By Matt Prichard – KOAA News 5
COLORADO SPRINGS, CO – City leaders managing a battle of wills at the City Auditorium tonight as homeless activists spoke out against a proposed ordinance that would ban sitting and laying down in Downtown Colorado Springs.
“We’re getting ready to enact laws that are going to criminalize things like poverty, hunger and homelessness by asking people to not be in public spaces that are meant to be the safe-havens for our entire community,” said Colorado Springs resident, Adison Quinnpetti.
“We do not have authority to pick out one group or ten groups and say you can’t be here! The city does not have that authority,” said Colorado Springs resident, Jan Lightfoot.
But they weren’t the only ones at the public forum taking a stand, downtown business owners came with an argument of their own.
“Homelessness is a totally different issue for me, this is about economic viability of downtown Colorado Springs,” said Colorado Springs business owner, Laura Williams.
“If we don’t do something, our people are moving out of Downtown, they’re moving out to the shopping centers. We don’t want to do that,” said Colorado Springs business owner, Ron Theisman.
And both Williams and Theisman believe the ordinance would chase away potential customers and businesses.
“They probably won’t hurt anybody, but you can’t convince a customer of that! I’ve seen them, they get out of the car and say, I’m not going in there,” said Theisman.
“We want to attract businesses to Colorado Springs, we want businesses to stay in Colorado Springs and they aren’t going to if we don’t do something,” said Williams.
But for those on the other side those arguments don’t add up, saying better solutions exist and we should explore those before putting these laws in place.
“Now is the time to implement affordable housing, to raise the minimum wage and ensure economic justice for all,” said Quinnpetti.
“They’re not constitutional, they’re not legal and they’re immoral. They are not good,” said Lightfoot.
Another public forum is scheduled for September 17th where anyone who wasn’t able to speak tonight will get their chance.
