Hairstylists at a west-side Colorado Springs salon watch what’s become a familiar morning routine: The building’s maintenance worker cleans up human feces that homeless people leave behind after using a decorative railing as a toilet seat at night.

“It’s disgusting,” says Kelly Maine, one of the salon’s tenants, who earlier this year was attacked by a homeless man strung out on drugs while she was washing a client’s hair at her station.

Police advised Maine to keep the front door of the establishment locked during business hours and manually open it for clients, which she initially adopted but has since abandoned.

It’s unfair, she says. Maine has never had this kind of trouble in the 11 years she’s leased commercial space on West Colorado Avenue.

“I shouldn’t have to make changes like that because of some deranged person,” she said. “It’s not right that this is the way it is.”

A few blocks south in Old Colorado City, Tami Glascock says she can’t display planters of flowers in front of the boutique she’s owned for nine years, because homeless people damage them or deposit trash.

Benches for shoppers to rest outside the store are out of the question, she says, because homeless people sleep on them.

“I understand homeless people have rights, but they loiter, so an elderly person who wants to sit on a bench can’t,” Glascock said. “Sometimes, it seems like they have more rights than we do.”

El Paso County has been considered a national model in its efforts to decrease homelessness — a total of 1,302 homeless people were counted in the most recent data from January 2023, the same amount recorded in 2016 and the lowest since then.

But one important sector known as the chronically homeless has grown. The subgroup refers to people who live for years or repeatedly on the streets, with many having serious mental illness, substance use disorder or a physical disability.

Last year, the number of people sleeping in tents, cars and other uninhabitable places, and who often are chronically homeless, grew by more than 100 over 2022, for a total of 374.

Although that constitutes about one-half of 1% of El Paso County’s population, the homeless in that category are the most noticeable and visible to the general public. And some residents and merchants say they’ve also become more disruptive.

“We’ve seen an uptick in our homeless population, and it has a lot of the merchants concerned,” said Andrea Warner, owner of Colorado Peak Real Estate and president of Old Colorado City Associates, a group of west-side business owners. “They’re more belligerent,” she said.

Homeless people who hang out on the streets of the historic shopping district “are not the nicest,” Warner said. They sleep overnight in merchants’ doorways or on benches and can be menacing. ”They’re scaring the crap out of people,” she said.

It’s not that merchants, customers and residents don’t have empathy. But compassion often collides with frustration and angst for the general population over inappropriate and illegal behavior that infringes on personal property, and physical and mental well-being, and intrudes on their lives and livelihoods.

“I don’t think people realize the impact,” said Glascock, who says she’s considering closing her boutique largely due to the homeless population. “Customers will leave my store when homeless people come in.”

She’s had merchandise stolen — on Christmas Eve, a homeless man walked away with a $250 coat, as his female companion caused a commotion in another part of Glascock’s store. He was never caught.

Glascock said she’s come across people urinating against walls of buildings, rifling through trash bins, hooking up to electricity to charge cellphones, and tapping into exterior water sources.

“I’m tired of dealing with the homeless,” she said. “I feel they’re out of control. It bothers me that they make customers uncomfortable.”

Problems ‘more embedded’ 

Molly Lovejoy, another west-side hairstylist, said she’s lost two clients recently, who told her that they no longer felt safe coming to her salon because of homeless people’s somewhat aggressive pandering for food and money.

“One homeless lady walks while talking obscenities and jiggles door handles all down our complex a few times a month,” she said. “Last Saturday, a couple wearing just their underwear sat in view of passersby on the street.”

After 13 years, Kelly Bubach closed his Urban Steam American Bistro April 1, citing the homeless population as one reason. But he also cited “economic stress, inflation, a lack of quality staffing options and competition” as contributing to its demise.

Located in the working-class Mill Street neighborhood south of downtown — which has seen the addition of Weidner Field soccer stadium event complex and new apartments rising — Urban Steam also was near the city’s two primary homeless shelters, which have grown since the restaurant opened in 2012.

“It was a like a non-intrusive presence then, and over the last decade, it’s gotten more and more embedded,” Bubach said. “I know they’re helping people, and I’ve tried to be a good human being and understand people’s plight, but I also see the other side: These people have no connections to the community and no reason to be better.”

The situation deteriorated over the past few years, Bubach said. And customers noticed. “It was people wanting to have a good time and not having to deal with any bulls—. We became an undesirable location.”

Also, some employees had been accosted and were afraid to go to their cars, Bubach said, while others had bicycles stolen.

Bubach is negotiating to sell the business to a larger operation that he thinks will better withstand the combination of factors that hurt his solvency.

“Homelessness is a big, broad issue that’s systemic and a taxpayers’ burden,” he said. “It’s gotten to the point that we can’t manage it. We’ve got to at least mitigate it; there’s got to be a way to make sure they aren’t negatively impacting the rest of the city. It’s spread all over and is impacting neighborhoods and businesses to the point they can’t function, and people don’t feel safe.”

Fewer homeless accept assistance

Colorado Springs police say they are doing what they can within their purview to enforce laws governing criminal activity, maintain public safety, and keep the peace.

Lt. Brian Steckler oversees three police units: the Homeless Outreach Team, which formed in 2009 and today has six officers and one sergeant who enforce camping bans and handle other illegal actions; and two Downtown Area Response Teams, each with six officers and one supervisor, who day and night patrol the central downtown business district, South Nevada Avenue and Old Colorado City.

A small minority of the homeless population abuse public facilities including trash cans, restrooms, portable toilets and private property, Steckler said. If they’re caught and identified, they receive a ticket.

“We have to know who’s responsible, and for that type of behavior, it’s very difficult to follow up on the act of doing that,” he said.

Most of the chronically homeless are known to police, Steckler said. He doesn’t think the chronically homeless population has burgeoned but perhaps grown slightly — new census counts taken in January of this year have not yet been released.

A new trend his teams have noticed: Fewer homeless people are willing to accept services from providers and take the next step to improve their lives.

“Our officers offer to take them to a shelter, to call in community partners with housing opportunities, help with getting IDs and medical care — and more and more, they’re refusing that assistance.”

Some have mental health problems that inhibit them from saying “yes,” Steckler said, and police cannot force anyone to go to a facility unless they are deemed to be harmful to themselves or others.

“Making bad decisions that aren’t amounting to life-threatening conditions aren’t enough to take them to a facility,” he said, “and there often aren’t enough facilities to take them.”

Homeless people have other rights, including the ability to be on public property such as sidewalks and parks.

Authorities cannot remove people from public spaces, Steckler said, unless they’re breaking the law. While they can sit on benches, they’re not allowed to sleep on them. Even then, illegal camping, littering, and violating the city’s sit/lie ordinance in commercial districts result in serve-and-release tickets and are not jailable offenses.

“There’s a misconception that when there’s homeless folks causing problems, we’ll take them somewhere,” Steckler said. “We can’t legally do that.”

Urban camping is prohibited on public land in the city and county. Private property is another matter; anyone who intrudes can be cited for trespassing.

People are given advance notice to vacate an encampment because the city’s Neighborhood Services Division will dismantle it, which Steckler said police are not legally required to do but do so out of respect for people and their belongings.

“We hear, ‘the police just wanted to throw away my possessions,’ and that’s not true,” he said. “We want them to gather their important items and get out of the area.”

Cleanup teams turn over to police documents they come across in camps, such as IDs and legal paperwork, he said. The items can be reclaimed but “a lot of times they don’t come back and pick up their stuff.”

Manitou Springs

Some people have noticed that transients are not as visible in Manitou Springs, a hilly tourist town at the base of Pikes Peak.

But that doesn’t mean they aren’t around.

Manitou Springs police also enforce illegal camping and a municipal sit/lie ordinance that recently was amended to limit busking or street performance to not infringe on the public, said Officer R. Johnson.

The main difference is that Colorado Springs’ Homeless Outreach Team has six patrol officers and one supervisor covering 200 square miles, and all 17 sworn officers of the Manitou Springs Police Department can respond to calls about illegal camps and homeless issues over their city’s 3 square miles.

“We enforce the state statutes and city ordinances a little more consistently, and with it being a smaller area, we’re able to visit the areas more frequently,” Johnson said.

Police also routinely patrol nearby trails in the foothills where homeless people like to “hike and hide,” he said. “They’re basically unseen and out of sight, out of mind, until they create a problem.”

Police address complaints and concerns, hand out citations, and offer referrals and courtesy transportation to shelters, hospitals, nonprofit assistance organizations and mental health providers.

Issuing citations for violations is a last resort for police, Johnson said.

“We’re always trying to provide resources and opportunities to improve their quality of life,” he said. “Some people move on and continue the transient lifestyle, but I’ve seen people take advantage of the resources and make their lives better.”

Many though, decline services, saying they’re just passing through or are already on a list for housing.

“Typically, they don’t like the terms of the resources,” Johnson said.

Since Manitou Springs does not have a homeless shelter, people are referred to Springs Rescue Mission, Colorado Springs’ largest shelter.

“They have a lot of rules, and if you violate the rules you’re not allowed to stay there unless you go through a reentry meeting, but a lot of people I contact don’t want to go through those meetings,” Johnson said.

Of the 9,407 calls for service Manitou Springs police received last year, 486 were related to a homeless issue, and police wrote 28 citations for illegal camping, statistics show. The number of illegal camps decreased last year to 40, down from 69 in 2021, Johnson said.

Residents mad as hell

Maria Olson, a mother of four children who lives in southeast Colorado Springs, has been so afraid to use her apartment’s heating and cooling system that she hasn’t turned it on since January.

Homeless people broke into the complex’s utility room next to her unit and had been living there, using the drain as a bathroom and the small, cramped space that holds the water heater and furnace as a place to smoke meth and fentanyl, she said. Fumes that smelled like burning plastic and cigarettes infiltrated her apartment through the ductwork, and she worried about exposure to drug residue.

Olson moved her family to a different part of town last week.

After a month of complaining to the manager, Olson said police evicted the vagrants. But they’re back.

“They’ve moved — they’re living in a different closet in my building — and we don’t want to be breathing toxins,” she said.

She’s had other problems. One day, Olson found a homeless man sleeping on her patio. Sometimes, transients knocked on the windows of her apartment at night, and not infrequently when she’d take out the trash, a man would pop up from inside the Dumpster and frighten her.

“Some of them are friendly, but you don’t know if they’re on drugs that day if they’re going to be violent,” Olson said. “I’m not a total monster. I understand how easy it can be for homelessness to happen, but a lot have mental health issues and can’t maintain a job or take care of themselves and need help.”

Homeless people smoking illicit drugs also became an issue inside Philip Goldsworthy’s southeast condominium building, where he’s lived for seven years. Goldsworthy said late last year he noticed random people in the hallway saying they forgot their key or were waiting for someone.

He didn’t think much about it until he began smelling “putrid chemicals” and seeing “tinfoil left everywhere with remnants of black tar and burn holes on the carpeted stairs.”

Then he found people sleeping under the stairs near units, and video cameras caught homeless people having sex in the hallways.

Police told him a large homeless encampment was nearby. It’s since been cleaned up but Goldsworthy said vagrants are still around, and when police arrest them for trespassing “they’re usually back that night.”

A homeless woman named Sandy lives in a broken-down truck at the end of Peter Tetley’s driveway in Pikes Peak Park, also on the city’s southeast side.

She’s been there for years, and he’s afraid she’ll die there. Sandy, who declined to be interviewed, is thought to be in her 70s and has severe diabetes and can’t move around much. She needs a wheelchair to get to the emergency room, where Tetley’s son has taken her numerous times.

“The hospital takes care of her until they can get her well enough to put her out on the sidewalk,” Tetley said.

Tetley and his adult son, who knew Sandy before she became homeless, said they’ve tried everything they can to find her help, including assistance from their church and human service organizations.

“We started with trying to get her Section 8 housing,” Tetley said. “She had to check in every week, and then the housing offer disappeared. All these organizations keep passing the buck.”

The police also have responded to his complaints.

“They’ll remove her to the edge of the sidewalk if I want her arrested for trespassing,” he said. “I will not do that. At this point, she needs a nursing home or hospice.”

Tetley’s son, also named Peter, brings her food, sees that she has an ability to relieve herself and take sponge baths. Medicare pays for medications, including for pain.

Sandy has family in Ohio, and Tetley offered to cover the cost of sending her to them. But he said her family doesn’t want her.

“The city has allowed this to happen,” said Tetley, an Air Force veteran and longtime community volunteer. “The Humane Society takes better care of dogs and cats than the city of Colorado Springs takes care of people who are really in need.

“Homelessness is a plague in this country, and it’s caused by politics more than anything else. Every nation is flooding into this country, and we can’t even take care of our own people.

“She will die in that damned truck, and nobody gives a damn.”

Back on the city’s west side, 30-year resident Lynn Havel said her neighbors are tired of being burglarized.

Police caught the man who stole flagstone and other decorative rocks from several residential properties in December, she said, and discovered that “he had laid out a beautiful path along Fountain Creek for a nice homeless camp.”

“It’s pretty infuriating,” Havel said. “I understand people have issues, but stealing property is bad, and in the past five years more things have gone missing.”

Efforts to address issues

Community efforts to reduce vandalism, trash, illegal urban camping and errant behavior are continuing by the city and nonprofit organizations.

Still, it’s become more common to spot piles of human feces in alleyways, on sidewalks and near trees.

“Anywhere you have people camping in public spaces and don’t have a public restroom available, that will be an unintended consequence and, unfortunately, we have experienced that over the years,” said Eric Becker, Colorado Springs’ parks maintenance operations manager.

Concessions include trimming trees and vegetation away from trails to make people more visible and opening about 40 public restrooms in parks around town for six months starting Memorial Day weekend.

The addition of “urban rangers,” who starting this weekend will patrol main corridors of the Midland Trail and Pikes Peak Greenway seven days a week, reduces unwanted activity and improves safety for trail users, Becker said.

“Just having a face, just seeing a ranger presence has been very well-received,” he said. “They’re the eyes and ears out there to identify potential camps and other illicit activity.”

Another measure the city took in 2022, closing access to the parking lot of Dorchester Park off South Nevada Avenue, the site of what police called a drive-up, open-air drug sales market, also has produced results, Steckler, the police officer, said.

“Reducing access has prevented traffic from driving up to the park and limited drug dealing and prostitution — but it hasn’t completely stopped it,” he said.

“We’re the 39th-largest city in the country and growing,” Steckler said. “We’re facing an influx of population into our area — sometimes, folks are hearing there’s more resources in Colorado Springs and that’s why they’re coming here — and we’re experiencing some of the same problems as other city and other agencies around the country continue to face.”

Residents who have concerns about homeless people can call 911 if it’s an emergency or the police’s non-emergency number at 719-444-7000, or go to https://coloradosprings.gov/gocos.

“Be patient and let the system work,” Steckler said. “We work with the city attorney’s office and other agencies for those individuals to create a special plan for how we’re going to deal with them and their behaviors within the community. Sometimes making arrests creates an opportunity for the courts to get involved and order placement in a mental health facility or substance abuse facility. It all works together.”

‘Not a crime to be homeless’

Martin Garcia, who was stationed at Fort Carson in 1974, has been homeless for four years after moving to Colorado Springs from Texas, where he dealt with what he says was a bogus felony drug charge.

To people who see his tent, it’s a tent. To Garcia, it’s home, he says while giving a tour of his quarters near Interstate 25 in south Colorado Springs.

“I’m not camping. To me camping is fun. We’re trying to exist and live. Who can afford rent?” Garcia says.

Not all homeless people are obnoxious, Garcia says. He’s disgusted by the amount of garbage near his camp, which he says he didn’t create but instead asks cleanup crews for trash bags that he fills himself.

Rusty mattress springs, food containers, miscellaneous wrappers and other refuse litter the area as highway traffic whizzes by.

“The trash is nasty,” he says. “It’s giving me a bad name.”

He’s known to move around and says he doesn’t want help getting back into housing.

“They wanted a third of my income, and the Texas attorney general is already taking a big chunk of my income,” Garcia said.

His food-stamp supplement dropped from $178 a month to $23 a month as pandemic funding for subsidies disappeared, he said.

What he wants is for the police to leave him, and others who he says don’t make any trouble, alone. He says he doesn’t panhandle, steal or do drugs, and he’s a free man who will be released from probation later this year. He just doesn’t have enough income to live in a car, as he did in the past, or an apartment or a room in a house.

Garcia, 67, a former railroad worker, is well-versed in his rights and says he holds authorities accountable when he feels they’re “threatening or terrorizing” people living on the streets.

“Police have to protect and serve the people, not hassle and harass,” Garcia said. “We’re existing. We’re living. We’re trying to get by. It’s not a crime to be homeless.”