Aurora is wisely moving to rein in its droves of booze-and-drug-addicted street dwellers – while Denver is going to keep on subsidizing them.

As reported this week in The Gazette, Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman is planning to bring a proposed ban on urban “camping” back before the Aurora City Council after it failed to garner enough council support last year. The council lineup has changed since then; Aurora voters decided to shift gears last November and elected a majority that pledges to enhance public safety and related priorities. That includes cracking down on the encampments of tents, boxes, lean-tos and the like that mar the metro area’s inner-urban core and contribute to its blight.

The shanty towns typically house chronically homeless people who refuse indoor shelter space. The itinerants who stay in them often enough engage in petty crime and sometimes violent crime. Many are substance abusers. Their disorderly behavior in and around the camps upends neighborhoods. The campers panhandle motorists and harass passersby.

Coffman’s ban would prohibit all urban camping on private and public property within Aurora. Even so, it would be enforced with a gentle touch. It would require seven-day advance notice before a camp could be shut down. And the city would have to ensure indoor shelter space is available before displacing campers.

It’s really a camping ban-lite. But even so forgiving a policy still can’t match the coddling of campers by Aurora’s next-door neighbor. Denver decided a couple of years ago to largely moot its own sporadically enforced camping ban with city-sponsored camps. Hence, the “Safe Outdoor Spaces” program, which turns urban camping into a staycation.

City-funded-and-maintained camps run by a subcontractor provide the drifters with heated tents, bathrooms, laundry services, internet access, food donations, dental care, food stamps, COVID-19 testing, community service opportunities and services for finding permanent housing. The campsites are also fenced and staffed 24/7. Which, of course, only draws more of the hardcore drifters and street dwellers who seek that lifestyle. Go figure.

And the city is about to dig in deeper. This week, the Denver City Council took a step toward approving a $3.9 million contract to fund the expansion of the managed homeless camps. The overall outlay to date for Safe Outdoor Spaces would grow to almost $5 million. The contract would fund four camps in the city through the end of 2022; there already are three in operation.

In other words, the City and County of Denver is using the public’s funds to provide a five-star glamping experience – for people who will then pester that same public for their spare change at off-ramps along I-25. If you find that absurd, you have a fellow traveler on the council.

In what could be the understatement of the month, District 5 Councilwoman Amanda Sawyer let on at this week’s meeting: “I’m just not 100% convinced that this is something that the city should be investing in.” And that was pretty much it for the opposition.

Alas, more representative of the council majority’s sentiment was this budget-oblivious observation by at-large council member Robin Kniech – who at times could pass for a member of the city council in fabled South Park: “If our goal is saving money, (traditional indoor shelters) may work. If our goal is to not have unsheltered homelessness and to serve everybody with different (needs), then we will need a variety of models.”

In that case, let the council chip in a month’s stay at the Brown Palace. That should appeal to even the most hardcore urban campers.

Denver Gazette editorial board