Temperatures had just dipped below freezing one night last week in Durango. Kristie Boughan, a 62-year-old woman living unhoused, sat under an exhaust vent that blows warm air behind the Strater Hotel.
Hotel staff members had called police about five minutes earlier. Several employees stood nearby, waiting for officers to arrive.
Kristie knows the drill: The Durango Police Department will show up, they will write her a ticket, and she will be on her way.
Until then, she remains firmly planted on the ground next to the exhaust vent. She wears a large green coat, jeans and a hoodie pulled over her head.
“I just want to stay warm,” she said.
Kristie has received more citations this year than anyone else in Durango, according to the DPD. From Feb. 20 through Dec. 8, she received 88 citations for trespassing, open containers of alcohol and illegal camping, among other charges, said Deputy Chief Brice Current.
“Many of us are concerned about her addiction and safety,” he said in an email to The Durango Herald. “We are doing everything possible to get her help.”
But police can do only so much.
They can’t take her to a shelter, because no shelters in Durango accept people like Kristie – who is perpetually homeless and enjoys her alcohol. They also can’t take her to jail, because most of her petty offenses don’t justify jail.
Instead, police issue one citation after another.
The barrage of tickets is not meant to make Kristie’s life more difficult, Current said. Rather, it’s an effort to send a message to service providers and Durango Municipal Court that more needs to be done to help this person, he said.
“We will not sacrifice humanity for convenience by allowing her to succumb to the elements,” Current said.
When police arrived Dec. 11 at the Strater Hotel, Officer Ethan Anderson asked Kristie a few basic questions about her well-being before writing her a ticket for trespassing.
After signing the ticket, Kristie complained of chest pains. Anderson helped her sit on the ground and radioed for paramedics. Medics put Kristie in an ambulance and headed for Mercy Hospital.
Health care workers are unable to comment about Kristie’s medical condition. But it is not uncommon for people experiencing homelessness or mental health problems to request medical services as a way to warm up, possibly in a hospital room, said Scott Scholes, EMS chief for Durango Fire Protection District.
“They’ll actually go as far as getting arrested in order to get a meal and a place to stay (in jail),” he said.
Two days later, Kristie was reported to be trespassing at another downtown business.
Police issued a citation.
As winter approaches, a greater number of Durango’s unhoused population is seeking warmth and refuge from below-freezing temperatures. For some, hotels and motels provide the perfect sanctuary.
The lodges are open 24/7, have bathrooms where people can freshen up, seating areas where people can relax, outlets to charge phones, and some of them serve hot coffee and breakfast in the mornings.
Paying guests come and go as they please, which allows non-customers to blend in, wander the lobby, use a bathroom or lap up other amenities – perhaps pretending to be a banquet-goer.
With its red brick facade, white trim and Victorian-era architecture, the Strater Hotel is one of the most iconic historical landmarks in the heart of downtown Durango. The inside is decorated from floor to ceiling with period-specific décor, including rich woodwork, stained glass and antique furnishings.
Kristie is particularly drawn to the hotel. Of the 88 tickets she has received this year, 37 were issued at the Strater Hotel – almost entirely for trespassing.
She is by no means the only unhoused resident who gravitates to the Strater, but “she does seem to win the prize for the most repeat offenses,” said Tori Ossola, general manager for the hotel.
When Kristie began visiting the hotel a few years ago, staff members tried to be “compassionate,” Ossola said. They allowed her to sit in the lobby, warm up, recharge her phone or use the bathroom, Ossola said.
“Unfortunately, what happens with that is you give an inch, they take a mile,” she said.
Over the years, Kristie has parked herself in the lobby, locked herself in the bathroom, fallen asleep on the carpeted stairs and napped under the heating vent behind the hotel.
“It certainly has been a problem,” Ossola said. “ … It has been difficult to mitigate this with her and a few others.”
Unhoused residents are likely drawn to the Strater for its proximity to downtown Durango and because it is close to the post office, which is another draw for them.
The Strater has multiple points of entry.
“We’re just too vulnerable here, really, is what it boils down to,” Ossola said. “At certain hours of the evening, we start locking things down so that the entry points to the Strater are limited.”
Hotel staff members have been instructed not to physically engage with Kristie or other unhoused residents who step inside. Instead, they are instructed to call police.
At one point, police asked hotel staff members to try to resolve trespassing issues themselves by asking Kristie to move along.
More recently, they have switched tactics. They now ask hotel staff members to call police every time she trespasses so they can issue citations, Ossola said.
Police have been good about responding and removing trespassers without making a scene, she said. They often arrive with a mental health professional.
“They’re subtle when they arrive so our guests are not alarmed,” Ossola said. “They try to deal with her and others as compassionately as they possibly can.”
Rhiannon Beach, who works the front desk at the General Palmer Hotel, another historic landmark on Durango’s Main Avenue, said unhoused residents have occasionally sneaked into the continental breakfast area.
“The backpack is usually the telltale sign,” she said, referring to the large packs some unhoused residents carry almost everywhere they go.
Trespassing was especially problematic shortly after the Purple Cliffs encampment closed in late September 2022, Beach said. Since then, the problem has largely died down, she said.
“It’s all about the boundaries, and that’s with anything and anybody – set boundaries,” she said.
Purple Cliffs operated for about three years south of city limits. At its peak, it accommodated about 180 campers. But it was never meant to operate as a permanent camp for unhoused residents.
City of Durango and La Plata County officials tried for years to establish a more permanent camp. But they were never able to settle on a location.
Despite the inaction, Purple Cliffs closed just before winter 2022. As a result, unhoused residents dispersed, taking up residency in pocketed areas across the city and surrounding wildlands.
Those who know Kristie say she is smart, elusive and resourceful.
They also say she struggles with trauma, substance abuse and mental health disorders.
“Her appearance is of a very unassuming innocent old lady,” Ossola said. “ ... When you see her walking down the street, you almost want to run up to her and assist her by carrying her bags or something, because she seems so frail.”
But she can also be belligerent, Ossola said. She recalled a recent occasion in which she found Kristie sleeping under the heat vent behind the hotel.
“I gently tap her, I wake her up, ask her to move on,” she said. “And she will look at me as though she has never seen me before – and she sees me all the time. She seems a little disorientated. … Sometimes her response is, ‘Go ahead and call the damn police. I don't care.’”
When approached last week by the Herald, Kristie was responsive to most questions. At times she gave nonsensical answers or contradicted earlier statements. She has a plaintive voice that trails off near the end of sentences – almost like she is too sleepy to complete certain thoughts.
Some musings are punctuated by curse words.
Kristie said she has been homeless for six years. But Donna Mae Baukat, director of Community Compassion Outreach, a nonprofit that provides services and advocates for Durango’s unhoused population, said Kristie has been dealing with substance abuse, mental health issues and a transient lifestyle for much longer – perhaps 40 years.
Baukat doesn’t claim to know Kristie’s state of mind any better than anyone else. But if she had to guess, she believes Kristie is “totally convinced she has the right to be homeless and that everyone else needs to understand, ‘Don’t bother me!’”
She believes Kristie has past trauma, and being unhoused is a re-traumatizing experience.
“People are not just crazy,” Baukat said. “They’re dealing with trauma. And that’s what is wrong with Kristie. She has a trauma but she is not talking about that trauma. And she’s not addressing it.”
Baukat has been trying to convince Kristie to enter an inpatient treatment program for several years.
At one point, she made reservations for an inpatient program and was about to buy an airplane ticket to allow Kristie to travel to the Front Range to receive care. But at the last minute, Kristie refused to go.
Baukat considers Kristie to be one of Community Compassion Outreach’s most “extreme cases.”
“But we can’t be in a position where we’re giving up on her,” she said.
Baukat caught up with Kristie about a week ago. She spoke with Kristie about entering inpatient treatment, and Kristie agreed something like that would be a good option for her.
Baukat placed Kristie in a motel room in hopes she would remain in contact and sober up long enough to be evaluated for such a program.
Kristie took a shower, stayed for two nights and checked out on her own volition.
“All she did was leave a message on Sunday morning saying, ‘I got the two keys on the desk and thank you for all you’ve done for me.’ And that was it,” Baukat said.
Kristie requires integrated treatment that will address her substance abuse and mental health issues, Baukat said.
But before that can happen, Kristie must decide for herself whether to enter treatment.
“Every person has a different story and a different way of managing their weaknesses, their challenges,” Baukat said. “And all we can do is support them in one way or the other – to help them to survive.”
It would help if Southwest Colorado had an inpatient treatment center and recovery houses, Baukat said. It is difficult to convince people to enter inpatient treatment centers if it means having to travel and leave the community they are familiar with.
It is especially problematic putting people on a bus or an airplane and expecting them to find their own way to treatment centers – not to mention potentially changing their mind about treatment mid-journey, she said.
It would be a gamechanger if potential clients could walk into an inpatient treatment center and receive help the moment they feel ready to do so, Baukat said.
“If the person is not ready to go – does not have that deep need to be sober, to start improving their health or whatever – then there’s very little we can do,” she said.
As a result of trespassing, the Strater Hotel has increased staffing to improve security and implemented a “buddy system” in which employees walk each other to their cars after a certain hour, Ossola said.
“The homeless people have been known to berate our staff, yell at them, catcall them, physically assault them,” she said. “ … I always think of them as generally harmless, but depending on the day and depending on the substance that they’re using, it can be very violent.”
It is taxing on hotel staff and police, she said.
DPD said it partners with the jail, courts, detox services, nonprofits and mental health providers in an effort to break the cycle of petty offenses being committed by the same five to seven people.
Officers keep issuing Kristie citations in the hopes that Durango Municipal Court will recognize the excessive number of tickets and impose jail – which allows her to sober up – or use the threat of jail as an incentive to compel her to enter inpatient treatment, Current said.
“We’re trying to get her services, and we’re trying to get some accountability to get her help,” he said.
Ethan Sumrall, Kristie’s public defense lawyer, said Colorado recently went under misdemeanor reform, which reclassified some misdemeanor offenses as petty offenses.
One of the results of that is it has allowed indigent people to be released from jail without paying a cash bond. And it has stripped courts of the ability to impose jail for missed court dates. That has left municipal courts with little ability to punish petty offenses, and therefore no way to use the threat of jail as an incentive to make someone enter treatment programs, he said.
“A lot of these ordinances that have been passed in the name of kindness actually wind up enabling folks to dig themselves further into a pit of mental health or substance abuse or whatever it may be,” he said. “Without any sort of stick to hold the carrot of rehab or counseling or whatever, then you’re never going to get people … (who) are not in their right mind to accept that treatment.”
If communities allow people to do whatever they want, and they are given the option to maintain a lifestyle that is frowned upon by society, “that’s what they’ll do,” Sumrall said.
“I used to not believe the things that I’m telling you – I used to be a lot more progressive – but I’m telling you from experience, that’s what people will do,” he said.
The city of Durango is in the process of consolidating two part-time municipal judgeships into one full-time position.
It is Durango Mayor Melissa Youssef’s hope that a single judge will provide more continuity on the bench and lead to more informed decisions about how to deal with repeat offenders.
Police are rendered powerless in low-level offenses if they don’t have the power to make arrests or if there are no consequences for citations, she said.
“(Police) will have offenders … abuse rules right in front of their face because they know that there’s nothing that they can really do that will make a difference,” Youssef said. “ … That’s the issue that we’re trying to deal with here.”
Police are spending an inordinate amount of time and resources on low-level, repeat offenders, she said. At the same time, they can’t ignore those calls.
Current confirmed a small group of repeat offenders is depleting police department resources.
“If we can do more precision policing – and it works the way it’s supposed to – we’ll be able to focus a lot of our efforts (on more serious crimes),” he said.
Ossola said she used to chat with people who wandered into the Strater Hotel. She has even offered some of them jobs, but “that’s not a pathway that they want to seek.”
“We’re not without a heart here,” Ossola said. “But what we have found is every time we open our door just a little bit, they push it open even further. And before you know it, they’re inviting friends and they’re telling everybody that they can come and use our bathrooms and all these other things. So we’ve really instructed our staff to, unfortunately, not open their hearts.
“I don’t know how else to put it. It’s really sad.”
shane@durangoherald.com