City Plans Clean-up, Homeless Outraged
05/29/09 - 01:00 PM
KREX News Department

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This Wednesday, a massive clean-up effort is planned for the area underneath the Highway 340 bridge. The city calls those transient camps a nuisance, but hundreds of homeless residents living near the river say the trash being picked-up is their treasure.

“This is peaceful, lots of peace, real peaceful to me,” says Kenneth Durrant.

Durrant says this is home to him, not a transient campground. So, when he got notice from the city that they were going to confiscate, dispose or destroy any belongings left by the river, he took it personally.

“Under the city code and ordinances that there shall not be any accumulation of junk and rubbish on any city limits,” says Kathy Portner, Grand Junction Neighborhood Services Coordinator. Durrant believes by camping near the river the homeless population is just staying out of the city’s hair.

“We’re not on the streets of Grand Junction,” he says. “You don’t see us living in alleys, dumpsters, trash cans in town do ya?”

Wednesday is eviction day, but Durrant says it’ll be like any other day.

“I’ll be sitting in my camp Wedesday when they come down,” he says. “Anything that is laying around as junk and rubbish will be picked-up and put into dumpster and hauled away,” says Portner.
The clean-up could push at least a hundred of transients out of the woodworks.

“I think they need to work through services in the community,” says Portner. Although, city services are out of room. The Rescue Mission’s 46 beds are full very night.Homeward Bound just laughed when asked if they could fit any more in their facility.

“The shelter is so full they’re lottering people, you gotta pick a number and still you’re not guaranteed to get in,” says Durrant. To the city it’s a matter of public health and safety. To those under the bridge it’s about privacy.

“This is our sanctuary,” he says.

Homeward Bound offered an overflow program this winter, where residents stayed in local churches overnight. However, they discontinued that program for the spring and summer months.

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