How (not) to deal with drunks in the park

This post will take a tad bit of explaining. I used to work in Cortez, Colorado, and keep up with news about the community through friends and a great alternative newspaper, the Four Corners Free Press, which runs my columns.

Recently, a Native American man froze to death in the Cortez city park. His death is tragic and not funny in any way. What is depressingly humorous, however, is the predominantly white community’s response to the supposed root of the problem — Native Americans hanging out in the town’s public areas and parks. The hysterics over this “problem” would make someone think that loitering in town parks is one of the worst crimes imaginable. This, in a community whose white residents apparently chop up their fathers and feed the bits to coyotes!

The mental contortions used by white community members to solve this “problem” without using racist language is  really quite astounding and amusing since they only end up reinforcing the fact that they really are racist. A prime example is an op-ed from a citizen who urged the city to think outside of the box and erect tepees for the Native Americans next to the county jail. My favorite quote from the piece: ”While many of us were celebrating the birth of Christ, others were cold, hungry, homeless and with no reason to celebrate anything. Is it their fault? Maybe, but would you want to trade places with them? You wouldn’t, so let’s make a teepee and give those with very little dignity left something to hold onto as their own.” Brilliant!
Other creative solutions to the problem of loitering drunks came up during a City Council discussion and included the idea of making it illegal for local alcohol retailers to sell booze to known drunks and possibly rearranging the town park benches.  I know that rearranging the furniture in my house certainly keeps me from opening a cold beer after a hard day.

To top it off, the Cortez Journal’s publisher, Suzy Meyer (my former boss), writes a less-than-heartfelt editorial about the death of the man in the park. Her opinion? It shouldn’t be happening in 2009. About the only thing reading that editorial would do for someone is to encourage him to go out and kick a loitering drunk and scream, ”Get up, you idiot! Don’t you know people are having to go out of their way to keep you from freezing! What the f*** do you think you’re doing out here anyway in the 21st Century? Quit making problems for all the white people! God!”

No discussion of treatment facilities. No discussion of constructing an actual homeless shelter where people can find a warm place to sleep. Just give ‘em a cold tepee by the jail.