Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Nothing like a vacation in the country
And the cities of Colorado have found the perfect place out on the plains to cure its homeless problem.
Darrell Valdez, Cindy Davis, John Ferentchak and Devonie Williams know what it’s like to live on the streets, to be addicted to alcohol and drugs, to struggle with hopelessness.Ft Lyons is a good location, having long experience with the detritus of our society.
Now they’re living far from the city, with about 60 other homeless Coloradans on a sprawling campus of historic buildings near the Arkansas River. In previous incarnations, Fort Lyon was an Army fort, a tuberculosis sanatorium, a veterans’ hospital and a minimum-security prison.
In this latest chapter, these residents — along with state lawmakers, homeless advocates and Bent County officials — hope to put their lives on a different path.
The idea of moving homeless folks from city streets to an isolated rural stretch of the Great Plains some 200 miles southeast of Denver drew skepticism in the halls of the state Capitol earlier this year, narrowly escaping rejection in the state Legislature.
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