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Tag: Vagrancy

In Grand Junction, scrutiny intensifies on Resource Center to address rising crime, other issues
Local, Rocky Mountain Voice

In Grand Junction, scrutiny intensifies on Resource Center to address rising crime, other issues

By Jen Schumann | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice Once celebrated as one of the top 10 main streets in the U.S., Grand Junction’s downtown now faces turmoil. Business owners, frustrated with the nearby Resource Center, are cleaning up feces and needles and dealing with fires and property damage. Many are calling for the center to be relocated. The Resource Center opened on Dec. 11, 2023, providing food, shelter, hygiene and navigation services for the homeless. By October 2024, however, downtown business owners reported rising concerns about harassment, danger, property damage and filth. At the Nov. 20 meeting of City Council, business owners shared their frustrations.  “We've put in a new, almost $20,000 camera system since this Resource Center came in," business own...
Study finds homeless sweeps don’t reduce crime, may even increase violence
coloradopolitics.com, State

Study finds homeless sweeps don’t reduce crime, may even increase violence

By Jenny Deam | Colorado Politics Despite prevailing public and political wisdom that removing homeless encampments is necessary to reduce crime in an area, a new national study looking specifically at Denver’s crime rates after sweeps found the narrative was, in fact, mostly false. “There is no evidence that sweeps make our community safer,” said Pranav Padmanabhan, the Denver-based lead author of the study published Wednesday in the national Journal of Urban Health. Padmanabhan is a graduate student in Public Health at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and one of four authors affiliated with the medical school. The fifth is with the University of California-San Diego School of Medicine. READ THE FULL STORY AT COLORADO POLITICS