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With Purple Cliffs closure imminent, no location identified yet for managed camp

Petition delivered to Durango City Council says human lives are at stake
Emilie Monson, with Project Moxie, drops off a petition to Shannon Grace, with the city of Durango, on Tuesday that has about 450 signatures. The petition demands that the city find a suitable location for a new managed campsite for residents of the Purple Cliffs homeless camp on La Posta Road (County Road 213), which La Plata County has committed to closing at the end of September. (Jerry McBride/Durango Herald)

La Plata County’s planned closure of the homeless camp at Purple Cliffs on La Posta Road (County Road 213) is just one month away yet the city of Durango hasn’t secured a location for a new managed campsite for the unhoused.

Business leaders, city officials and residents fear the closure of Purple Cliffs will funnel its population of unhoused people into the Central Business District of downtown Durango. Organizations such as Project Moxie and the Durango Neighbors in Need Alliance object to the idea of displacing the homeless population without providing a place for them to go.

Tom Sluis, spokesman for the city of Durango, said downtown holds “significance as the economic hub of Durango” and the city has partnered with La Plata County to mitigate the impact of Purple Cliffs’ closure.

Project Moxie, a nonprofit focused on affordable housing, spearheaded a petition demanding prompt action from the city that was delivered Tuesday to City Council. Nearly 450 people signed the petition.

The city met with the county to form a subcommittee on June 29 to explore options for a new managed camp. Mayor Barbara Noseworthy and City Manager José Madrigal joined County Commissioner Marsha Porter-Norton and County Manager Chuck Stevens, along with staff members from both governments, in weekly meetings.

On July 19, City Council met in an executive session to discuss matters related to a potential property or properties that could serve as a managed camp location.

Sluis said in an email La Plata County is working on a “triage report” identifying residents of the Purple Cliffs camp, including who they are, what their needs are and why they came to Durango. The report will inform the city of what resources and support services are needed for the soon-to-be displaced residents.

Ted Holteen, spokesman for the county, said the Coalition for the Homeless, Neighbors in Need Alliance and other organizations are working directly with Purple Cliffs residents and offering them services, but a written report isn’t being prepared. He said he knows some families who were living at Purple Cliffs have already been moved to hotels in town.

“We’re waiting to see the progress that those folks make and they still have some time to work on it, and they seem to be doing a good job,” he said.

He said another joint meeting between the La Plata County commissioners and Durango City Council is scheduled for Sept. 19 when the two governments will assess how the search for a camp location is going. That will be 11 days before the county’s self-imposed deadline to close the camp before the end of September.

The city has partnered with multiple organizations to provide services such as job placement, mental health services, and food and shelter access to Durango’s homeless population, including Axis Health System, Manna soup kitchen, Volunteers of America, Espero Transitional Housing, the United Way and other agencies, Sluis said.

“The city’s contributions to help mitigate the impacts from homelessness have included land donations, financial contributions through the joint city/county sales tax and countless staff hours,” he said.

But the city has been mostly silent about its search for a managed camp location. Project Moxie’s petition is urging the city for information about what comes next, if the city is prepared for the closure of Purple Cliffs and what is going to happen to the homeless community there.

Petitioners demand immediate action

Almost 450 business leaders, nonprofit members and residents signed the petition delivered Tuesday to City Council.

The signed letter calls for “immediate emergency action” by the city to support the residents of Purple Cliffs who will soon be displaced by the camp’s closure.

“At this time, the city has not communicated its plans for addressing the challenging situation that will be created when 100+ individuals are forced to move due to this closure,” the letter says. “Many residents of Purple Cliffs have reported via the recent Unhoused Count & Survey that they intend to relocate to the streets of Durango once the camp closes. With over two months of notice now lapsed, and after the receipt of multiple proposals for action, the City of Durango remains silent.”

The letter further requests that the city immediately amend its camping ordinance requiring campers to pack up their shelters and belongings every morning to allow for designated camping areas with access to portable toilets and garbage services, and that it works with La Plata County to designate an area for legal overnight parking.

Matt Lynn, community engagement director for Project Moxie, said in an email on Tuesday that the need for a managed camp is a matter of life and death.

“The Purple Cliffs closure is an emergency situation in which the lives of human beings are at stake,” he said. “If we had a fire, flood or similar event causing displacement on a massive scale, we as a community would rally together to respond. Importantly, we would also count on our elected officials to provide whatever aid they could.”

He said the closure of Purple Cliffs stands to affect the Durango community as a whole, but the city hasn’t provided information about how it will handle the potential crisis.

“We are now just one month out, and we need to know how they intend to address this event, because it stands to impact the entire community,” he said.

Caroline Kinser, board chairwoman for Neighbors In Need Alliance, said the apparent lack of progress on finding a camp location has her “panicking.”

“I don’t know what we can do to make them do something – to at least tell us what they’re thinking. There’s just no communication at all,” she said on Tuesday.

NINA has been involved in efforts to support the homeless community at Purple Cliffs ever since the temporary site opened in 2018. The organization provided water to the residents, installed Wi-Fi and provided solar chargers for residents to charge their phones, among other activities. It received funding from the Colorado Health Foundation during the COVID-19 pandemic to “stabilize” the community, Kinser said. When that funding dried up, the city and county supplied more money via their joint sales tax.

She gave kudos to other organizations for their part in helping the homeless community at Purple Cliffs, including San Juan Basin Public Health, Manna, Axis Mental Health and La Plata County.

Despite her frustration, Kinser said she is confident the city of Durango would do a good job of maintaining a managed camp – it just needs to secure a location.

She said there are misconceptions about what a managed camp for the unhoused would consist of. People hear “managed camp” and think “Purple Cliffs,” but the differences between the two camp models are significant.

“At managed camp, everybody has the same living structure,” she said. “It’s fenced, it has staff there 24/7. People sign behavioral agreements to get to live there. In other words, it’s neat and clean and we would make it pretty.”

She said managed camps are designed with safety in mind, for the residents and the greater community. Camp residents would have bedrooms with lockable doors where they can sleep and store their personal belongings. The facility itself would be fenced in.

La Plata County announced it planned to close Purple Cliffs in an open letter published June 18 in The Durango Herald. The announcement took Durango officials by surprise and sent the city scrambling for a solution.

City Council scheduled a joint meeting with the board of commissioners and the two groups agreed to work together toward finding a managed camp location. The county said it would commit $1 million in American Rescue Plan Act money to help the city with a campsite.

cburney@durangoherald.com



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