Editorial: Fort Collins should stay the course on homeless services

Fort Collins police, officials and residents are in the midst of making sense of a terrible tragedy.

A Fort Collins resident and young mother, Heather “Helena” Hoffman, was found dead in Sheldon Lake in City Park. Police believe she was killed and sexually assaulted by a self-described transient man who in May registered as a sex offender with the state. 

If social media commentary is any indication, some residents’ fears and frustrations toward Fort Collins’ transient population have boiled over. Joining that chorus, Larimer County Sheriff Justin Smith on Facebook called out service providers who "enable and encourage" criminality among transient people by providing them the same services offered to our community's homeless population.

Smith has repeatedly said transient crime is taxing the county jail, and the Coloradoan Editorial Board acknowledges that overcrowding, regardless of each inmates' living situation, is a problem that needs solving.

But transience alone is not a reason to suspect wrongdoing. This way of life has been a part of human culture from the beginning. Early man was a transient creature, following food sources. With the agricultural revolution, man started to settle down, but still many followed a wandering path throughout history.

They were called gypsies, minstrels, hippies.

Established communities have historically looked upon these travelers with suspicion and prejudice.

But here in the United States, our freedoms include the freedom to live wherever we like, as long as are not breaking any laws in doing so.

For that reason, the Coloradoan Editorial Board doesn’t agree with the sheriff’s approach to this challenging situation.

Should our community be tough on crime? Yes. But eliminating services that help hundreds of our neighbors each year is not a viable answer. Cutting off services that may be attractive to the criminally transient disproportionately harms local residents working to get out of homelessness.

Showing compassion for those less fortunate is not soft; it is not enabling criminal behavior.  And publicly shaming those trying to offer compassion for those who have genuinely fallen on hard times is counterproductive. 

People experiencing homelessness of any kind are more likely to be victims of violence than to perpetrate it.

Programs like Homeless Gear and Outreach Fort Collins are making important, if slow-going, connections with homeless and transient individuals to reduce disruptive behaviors and the impact of homelessness on our community.

Outreach Fort Collins' work began only last year. Both Outreach and Homeless Gear say they are adjusting how they serve the homeless populations. The City Council also approved new rules in March targeting behavior in Old Town.

Let's stay the course on the work already being done.

Judging by the lack of open comment on the issue at Wednesday's City Council meeting, changing course doesn't seem to be a priority for residents.

Fort Collins city leaders, police and service providers must ask themselves: What kind of city do they want Fort Collins want to be known as?

Fort Collins should be known as a place that doesn’t tolerate criminal activity from residents, from tourists, from the temporarily displaced, from the chronically homeless or from transients. That comes from enforcing the laws we have.

It should also be known as a place where a resident who finds himself or herself without a home can access a lifeline to become self-sustaining again. 

The pursuit of justice for Helena Hoffmann should not involve punishing the innocent, no matter how aggressive we seek to be in pursuing the guilty.

This is the viewpoint of the Coloradoan Editorial Board, made up of six community members and Coloradoan News Director Eric Larsen and Engagement Editor Rebecca Powell. News reporters are not involved in the editorial board process.