“The city is enforcing ordinances pretty much just against unhoused people. The purpose of them is to target unhoused people and to try to exclude people from public space in Boulder,” says Annie Kurtz, an ACLU of Colorado legal professional engaged on the case. “They’re doing it without regard for whether people can actually access shelter in the city and, really, without regard to the kind of weather outside.”
Filed in Boulder County District Court, the lawsuit alleges that the ordinances and the enforcement of the legal guidelines violate the Colorado Constitution’s sections on merciless and strange punishment, state-created hazard and the precise to make use of public house.
“I would like to see the criminalization of our lifestyle stopped. It makes a really difficult situation even more difficult, and there’s no reason for it,” explains 46-year-old Jeni Shurley, who has been homeless on and off since 1996. Shurley signed onto the lawsuit after being ticketed in December 2021 for sleeping in a “bike-drawn tiny home.” During one of her interactions with Boulder Police Department officers that month, Shurley was instructed to “get out of Boulder,” the lawsuit claims.
“I’ve heard from people who have been told, ‘Go to Longmont, go to county property, go anywhere but here,'” Kurtz says.
The lawsuit asserts that the accessible shelter areas within the City of Boulder, primarily the Boulder Shelter for the Homeless, are “woefully inadequate to meet the needs of its unhoused residents.”
According to the go well with, “There are not nearly enough overnight shelter beds available for the number of people experiencing homelessness in the City. Between October 2021 and May 2022, BSH turned away at least 175 unhoused people because it had reached capacity at the time they sought services.”
Jeni Shurley acquired ticketed for dwelling outside in Boulder.
Courtesy of Jeni Shurley
That shelter used to have a six-month residency requirement to ensure that folks to entry the house. In July 2021, the ACLU of Colorado despatched a letter complaining concerning the six-month residency requirement; metropolis officers shortly introduced that they’d be ending the coverage the following month, asserting that they’d deliberate to take action even earlier than the letter got here in.
Boulder’s strategy towards encampments is just like that of Denver’s: Law enforcement officers cite metropolis ordinances so as to get folks to dismantle tents and transfer alongside. After a federal courtroom settlement, nonetheless, the City of Denver provides per week’s discover earlier than sweeping massive encampments. Boulder’s coverage is to provide 72 hours’ discover earlier than sweeping massive encampments, and generally no discover earlier than sweeping small encampments.
The taxpayer plaintiffs within the Boulder go well with are Lisa Sweeney-Miran, vp of the Boulder Valley School District and govt director of Mother House, a shelter for at-risk moms and their infants, and Jennifer Livovich, govt director of Feet Forward, a nonprofit that works with folks experiencing homelessness in Boulder. Feet Forward is a plaintiff within the lawsuit, too.
In addition to Shurley, the homeless plaintiffs are 26-year-old Navy veteran Jordan Whitten and Shawn “Indigo” Rhoades, a 56-year-old member of the Mescalero Apache tribe who’s additionally a Navy veteran.
According to the lawsuit, Whitten works a 3 to 11 p.m. shift at Good Times Burgers & Frozen Custard, which prevents him from arriving at a shelter in time to get a mattress. “Mr. Whitten’s mental health and military service history also make him uncomfortable sleeping in congregate settings,” the lawsuit states. Whitten acquired a ticket for a tent-ban violation in March.
The 56-year-old Rhoades has been homeless because the fall of 2020; he is acquired no less than eight citations for tent and tenting ban violations. He was initially denied entry to a mattress on the Boulder Shelter for the Homeless as a result of of the six-month residency requirement. After that was lifted, Rhoades started staying at that shelter, however was later banned for a “code of conduct violation,” the lawsuit notes. “Even if Mr. Rhoades were not banned from the shelter, on any given night, he would risk being denied a bed space in BSH’s lottery.
“On some nights when the climate is excessive, Mr. Rhoades nonetheless tries to hunt entry to BSH and is turned away,” the suit continues. “For instance, Mr. Rhoades made the tough trek to BSH searching for a mattress on New Year’s Eve —December 31, 2021 — when the City skilled greater than 4 inches of snowfall and the temperature dropped beneath freezing. He was turned away. At that point, Mr. Rhoades had simply undergone surgical procedure to have his finger amputated after he developed an an infection whereas dwelling exterior.”
Shurley, who is currently living in a van, says she can’t use the shelter system now because she lives with her four dogs. “The shelters have stopped anybody from getting into who has any animals. I’m not allowed to go there,” she points out, adding that she feels the shelter system treats her like a “felony.”
“We have simply acquired the lawsuit and are reviewing it,” says Sarah Huntley, a spokesperson for the City of Boulder. “The metropolis will remark on the acceptable time via its filings within the courtroom course of.”