“I’m leaving, I’m going back to Denver. You guys have too many rules.”

Springs Rescue Mission President and CEO Jack Briggs hears this and slight variations from homeless people who enter the facility for food, shelter and an assortment of other needs – and then complain about it.

Colorado Springs City Councilors – who augment the shelter’s private and sectarian assistance – have heard homeless people complain to them for months, as guests of the shelter speak at the public lectern. They say the city’s largest shelter is inadequate and unfair.

They complain about a system that rewards good behavior with more and better food.

“Some claim they are being turned out in bad weather or for minor infractions such as having candy in their backpack, some say they are ridiculed, others say their possessions aren’t being returned when they leave, and some feel the environment is unsafe,” explains a Gazette news article.

Others complain that the faith-based gospel-driven non-profit “forces” religion on them – which it does not.

The shelter takes in people in need, even when they are high on drugs or inebriated with alcohol. It allows people to bring their pets. It offers health care, vocational training, counseling and just about anything else that might improve the health, safety, welfare and quality of life for those who have fallen on hard times or chosen to drop out of mainstream society.

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It is not the shelter’s job to enable homelessness by offering an anything-goes environment of comfort and sustained disfunction. By offering a hand up, the shelter has for decades helped hundreds of people get off the streets to lead more constructive and dignified lives.

We know for a fact the shelter has saved lives by taking in strangers who would otherwise freeze to death or suffer from any number of dangers facing people who live outside. It is a role-model shelter other institutions learn from and emulate. It is part of the reason Colorado Springs has a far lower rate of homelessness than Denver and other major cities across the country.

The “I’m going to Denver” crowd prefers a city that cuts services to permanent residents to give the unsheltered free lodging in luxury hotels and “microcommunities” – without doing much to help them improve their circumstances.

By coddling the homeless, Denver has seen a steady increase in people living outdoors as documented each year by an annual “point-in-time” survey. Aurora, which manages homelessness with a hands-up approach, has a declining homeless population. El Paso County – Colorado’s most populous county and home to the Springs Rescue Mission – has achieved a 17% drop in its homeless population over the past five years.

The homeless who complain about the mission, and its programs designed to help them improve, should know they are not entitled to free food, shelter and clothing. It comes to them as a gift, and few organizations offer it with more genuine compassion than the Springs Rescue Mission.

Handouts and low-expectation shelters are the opposite of compassion, as they foster dependence that leads to misery, despair and premature death.

The Rescue Mission and the City Council have nothing to apologize for and no reason to change the way they help. The complaints they hear are the sound of getting it right.

Colorado Springs Gazette Editorial Board