Letter: Take action on homeless camps

The hills of Glenwood Springs have eyes, and let me assure you that it’s worse than it sounds. As most valley residents know, we have a homeless/transient problem. Most see these folks on the corners of busy intersections throughout the valley holding cardboard signs asking for money. Others who live in Glenwood Springs can simply hear and see them at night as they light up the hillside at night with flashlights.

If anybody wants to see how these homeless camps affect our community, I suggest they take a drive up Palmer Avenue and walk the service road above Walmart. Or if you’re just passing through Glenwood, you can simply take a look above the Carpet One store located at the corner of 27th Street and Glen Avenue to get a view of a very large (and growing by the day) homeless camp on the hillside. This camp’s trash is beginning to roll downhill in large fashion. A camp located in the gully just to the south of this camp had a generator inside where the humming can be heard at night. These are just two of the many camps that have been active for years, polluting our community and waterways, yet no action has been taken.

Is anybody else concerned about the fire danger and health risks that are brought on by allowing these people to live on these hillsides? We shouldn’t have to preach the negative effects of these camps as detrimental to the land and people’s health within our community. The Bureau of Land Management was made aware of this issue last year with no response. And although most of these camps sit on private land near the Walmart hillside, they do extend onto BLM land high above Glenwood. If this matter is not within BLM jurisdiction or the city of Glenwood Springs, then the land owner should be fined for these hillside health risks.

Bottom line is that someone must take responsibility and action against these homeless camps and prohibit them from continuing on. Our town and its health depends on it.

James E. Defiance

Glenwood Springs

via:: Post Independent