It’s one small section of Denver, but a frequent stop for first responders.
Denver firefighters said they took nearly 2,200 calls to the area around rescue missions and homeless camps in downtown Denver.
On Monday, the city of Denver dubbed the area a public health risk in the area. City officials cleared homeless camps and cleaned the sidewalks and streets between 21st and 24th streets, and Arapahoe and Lawrence streets.
“That little section of the downtown area has proven to be quite an issue for us, in terms of our call responses,” said Denver Fire Captain, Greg Pixley.
Pixley said most of the calls firefighters get to the area are medical related.
“People in need of assistance, if they got hurt, perhaps there was an assault or something like that,” he said.
Fires are a concern, too.
“We do know that in the last three days we had two different fires and there are concerns with the high density of people living next to one another,” he added. “These are not fire safe areas where people are living. You have bedding, you have sleeping bags, you have tarps. There are some propane and butane issues that we found in that environment as well. ”
Police respond to the area frequently, too.
So far this year, there have been more than 7,500 police calls for service in the area between Lawrence and Arapahoe Streets, along 21st street to 24th street.
Many of those are also medical calls, but also include calls about theft, assault, domestic violence and other issues.
Police Calls for Service 2018 by Jacob Rodriguez on Scribd
There is no simple solution to homelessness. The first responders understand that too. Captain Pixley said every call for service is also chance to steer someone toward help.