There has been a good deal of newsprint in the Herald about the homeless camps in and around Durango, and not a whole lot about what is being done or can be done about them. Our wise City Council seems to go round and round about these permanent visitors.
May they lie on the sidewalk in front of businesses or residences? May they scatter trash and excrement anywhere they wish? May they cause wildfire hazards and pollution in every bare spot in, around and outside the city? May they desecrate every legal and illegal camp site in the wilderness? May they accost people on the street for money to buy booze, cigarettes and drugs?
Sure! If you don’t allow all that, you’re infringing on their human and moral rights and certainly debasing them. As if by doing all of the above, they aren’t going a long way to debase themselves.
And you better pony up a bunch of extra tax money to buy them nice homes so they can trash even more property, and so the word will get out that Durango is a soft touch for every new squatter.
We’re allowing the ACLU and similar evil anti-American groups to dictate that we should all let this happen because these people “have their rights.” We’re so afraid of their threats to put law abiding citizens in jail for trying to maintain reasonable and decent laws, and to allow criminals from both inside and outside our borders to run things their way, that our city councils and state officials will keep rolling over and playing dead, because that’s the easy way out.
Norma Byrd
Durango
