Opinion: Solution in homelessness debate cannot serve to invite more people to Boulder

 Many of us have been following the seemingly endless debate about how Boulder should treat the “homeless.” Unfortunately, the results of the judge’s recent decision in the lawsuit filed against the City of Boulder’s homeless policies were difficult to discern because the ruling was 35 pages long. I’m not a lawyer, but I did read it twice. Basically, the ruling was not on the substance of the issues, but on whether to dismiss the complaints. The judge dismissed two of the three complaints in full, and half of the third, leaving only the issue of homeless people’s legal ability to sleep in outdoor public spaces to be decided in the trial.

In the process of reading it, I saw an angle that might get the city the freedom to do what I think should be done — to make a real effort to provide housing and other help for people who live here in Boulder and for whatever reason have become homeless, while, at the same time, not having to provide for more and more people who have become homeless elsewhere (or have chosen to become homeless elsewhere) and then have come here because the strong efforts by both the city and local private non-profits to make being homelessness here more tolerable (or attractive).

In other words, if we do a good job of taking care of our own homeless, then we should not be penalized by having to then take care of ever-increasing numbers, just because those efforts have made Boulder more attractive.

To my reading, why the judge found one claim worthy of going to trial over was the combination of the arguments that said that these folks were “involuntarily experiencing homelessness,” that “the government cannot prosecute homeless people for sleeping in public if there is a greater number of homeless individuals in (a jurisdiction) than the number of available shelter spaces,” and that there is “the freedom of movement and the right to travel”.

But the reality is that the combination of these arguments is pretty much a guarantee that homeless people will be sleeping in our parks, etc., simply because no matter how much we do, the demand will grow to exceed the supply just because we are making that effort. 

It seems to me that these arguments made by the complainants need to be turned to support different conclusions:

1) Becoming homeless may be involuntary for some (but not all). But traveling to Boulder (once you become homeless, or to become homeless) is different.

2) And the “right to travel,” simply because it’s a “right,” means that traveling here cannot be argued to be involuntary. 

3) The formula (from Martin v. Boise, that sleeping outside cannot be criminalized if no indoor shelter is available), if allowed to be applied to people who are homeless coming to Boulder voluntarily, guarantees that the more we in Boulder do for the homeless, the worse our situation will be.

So I hope that the judge finds, given the City of Boulder’s and others’ efforts to provide housing and other services for significantly more than the number of people who have become homeless while living here, that the City of Boulder has no obligation to allow people from elsewhere to sleep in public spaces when their voluntary presence is the very reason that their number exceeds the number of available shelter spaces.

That would put the focus where I think it needs to be — that all cities need to take good care of their own. For more info, Council member Bob Yates wrote up an excellent discussion in his monthly newsletter.

Another currently hot housing topic is the proposed increase in occupancy limits and ADUs in single-family neighborhoods. Some years ago, council members Yates and Weaver did a good job of balancing availability, affordability and impacts in their ADU code revisions. But the current council “progressives” apparently think that it did not go far enough. And that the close but losing vote on the Bedrooms initiative somehow justifies densifying even further.

Here’s the problem: The “Yes” side of the Bedrooms vote clearly had elements of, “You have it, I want it,” and its companion, “I want to make more money from it.” The opinions that the council should listen to are those of the people already living in these neighborhoods, not those who want to move in and live there, or those who want to increase their rental income, like from the $1,000-per-bedroom rents I’ve heard about.

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