That included his car, until a wreck took that option away. What it really boils down to is people don’t deserve to freeze.”įoradori has been in Colorado for about three years and has had semi-permanent places to sleep for most of that time. “That guy was probably up all night freezing. It’s a regular part of his morning routine, which starts when he wakes up in a Capitol Hill shelter and ends when he arrives at his job at Ball Arena.Īs for the policies people are asked to follow at Union Station, “they’re pretty easy rules, actually. “You need to be awake,” she said.Ī few seats down, Shawn Foradori played games on his phone. Beaty/Denverite 9 a.m.Ī couple hours later, a man slept at a table in the Great Hall as a transit cop tried to wake him up. A security guard would soon ask him to move.Ī Denver Health paramedic stands over a man sitting in her ambulance in RTD's Union Station bus terminal. Bach played from hidden speakers.Ī woman spun across the floor for a photo as a man slept under a blanket on a leather chair nearby. Upstairs, the Great Hall had been open for less than an hour, and people had already nestled into chairs beneath a massive Christmas tree. “You come down here and you talk to these people and you meet the need.” “That’s how you fix the problem,” she said. She imagines a permanent table set up in the terminal, staffed with people who can offer housing and treatment. She said she hopes the city might bring social workers to the station. Don’t shut them out because they’re on a prescription drug.” “It’s really sad and it’s really heartbreaking because this is when they really need you. Sometimes, Trimble said, she quietly calls mothers and fathers back, urging them to reconnect with their children. People regularly ask to borrow her phone, which they use to call family for help. It's a religious path that I'm on," he says. He's headed for Washington or Montana, somewhere peaceful after years dealing with a difficult parole officer in in Minnesota. Gregory Isaac King waits for a bus in RTD's Union Station depot on Dec. “They’re not really criminals or drug addicts. “That’s not what I’m seeing down here,” she said. Sometimes she arrives hours before her departure and spends the night in RTD’s public seating. Trimble is not unhoused, but she spends a lot of time down here, usually before she catches a bus to Fort Collins to collect mail and take care of other personal affairs. “I think it’s really exaggerated,” Trimble said. ![]() She said she doesn’t think Union Station is a “hellhole.” This is real.” 5:35 a.m.ĭelores Trimble sat silently by a door as people began to wake up. “I’ll be back around to check on you,” he said. As the second man gulped down pills, the first stood and leaned in to kiss his friend on the cheek. The man knelt down and pulled several prescription bottles out of the bag, then handed them to his friend in the chair. “I can’t feel my legs no more,” he said in quiet agony, motioning to a backpack hanging off the chair. Another man, awake in a wheelchair, struggled with gauze wrapped around his left leg that ended at his knee. “I don’t really want to get back high.”Ī moment later, his hard persona dropped. Four men rested on an old mattress pushed against a wall. ![]() It was still dark outside, and many people in the bus terminal were sleeping in the rows of chairs. ![]() 8, we spent 18 hours at the Great Hall and the bus terminal, talking to people throughout the day and night. On Tuesday, RTD president Debra Johnson announced small amounts of fentanyl had been found in the bus terminal restrooms and they would be shut down for a month so they could be remediated and staffed with security. Mayor Michael Hancock weighed in with a statement condemning “illegal drug use, public urination and unsafe loitering” at Union Station and announced that Denver police would ramp up patrols of the area and enforce the rules. Last week, Regional Transportation District union president Lance Longenbohn called the terminal “a lawless hellhole” - a place sullied by “prolific loiterers.” RTD drivers, he said, should not be terrified to walk through the station on breaks. ![]() Not far away from the Great Hall is an underground bus terminal, where people wait for buses that will take them all over the metro. Filled with comfortable couches, chairs and desks, the space has been branded “Denver’s living room.” Many come to enjoy the quiet in the Great Hall, a masterful architectural restoration that has been bustling since it reopened in 2014. People linger at Union Station for many reasons: to catch a bus or a train, charge their phones, connect to wifi, sleep, buy a cup of coffee or a cocktail, or stay at the Crawford Hotel.
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