The recent actions of the Durango City Council in regard to the homeless merit nothing but contempt. Rather than proposing any real solutions, the best they can come up with is a hastily concocted plan to move the homeless camp to the former site of a uranium mill and a constitutionally questionable ordinance prohibiting sitting or lying on public sidewalks.
Homelessness and substance abuse (and no, they’re not always correlated) are national problems, and attempting to sweep them under the rug does no favors to anyone. Despite the wishes of the tourism sector, Durango is not, and never will be, a little bubble paradise where the problems of the outside world can be conveniently forgotten, or at least hidden from view.
Has anyone noticed that our area has one of the highest rates of substance abuse in the country? One of the highest suicide rates? Rampant economic inequality? Food insecurity? These are real wounds in the fabric of community, and covering them with Band-Aids will only make them fester more.
Not only would the City Council rather hide the problem than confront it with real solutions, they also refuse to perform a health assessment of their (poor) homeless campsite choice. I wonder if they would have such resistance to such a simple precaution if they were building their own homes on the site? Would they even have proposed it if the neighbors didn’t happen to be a trailer park?
This is what shameless, privileged elitism looks like.
Lukas Lerner
Durango
