Local authorities report little to no change in the number of homeless camps sprouting in and around Durango after Monday’s closure of the populous encampment at Purple Cliffs.
“Over the past couple of weeks it’s stayed pretty much static or status quo,” Durango Code Enforcement Officer Steve Barkley said. “I’m not sure where they’ve gone. That’s the million dollar question. I have seen several vehicles loading up stuff. Yesterday (Thursday), over by Walmart they were loading some stuff into a car that had New Mexico plates. So maybe they are going home for the winter? I really don’t have an answer.”
Purple Cliffs resident Joshua Hacket, who grew up in Cortez and Durango, has been couch-surfing at local friends’ houses until he figures out his next move.
“But people get tired of that – sleeping on their couch, using their hot water for showers,” he said. “I’ve got an RV in Cortez at my cousin’s house, but I owe storage fees and don’t have the money so I might lose that. I do have a tent I can pop up down by the river after dark and take down before sunrise.”
Hacket lived at Purple Cliffs for the past year, as well as on-and-off before that during the encampment’s four-year existence. He had been building an earthen oven at his campsite when the eviction notice came.
“I’m actually extremely proud of it,” he said of the oven. “It was therapy for me ’cuz I like to dig. The endorphins helped me to stay sober.”
Hacket attributes his homelessness to “not living the best life lately.” He has found occasional construction work with a friend, but not having a stable place where he feels safe to leave his dog has been a conflicting issue. His hope, he said, is that local authorities can find a solution soon.
Durango Deputy Chief of Police Brice Current credits community partnerships with organizations like Manna soup kitchen and navigation center, Homeless Coordinating Council and Volunteers of America that help the homeless for softening the hardships faced by displaced campers, as well as lessening the impact to the greater Durango community. He also praised former “unhoused” people who have stepped in to help.
“We are very, very, extremely humbled by our partners,” he said. “They offer a high-level of expertise. And truly, the power of any police organization is based on the partnership with the community, the trust. In a lot of communities it can be an us-against-them with the police.
“But we are trying to police in a way that our community wants us to police, so we can create a safe community together. That’s the only way to do it.”
Current downplayed any increase in problems with people displaced by the closure of Purple Cliffs. He cited 40 “trespass and illegal camping” incidents the first week of September, and another 40 the second week of September. The number jumped to 64 in the third week, and then dropped to 56 in the final week.
In the first seven days of October, there have been a total of 67 contacts in reference to trespass or illegal camping. The vast majority of contacts are verbal warnings and not citations, though there have been a few, Current said.
“So I would say we have seen a modest increase,” he said. “But it’s more of a slow drip than what people have expected.”
Current points out that painting the homeless population in broad strokes is a mistake.
“I know a lot of people want to look at it as a simple issue, or that things occur in a vacuum, but it’s really more complex than that. And we need to look at each individual to see what their story is,” he said. “There are bad actors out there we need to deal with, but it’s fairly easy to know if its just somebody who needs help, or if it’s somebody that is taking advantage of the system.”
There are probably 20 to 40 people the police deal with constantly, he said. And they account for a high percentage if not all of the crime. But they amount to a low percentage of the overall homeless population.
Purple Cliffs is currently being dismantled. The La Plata County Sheriff’s Office is using drones to enforce the no camping order.
gjaros@durangoherald.com
