November 26
November 25
November 23
Murder suspect, 16, put in adult jail
LoDo not paralyzed by murders
November 22
Homeless shelters fill fast
November 21
LoDo rebirth disrupts street life rhythms
November 20
November 19
FBI profilers may help solve murders
Death takes many forms for homeless
'We have nothing to be afraid of'
November 18
New killings spread fear in homeless
November 15
November 12
November 10
November 7
November 5
October 31
Men felt lure of streets
October 30
October 29
October 28
Police ponder connections in four downtown slayings
October 27
October 24
October 9
October 7
September 30
September 18
September 9
As slums recede, homeless have fewer places to hide
By Carla CrowderDenver Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer
Some days Jeffrey Hubert wanders in on his own. Ruddy face, bushy charcoal beard, wry humor. Other days, Bob Cote must rustle Hubert out from a sewer pipe or under a bridge, to make sure he's OK. Cote runs Step 13, an unconventional shelter and rehabilitation program for homeless men. Hubert, a 15-year denizen of downtown's homeless haunts, is at the top of his wish list. "I'd rather drink than stay here. Bob doesn't understand that," said Hubert, 42. "The minute I go out that door I get a fifth of wine in me." As night fell Thursday, a day after the beheaded bodies of two transients were found in a field near Hubert's current sewer-pipe home, Cote believed he had won a temporary victory. His homeless friend was safe inside the Larimer Street shelter in Denver. He was drinking soda, smoking a cigarette. Cote let him call his mother in Iowa. Hubert's scattered life is much like those of hundreds of homeless people in lower downtown. As LoDo's renaissance swallows the slums, homeless people have fewer places to hide. Weedy fields and rail yards and abandoned warehouses are getting overrun by lofts, microbreweries, pavilions and plazas. Hubert used to camp along the South Platte River until cops became more aggressive in clearing that area. Then he slept under the old 38th Street viaduct until construction of the Park Avenue flyover past Coors Field forced him out. So he stays in a sewage tunnel near rail yards between 19th and 20th streets. "We now have big beautiful hotels and convention centers, which is great for the city," said Gerald Koch, social services secretary for the Salvation Army. "But the old slums are gone, and the individual that has been surviving in that kind of facility has nowhere to go." Step 13's Bob Cote sees it along Larimer and Lawrence streets. Cheap motels and flophouses, more than a hundred rooms total, used to be available above businesses. "They're being renovated. There's an art gallery in one," Cote said. Pasternack's Pawn Shop at 2119 Larimer rented out 20 upstairs rooms, each at $10 a night. "It was good accommodations for homeless people. We had it for 25 years," said Scott Pasternack, one of the owners. An electrical fire destroyed the building in December 1997. The Pasternacks rebuilt the downstairs shop, but the upstairs will not be reopened as a motel. It's not good business. "The property value is going sky high," Pasternack said. "It'll be offices or lofts or something." No one thinks this kind of substandard housing was a proper solution to homelessness. But it got some vulnerable people out of streets and alleys at night. Experts who've been dealing with the issue for years think the gentrification of Denver now forces many homeless people to compete for space. Territories are being redrawn. Housing costs are soaring. Together, these changes throw off the carefully choreographed rhythm of street life in Denver. Anger, fights and violence are results. "The general public tends to want simple answers," said Koch. "But there's not one category of homeless. There's a wide variety of problems. ... You look at most cities the size of Denver, they have more slum housing, more substandard housing. We have very little of that. What's left tends to be torn down, or turned into lofts. It puts a lot more pressure out there on the street." Plans have long been drawn up for the brushy field behind Union Station where the two beheaded bodies were found last Wednesday. The 24-acre site, owned by Trillium Corp., will be transformed into a ritzy mix of condos, townhouses, offices and stores. The two beheadings bring the number of homeless slayings this fall to seven. Police have made arrests in only one case, charging three young homeless people in the slaying of Melvin Washington, 47. Two of the three suspects and five other youths also are charged with attempted murder in assaults on two homeless men. Authorities blame fights over territory for some of the violence. Everyone has a theory. Cote acknowledges that his ideas are speculative. Similarities among the victims, however, lead him to believe a killer is stalking the homeless frail. "One thing they all had in common was they all drank. They were all very docile. They weren't very aggressive," said Cote, who knew the first five men killed. "Melvin was fairly large, but the rest of them, a 12-year-old could have taken care of." Many advocates for the poor say more subsidized housing and shelter space is needed during these economic boom times. They say rents have risen faster then wages, pushing people on the fringes into desperation. "They're a lot of single working guys who can't afford a place to live," said Ken Dove, director of the Salvation Army's Cross Roads Shelter, where the nightly population is up about 20 percent this year. Yet all the free housing in the world would not get some men out off the streets. These are the most severely mentally ill, often paranoid schizophrenics. They're scared of people, of the shelters' crowds. "They just don't want anybody to know them," Dove said. "I've gone out at 10 below and had guys not want to come in. We give them blankets and hot soup and that's all we can do." Advocates say it's wrong to expect government to fix Denver's homeless problem. Other people need to care. "It's not the government's sole responsibility to take care of the homeless, nor is it the government's responsibility to fund these programs," said Page Peary, director of Central Shelter, a nonprofit organization started 15 years ago by Central Presbyterian Church. "More importantly, it's the community's responsibility to set a tone, an attitude that we can do better to make street people reintegrated into society." About 400 men a year come through Central Shelter's rehab program. Many have job skills but have lost their grounding. The shelter teaches them to cope again. When Central Shelter opened, about 90 percent of its funding came from the city, Peary said. Now it's less than 15 percent. Business and foundations contribute. And clients with jobs pay $35 a week. There are small victories. Cote has seen the most frail alcoholics rise out of their cheap wine and dirty sleeping bags. Step 13 has room for 140 men. Everyone must work or go to school. No drugs or alcohol are allowed. A doctor comes in to dispense a medication that makes people ill when they drink. "Whether it's nine months or three years, when they leave here, they have the tools they need to get back into society," Cote said. And he does it all with no government money. Subsidies would complicate his program. "I'd have to have 20 counselors and 18 therapists and 35 people to type everything in triplicate," Cote said. Still, it's never easy. Jeffrey Hubert is constantly on his mind. Cote met him more than a decade ago. He learned that Hubert had family in Davenport, Iowa. One day his mother couldn't stand him hanging around the house drinking all day. She asked him to leave. He hopped on a truck bound for Denver and stayed. Sadly, he wouldn't stay at Step 13 last Thursday, not even with the threat of a murderer nearby. "I had a nice room for him, a TV in there and everything," Cote said. Soon after Cote left for the night, Hubert took off as well. Into the shadows. Back to his sewer pipe. Back to his bottle. Proof, Cote said, "You can't force anybody to stay." November 21, 1999
Some days Jeffrey Hubert wanders in on his own. Ruddy face, bushy charcoal beard, wry humor.
Other days, Bob Cote must rustle Hubert out from a sewer pipe or under a bridge, to make sure he's OK.
Cote runs Step 13, an unconventional shelter and rehabilitation program for homeless men.
Hubert, a 15-year denizen of downtown's homeless haunts, is at the top of his wish list.
"I'd rather drink than stay here. Bob doesn't understand that," said Hubert, 42. "The minute I go out that door I get a fifth of wine in me."
As night fell Thursday, a day after the beheaded bodies of two transients were found in a field near Hubert's current sewer-pipe home, Cote believed he had won a temporary victory. His homeless friend was safe inside the Larimer Street shelter in Denver. He was drinking soda, smoking a cigarette. Cote let him call his mother in Iowa.
Hubert's scattered life is much like those of hundreds of homeless people in lower downtown.
As LoDo's renaissance swallows the slums, homeless people have fewer places to hide. Weedy fields and rail yards and abandoned warehouses are getting overrun by lofts, microbreweries, pavilions and plazas.
Hubert used to camp along the South Platte River until cops became more aggressive in clearing that area. Then he slept under the old 38th Street viaduct until construction of the Park Avenue flyover past Coors Field forced him out. So he stays in a sewage tunnel near rail yards between 19th and 20th streets.
"We now have big beautiful hotels and convention centers, which is great for the city," said Gerald Koch, social services secretary for the Salvation Army. "But the old slums are gone, and the individual that has been surviving in that kind of facility has nowhere to go."
Step 13's Bob Cote sees it along Larimer and Lawrence streets. Cheap motels and flophouses, more than a hundred rooms total, used to be available above businesses.
"They're being renovated. There's an art gallery in one," Cote said.
Pasternack's Pawn Shop at 2119 Larimer rented out 20 upstairs rooms, each at $10 a night. "It was good accommodations for homeless people. We had it for 25 years," said Scott Pasternack, one of the owners.
An electrical fire destroyed the building in December 1997. The Pasternacks rebuilt the downstairs shop, but the upstairs will not be reopened as a motel. It's not good business.
"The property value is going sky high," Pasternack said. "It'll be offices or lofts or something."
No one thinks this kind of substandard housing was a proper solution to homelessness. But it got some vulnerable people out of streets and alleys at night.
Experts who've been dealing with the issue for years think the gentrification of Denver now forces many homeless people to compete for space.
Territories are being redrawn. Housing costs are soaring. Together, these changes throw off the carefully choreographed rhythm of street life in Denver.
Anger, fights and violence are results.
"The general public tends to want simple answers," said Koch. "But there's not one category of homeless. There's a wide variety of problems. ... You look at most cities the size of Denver, they have more slum housing, more substandard housing. We have very little of that. What's left tends to be torn down, or turned into lofts. It puts a lot more pressure out there on the street."
Plans have long been drawn up for the brushy field behind Union Station where the two beheaded bodies were found last Wednesday.
The 24-acre site, owned by Trillium Corp., will be transformed into a ritzy mix of condos, townhouses, offices and stores.
The two beheadings bring the number of homeless slayings this fall to seven. Police have made arrests in only one case, charging three young homeless people in the slaying of Melvin Washington, 47.
Two of the three suspects and five other youths also are charged with attempted murder in assaults on two homeless men.
Authorities blame fights over territory for some of the violence.
Everyone has a theory. Cote acknowledges that his ideas are speculative. Similarities among the victims, however, lead him to believe a killer is stalking the homeless frail.
"One thing they all had in common was they all drank. They were all very docile. They weren't very aggressive," said Cote, who knew the first five men killed.
"Melvin was fairly large, but the rest of them, a 12-year-old could have taken care of."
Many advocates for the poor say more subsidized housing and shelter space is needed during these economic boom times. They say rents have risen faster then wages, pushing people on the fringes into desperation.
"They're a lot of single working guys who can't afford a place to live," said Ken Dove, director of the Salvation Army's Cross Roads Shelter, where the nightly population is up about 20 percent this year.
Yet all the free housing in the world would not get some men out off the streets. These are the most severely mentally ill, often paranoid schizophrenics. They're scared of people, of the shelters' crowds.
"They just don't want anybody to know them," Dove said.
"I've gone out at 10 below and had guys not want to come in. We give them blankets and hot soup and that's all we can do."
Advocates say it's wrong to expect government to fix Denver's homeless problem. Other people need to care.
"It's not the government's sole responsibility to take care of the homeless, nor is it the government's responsibility to fund these programs," said Page Peary, director of Central Shelter, a nonprofit organization started 15 years ago by Central Presbyterian Church.
"More importantly, it's the community's responsibility to set a tone, an attitude that we can do better to make street people reintegrated into society."
About 400 men a year come through Central Shelter's rehab program. Many have job skills but have lost their grounding. The shelter teaches them to cope again.
When Central Shelter opened, about 90 percent of its funding came from the city, Peary said. Now it's less than 15 percent. Business and foundations contribute. And clients with jobs pay $35 a week.
There are small victories.
Cote has seen the most frail alcoholics rise out of their cheap wine and dirty sleeping bags.
Step 13 has room for 140 men. Everyone must work or go to school. No drugs or alcohol are allowed. A doctor comes in to dispense a medication that makes people ill when they drink.
"Whether it's nine months or three years, when they leave here, they have the tools they need to get back into society," Cote said.
And he does it all with no government money. Subsidies would complicate his program.
"I'd have to have 20 counselors and 18 therapists and 35 people to type everything in triplicate," Cote said.
Still, it's never easy.
Jeffrey Hubert is constantly on his mind. Cote met him more than a decade ago.
He learned that Hubert had family in Davenport, Iowa. One day his mother couldn't stand him hanging around the house drinking all day. She asked him to leave. He hopped on a truck bound for Denver and stayed.
Sadly, he wouldn't stay at Step 13 last Thursday, not even with the threat of a murderer nearby.
"I had a nice room for him, a TV in there and everything," Cote said.
Soon after Cote left for the night, Hubert took off as well. Into the shadows. Back to his sewer pipe. Back to his bottle.
Proof, Cote said, "You can't force anybody to stay."
November 21, 1999
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