A Year Without Sleep

Durango City leaders profess compassion toward people experiencing homelessness and a desire to “solve homelessness” in the City. City representatives have intimated that they do not wish to make homelessness itself a criminal status, but only to enforce criminal laws when behavior by unhoused people threatens the safety and welfare of the community as a whole. Yet, an analysis of twelve months of citations issued by Durango police for violations of the City’s ordinance banning camping in the city limits tells a starkly different story. Rather than policing harmful, criminal behavior, the Durango police are prohibiting unhoused people from simply sleeping in city limits.