Car camping ban

At a recent Colorado Springs City Council meeting, I spoke against the proposed car camping ban ordinance. I did so not to dismiss concerns about public safety, neighborhood impact, or the rule of law. Those concerns are real and deserve attention. However, an important piece of this conversation is often overlooked: many individuals experiencing homelessness are living with traumatic brain injuries.

For some people, sleeping in a vehicle is not a lifestyle choice. It is a last layer of protection—safer than the streets and more stable than constant displacement. For individuals with brain injuries, that thin layer of stability can mean the difference between managing daily life and falling into crisis.

Brain injuries affect memory, impulse control, emotional regulation, and the ability to plan or organize. Tasks many of us consider routine— filling out paperwork, keeping appointments, navigating services—can become overwhelming. When someone with a brain injury loses housing, the path back is rarely straightforward.

When we prohibit car camping without accessible alternatives, we risk pushing some of our most neurologically vulnerable neighbors further into instability. Citations and fines do not rehabilitate brain injuries, and displacement does not restore executive functioning.

Colorado Springs values both safety and compassion. We can maintain standards for our neighborhoods while recognizing the medical realities many unsheltered individuals face. A significant portion of the homeless population lives with untreated or undertreated brain injuries stemming from accidents, military service, domestic violence, or repeated concussions. Our policies should reflect that reality.

Before enacting a ban, we should ask: Are there designated safe parking areas with services? Are outreach teams trained to recognize cognitive impairment? Are there partnerships with neurological rehabilitation providers?

Colorado Springs can lead with both accountability and humanity. Policy that recognizes neurological disability protects both our community and our shared humanity. I respect the time our council members are taking to address this priceless concern and continue to plead with them to have a change of heart and not pass the car camping ban ordinance.

Edie Wren

Colorado Springs

There are more constructive options

I recently wrote to members of the Colorado Springs City Council about the proposed camping ban and its unintended consequences. As a church volunteer who helps provide shower services for people experiencing homelessness, I see firsthand how policies meant to “solve” homelessness can sometimes undermine efforts to build healthier, more stable lives.

In researching the issue, I contacted the National Vehicle Residency Coalition, which works with communities across the country. One important point they raised is that many people live in their vehicles not by choice, but because it offers options that shelters often cannot: privacy, safety, storage for belongings, and the ability to keep pets. Vehicle dwellers also contribute to our local economy through jobs and everyday purchases.

Most behaviors that concern residents—littering, dumping, blocking sidewalks, excessive noise—are already illegal under existing ordinances. A blanket camping ban that effectively criminalizes sleeping risks punishing people who are otherwise responsible and law-abiding.

There are more constructive options. Cities across the country have created designated parking areas with clear rules, basic sanitation services, and limited stays. Others partner with nonprofits and private property owners to provide safe parking programs, trash collection, and outreach services. These approaches focus enforcement on harmful behavior while supporting people who are trying to maintain dignity and stability.

Homelessness is a complex challenge that requires collaboration between city leaders, service providers, law enforcement, businesses, and those directly affected. We should pursue solutions that strengthen our community rather than simply push vulnerable people further to the margins.

Donna Wintz

Colorado Springs

Behavior has consequences

Gov. Jared. Polis equates Tina Peters sentencing with state Sen Sonya Lewis: they are not the same. Peters put the legality of our elections at great risk, undermining the confidence the citizens have in the elected officials who hold a duty to safeguard our voting rights, a sacred trust. The judge, on sentencing, remarked on Peters’ self serving grandstanding and her unabated defiant attitude.

There was no remorse for wrong doing, no learning from her mistake, but an actual denial that what she did was wrong! (I know I was driving drunk when I killed that person judge, but I have a right to drink and a right to drive so I did nothing wrong.) An entitlement she believes she alone holds, an entitlement to commit her felonious actions.

Further, if the judge in the case of Sen. Lewis erred on the side of leniency, this does not in any way have bearing on the separate case of Peters: The defendants are not the same person, did not commit the exact same act, and did not defend themselves in the same way. One defendant took responsibility for her actions; one did not.

I have respect for the difficult job of lea1dership in any elected office, but an action of clemency on the part of the Governor for Peters – any Governor – would undermine the trust we citizens hold in their leadership and in our elections.

Behavior has consequences.

Deborah Tinsley

Colorado Springs

We’s seen this war before

My father served two tours in Vietnam and rarely spoke a word about what happened there. He gave twenty years to the Army, came home with severe PTSD that went untreated for decades, and shut the door on Vietnam for good. My mother and all five of his daughters lived with the fallout. He finally found some peace. Then prostate cancer came — a condition the VA now links directly to Agent Orange. He beat it. Then leukemia took him at 66. Too young. Too soon.

I am watching history repeat itself.

The 2026 Iran conflict follows Vietnam’s playbook point by point: shifting justifications for war while intelligence reports contradict the public rationale. Congress refusing to exercise its war powers authority — for the eighth time. An escalation ladder with no defined objectives and no exit strategy. And diplomacy abandoned three days before the first bombs fell, while negotiations were still underway.

This is not partisan. Presidents of both parties have taken this country to war under questionable pretenses. The pattern belongs to unchecked executive power, not to any one party. A mother burying her son in uniform doesn’t check voter registration cards. I know, because I was the child who grew up with a father hollowed out by a war nobody could explain to him.

And we must understand: Iran is a civilization of 88 million people stretching back thousands of years. They survived the Mongol Empire, the British Empire, and decades of sanctions. They will not bow to airstrikes. History has no example of a Middle Eastern nation reshaped by Western military force into a stable democracy. Not one. So what is the endgame?

Congress must vote on a formal Authorization for the Use of Military Force. Define the objectives. Set the boundaries. Do their job.

We’ve seen this war before.

Yvonne Okker-Padilla

Colorado Springs