CVC Statement on Park Hill Lawsuit
Colorado Village Collaborative, The City and County of Denver, Park Hill United Methodist Church, and Pastor Nathan Adams were named as defendants in a lawsuit on May 6, by a small group of Park Hill residents seeking legal action to prevent unhoused people from accessing emergency housing at Park Hill United Methodist Church on a temporary basis.
The plaintiffs seek to claim that these life-saving resources should not be available in Park Hill. The plaintiffs suggest that a lack of existing services, public transportation, existing unhoused individuals, and the presence of children and families make Park Hill an unfit neighborhood for our unhoused neighbors to call home.
These are precisely the kinds of well-funded arguments we have heard before in efforts to advance and protect various forms of segregation and oppression throughout our nation’s history. When given the option, time and again, some groups of powerful individuals seek to choose their neighbors along lines such as class, race, religion, sexual orientation, and other forms of oppression. When the arc of justice has prevailed in these historic examples a clear and simple truth has been revealed: no one gets to choose who lives next door.
For the first time in our nation’s history more of those experiencing homelessness across our nation are sleeping outdoors than in emergency shelters. Both nationally and locally, Black, Indigenous, and People of Color make up a disproportionate amount of our unsheltered homeless population. In Denver, more than 1000 people will sleep outside tonight, but things don’t have to be this way. Safe Outdoor Spaces, Tiny Home Villages, and similar strategies are meeting a critical need for our unsheltered neighbors, and Colorado Village Collaborative remains committed to expanding these models into each of Denver’s City Council districts. No neighborhood is an unfit place for our unhoused community to call home.
Regardless of their intention, the plaintiffs have not deterred us. Instead, the plaintiffs have lit a fire underneath us. We’re here to ensure this fire does not grow into an untamed flame that would burn our progress to the ground, but that sacred sort of fire that gathers community together to be made safe, warm, and whole. Gathered around this fire, we look forward to that day when justice will prevail and the forces of discrimination, so prevalent in our society, will be defeated.