I know probably all of you have your own homelessness issues, as the situation is not limited to Colorado, but tonight my property visit after hours was disheartening.

One of the complexes that I run sits facing a very nice park. In the past, the police have kept pretty tight control over this park because a school is nearby. I've used the park as a perk to new applicants interested in renting there. It is used by elderly folks walking their dogs and young parents walking strollers.

Tonight, there was a homeless woman with the equivalent of 3 shopping carts full of trash cascading over the lawn. Trash had gotten into the street across from my rental. There is a pavilion nearby and it was full of homeless people there, too. The bathrooms, once open to the public are now locked and port-a-potties now sit outside them. As a taxpayer, I resent that the costs of these improvements were not protected better and that the failure to protect the investment in this park will result in yet more property taxes being charged to remedy the problems. Someone has to pick up the trash, screen for needles, etc.

It occurred to me that I have paid property taxes on this property for over a decade. Yet tonight, none of the people in that park were taxpayers. All were homeless. The shopping carts were stolen property. Littering is illegal, yet they were unconcerned with adhering to that law, either.

This subset of the population has overtaken this park, much the same as pirates take over ships. Law enforcement is overburdened and, I realize phoning the non-emergency numbers to complain about drug addicts littering in a park compromises the protection of those who might have more pressing police matters to attend.

Legally, I am forced to pay taxes with property confiscation by the State as the consequence for nonpayment, but what if the City allows interlopers to overtake land and such takover changes the use of the land and creates an unsafe environment? If the City cannot preserve taxpayer assets, it challenges the taxpayer's ability to generate the funds (rents) that pay those taxes? (I know that San Francisco had a couple of businesses in the Fisherman's Wharf area suing the city for damages resulting from allowing homelessness to thrive there.)

From my own perspective, this condition lowers the value of my rental property. It increases the difficulty of me doing my job - renting the units out to paying, law-abiding tenants. I feel like a bait-and-switch has happened. I bought this property with the promise of a safe recreation area as an adjoining neighbor. If the City cannot preserve it as such, perhaps they should be liquidating these taxpayer funded parks to private ownership so that adequate preservation can be employed privately.

Any of you experiencing the same frustrations? Has anything you might have tried worked?

Rocky,

I feel your pain.

I too have such a park across the street from a row of my rentals. The wonderful amenity has become a turn off to families.

Me? Squeaky wheel gets the oil.

Call and file a complaint AGAIN and AGAIN.

Most city personnel are not proactive, they are ordered to only act on COMPLAINTS. They have to respond to EVERY complaint.

Get your resident and the neighbors to file complaints.

Get the homeless coalition do-gooders to act.

Rather than just whine, provide PROOF of vandalism, trash, needles, disorderly conduct. Photos, video...

The police are NOT overworked to the point of not shooing off squatters.

Cold weather might help the situation.

We support the homeless shelter which, in my mind, justifies my alerting civic officials to HELP these people get to the shelter.

Get the newspaper there the take some photos for the front page.

(Any chance these folks are eating pets? :)

BRAD

PS if the do-good crowd brings sandwiches and blankets the squatters will stay and multiply.

As a LL I do have a heart for the un-housed.

I have attended some local homeless "concerned citizens" meetings. My suggestion is for each local church to "adopt" ONE willing person in need. A volunteer or two to help the person find resources and a few bucks from the church budget for food and even rent on a sleeping room.

Our church gathers food for the local food pantry, how about a food drive for our adopted friend, and a "shower" (like a baby or bridal shower) so supplies...

Most attendees say "that sounds great" and they go home.

BRAD

You do know most of the politicians don't care, right. They are likely making a profit off of it (they set up non profit groups to "help", with their wives, baby mommas, or friends running these "charities, non profits" or whatever they call them. Then they get big grants from the govt (your tax money) to "help" and pay themselves and their friends millions while they live in gated, security patrolled communities. Just look at all the mayors and police chiefs in most of these places - typical DEI hires that just give lip service to the problem. They don't care.

This is an invasion, no matter how much deflection they throw out there and it's likely not going to stop or even be addressed except to say that you are the problem and they will call you the usual buzz words.

Just wait until these people start breaking into your tenants apartments and start assaulting them in their own homes and especially the park.

If I was a tenant there I'd be out the door and break the lease yesterday. Your building may soon be empty or, worse, taken over by the gangs. Then what?

I'd take a deep breath and accept that the govt is not going to do anything and is likely in on it and I'd SELL the place for what I could get and move to a better place. It's only going to get a lot worse.

Now there are people who will argue this point and make reasons to stay. Fine. I remember as a child when my grandparents sold their home and moved to the country because they saw their town in decay with the slums advancing toward their home. This was in the 50's, They saw it and got out. That area has now long been a slum and no one in their right mind would even drive through it anymore. 70+ years later and the problem is even worse.

There are other places.

Some people will say it's wrong to sell and abandon a place and that we should be compassionate and help. I say let THEM try if they want. I've tried in the past and all I got was more of the trash. My places destroyed and the govt/cops did nothing. These people and their supporters can have each other.

Ever think why the really rich have their big yachts that stay offshore and can sail away? That are staffed with security and so on?

For the price of one apartment building you could have a nice yacht of maybe 70 feet or so, maybe a little larger that you and your family could use when needed or maybe a place way out in the country.

Around here there is a caboose motel using those old cabooses that are no longer used.

I see an opportunity here. We could use these cabooses to house the homeless. And ohhh yeah, lets think about this, in the middle of night - we connect the locomotive and send them out further west.

The Political Oligarchy need a permanent underclass to keep them in power as their policies stink and no sane person would vote for said policies.

Last time I voted I made mention that my DL showed my new addy but my voter ID at the polls was my old addy. I spent about 45 minutes sitting at a table listening to a guy talk about what had happened while he went thru all the paperwork.

He looked at my DL picture and noted that I had a beard now but not in the picture. I said that my facial hair is weird in the fact that it grows if I don't shave it.

Isn't Colorado trying to defund the police?

To Brad – Thank you for the ideas. I will write a letter to the City Council, cc’ing the police department. I might even help the tenants by providing pre-written letters (since most won’t take the time) and provide them a stamped envelope to send to the same.

I do feel a sense of helplessness because I truly think no one has a grasp on handling this situation. Our governor’s latest jabber is to provide basic income to all of the homeless. I think that amount was around $12K/year. This was done by a “benevolent benefactor” and they tracked it for a year. Supposedly the results included a high percentage of the prior homeless getting housed and moving into independence.

To Richard[MI] – I have a friend who took funds and bought a yacht. There is no way I could sleep at night if I was aware of the maintenance costs. Like an RV, he is tinkering ALL the time with one or another expensive-yet-essential part that needs replaced. I do think you can make a small fortune with a yacht, but only if you start with a large one….

To Ray-N-Pay – Your reference of the caboose idea reminded me of another thing that was happening here in my rural area of Colorado. The local undertakers were taking turns handling the indigent deaths that occurred in this county. Suddenly, they had a significant increase in indigent deaths. Turned out, with a bit of investigation, other counties were purposefully buying one-way bus tickets to send the very-ill homeless by bus to our county. The homeless would then die before they could return to the county of origin, thus saving the coroner group the costs of handling the corpses. At $800-$1,000 per cremation, added up. The result was an under-the-radar attempt to bus the sickest homeless out of county bounds, much like the game “Hot Potato.” Whether this is going on at present with the homeless population is unknown, but they are coming in droves.

NE[PA] – It’s suspicious why the vacant buildings remain so when the government agencies keep pumping more money into developing newer, more costly, solutions. There is also the “personal liberty” angle that the homeless feel they have “the right” to stay in public parks since they are part of “the public.” Oh brother….

Mapleaf – I agree that the underclass is needed to maintain power, which is a long held belief that representative democracies have short life spans.

I have considered selling and cashing it all in, but taking a (supposedly) appreciating asset and trading it for a depreciating asset (savings, stock market, etc.) seems quite drastic. Financially, just with the couple of multi-plexes I own in the problematic town, I would be taking a hit of going from $20,000 rough income a month to about $3,000. One needs a pretty strong constitution to do that without grimacing. Not to mention, the insecurity that cash represents as it loses it’s strength day after day through inflation and taxation.

One of you mentioned moving to the country before suffering the loss. I live an hour away in a much smaller, rural area. I have the luxury of having a few rentals in this smaller town area, too. The problems I see here are that property values have skyrocketed. Rent rates have increased, but those in the rental population cannot afford the costs of rent and much of that could be tempered if prioritization were taught somewhere along the way. The priorities of today's younger renters is appalling. I have a couple with 3 children that is running late on rent. I delivered the late notice with $50 fee on Sunday. The husband answered the door and I commented that his haircut was really a nice one. “Oh yeah,” he said, “We drive all the children an hour away to get haircuts at this great barber. He only charges $40/each.” They drive a broken down Suburban, which generously guessing gets 5/mpg. I considered that my entire family did not pay for haircuts while they lived at home, including my spouse. I am not a trained hairdresser, but to afford to pay our bills, it was something I learned in order to get by – a concept WAY beyond this fella. I still get cheap haircuts at discount places though I could afford to spend more on this.

A landlord friend said to get out of residential rentals and invest in commercial properties while they are discounted. Another friend suggested storage facilities.

I see commercial properties struggling, too. Yes, they have longer leases, but like at Fisherman's Wharf, if businesses have homeless folks squatting in front of their doors, they can and do sue for loss of their ability to conduct their businesses. They also can refuse to pay rent. And the property taxes on commercial buildings is atrocious. Meanwhile, the City shrugs. Councilmembers, at least in our area are most likely wanna-be politicians whose backgrounds involve coaching their children's little league team. They are not prepared to deal with problems of this nature, and it shows.

The Smartest people aren't at the top,

It's a very complex situation with few real world solutions.

To start, what are the police going to do. There are not enough jail cells. They can lock them up overnight and let them out the next day but what does that accomplish. They can run them out of this park but they will just move to the next park. The police are frustrated, residents are frustrated, the politicians don't know what to do. In the old days, the sheriff would just load them up and haul them to the edge of town (or the next county) and tell them to not come back but that doesn't work today.

I'm neck deep in the middle of this problem in our city. We have 3X the percentage of homeless in my city from the rest of the state. They mayor and our Sr.Pastor pulled a very diverse group of people together about 2 years ago to discuss what solutions we could come up with. The result was the creation of a non-profit that is partnership between City, Church, and businesses. And the plan is a multilayered solution. First is an open air warehouse where the homeless can get out of the weather, get a shower, and one meal a day. The police will then be able to round them up from the parks and drop them at the shelter day or night rather than just roust them from park to park. This gives the police a solution with what to do with them. The city will provide mental health, drug addiction, and financial counseling. Most of the homeless are homeless because of one of one or more of these 3 basic problems. Some of the older, mature, men and women from the Church will spend some time at the shelter to build relationships and encourage right behaviors. I have seen first hand the power that adding this element brings. If they stick with it they will get to move into a "pallet house" (a tool shed with a locking door), and eventually a stripped down efficiency apartment if they get and keep a job. Much of the funding and donations of labor and materials has come from business.

We are in construction now and are slated to open the warehouse and first pallet houses in January/February. I'm sure there will be challenges that we will have to overcome but it's a start in addressing the problem.

In short, you can complain all you want but it really doesn't help because most cities don't have a comprehensive plan on how to address the situation, they have a hodgepodge of resources that oftentimes work against each other. I would suggest rather than complaining, you step in and help pull the right people together to develop a plan on how to handle it. Be part of the solution.

Mike(TX) thank you for sharing the solution your community is attempting to implement. I'll be interested in a follow up report on how and if it works.

I read a FB post from a homeless person complaining about the local homeless shelter. Among her complaints was that the staff expect her and her children to rise at 5:30 in the morning, which she thought was inhumane, especially on weekends. She also complained that when she arrived late, the donated meals were sparse and not of "the best quality", if there were any leftovers at all. Lastly, she was quite upset that the pet shelter offered no shade and that it was filthy. The post raged with entitlement and was met with scorn from the community.

In another community post, a couple of homeless people took photos of the trash around a homeless site. They bought trash bags and collected 2,800 pounds of trash, photo'd the before and after photos and asked, "Anyone want to buy us lunch?" The community support was overwhelming. They had so many gift cards to their "favorite" restaurant (Sonic)that I imagine they will be eating pretty well for quite a while. All from "some" exertion on their part. Oh, the difference between the 2 posts.

In answer to the first woman, many responding suggested that she was not prioritizing her need for a job and proper housing and that her choosing to keep a pet - at all - was proof that she was in denial about her condition. The fact that she chose to complicate her housing mission by adding unnecessary pets, which are not allowed at most of the local rental properties, was also evident. She raged on saying that the drug addicts got better treatment upstairs than she did. Oh my....

In my own complex, I currently have a tenant who is oblivious to the fact that her acquisition of pets and her lack of following rules is jeopardizing her lease being renewed. I mentioned to the husband that the aggressive female dog, which had just delivered 11 puppies, was a serious violation and that if he was not careful, he would be looking into the eyes of his children explaining that they were now living in their car because Daddy preferred the dog over his children's care, neither of which would be met if he continued prioritizing like he was. He looked at me like I had just stabbed his mother!

Some of this stupidity is truly the tale wagging the dog. Our society needs to suck it up a bit and hold people accountable. I believe in charity and I believe helping those who are down on their luck. This is not what I am seeing "in the field." What I see is an entire entitled generation where everyone got a ribbon and the word "No" was viewed as profanity. I'm seeing the medically-challenged not have sufficient support to protect their medicines because living on the street does not allow for it. I'm seeing the hospital ER rooms filled with homeless that the hospital is forced to "house" even if for only a few hours. I'm seeing meth addicts taking over the library bathrooms which jeopardizes the public's ability to keep this wonderful resource open to the public. At what point does the nonsense stop?

Closing facilities who collected these people and committed them was viewed as an atrocious crime against humanity. Funding was reduced. Facilities were closed. Instead, somehow the cruelty of forcing these people onto the streets was viewed as "preserving" their freedoms. What has been done thus far is woefully insufficient, ill thought out and done at the price of law-abiding citizens who, frankly, are the funders of the programs being pitched.

I have no problem paying the taxes that support public parks and libraries, but when one faction of the public overtakes a park with unsafe and illegal behavior claiming the entire park for their sole use is wrong.

It is so very disheartening to realize that 1) if I send a letter to the newspaper, and later realize that I must sell the property, I have negatively impacted any chance of reselling at the same profit; 2) If I go to city council to voice a complaint, it will likely be tossed back into my court to resolve; 3) speaking out makes one the target of future attacks.

I'm not refusing to do my part, but keeping these rentals in tip-top condition, renting to responsible tenants and maintaining order all while paying the property taxes on time and following all city ordinances about yard care and occupancy rules should be "enough." Not all folks are able to keep up with those ideals. At some point, each of us should be receiving "value" for the dollars we pay in taxes. The City needs to offer some recourse when not forcing these citizens to adhere to on-the-books laws preventing them from escalating the problems in stable neighborhoods.

I'm with you on the approach, I've always said I will help where we are offering a hand-up not a handout, it's an important distinction. Most do-good programs simply hand stuff out and do nothing that actually helps long term. My opinion is that simply enables bad behavior.

I do think you are not going to get very far by simply demanding the city make the homeless follow the rules, there aren't enough jail cells to enforce that. What do you expect them to do exactly? The problem is they don't know how to handle it. Rather than being negative in your speaking out, simply ask what is the plan to deal with the problem from all aspects and suggest that they pull a group together to discuss a comprehensive solution that creates the right pressure points to get the homeless moving in the right direction to rejoin society. You might be surprised what can be accomplished by getting the right folks from all sides of the problem in the same room and talking. In doing so, you may actually be acknowledge for a helpful suggestion.

I have been working alongside some of the staff that will eventually be running the park when it opens. Right now they work at the day shelter where the homeless congregate during the day. So far, I have helped with 3 cases where we a homeless person has successfully moved from homeless to housed by helping them with simple stuff like getting them linked up with resources to get the mental health meds they need, helping them get signed up to collect their SS benefits, and encouraging and holding them accountable to go to AA meetings and get a job. I would bet we have spent less than 10-15 hours per person over a few weeks to get them off the street but these are probably the easiest ones to help because they want help.

Rocky,

In the end, NEVER WAIT for the govt to solve your problems or come to our rescue.

If I did not see positive changes quickly I would sell this prop and 1031X it into another prop.

Problems like this don't get better, they grow/expand and YOU are the one taking the hit.

BRAD

Regarding selling/trading this property (and as an interesting sidelight to multi-family properties versus single family homes), this one is an 8-plex with gross rents sitting at $12,500/month. If I sell it, it will likely bring in around $1.1-1.2M.

Other multi-plexes to trade into are scarce in this area, and most would be subject to the same issues I am facing, with the exception that most are not so close to a park and very few are in top condition, as my units are. Likely, to do a 1031, I'd have to exchange for 3-4 SFH's.

In the town where this is located (which is really good for having a nice renter pool to draw from), single family homes are selling for close to $300-400K with rent running $1,700-$2K for a 2-3 bedroom place.

Mathematically, I'll be taking a sizable financial hit going from $12,500/month to $5,100-$6,000/month gross (losing $6K). While I agree with an earlier poster saying "Get out now! It'll only get worse!", losing $6K/month is not something I take lightly.

Paying capital gains and investing in the stock market might be even worse. I could invest in an alternative income property, but I'm near 60 years old and was looking forward to being able to reap the rewards of decades of very hard work on my part.

Interestingly, I went to the movie "Reagan." They mentioned a formative book that Reagan read in his youth, "The Printer at Udell's." I am currently reading this book and just passed a chapter involving a homeless man who died at the entry of a church due to exposure to freezing weather. It prompted the church to set up

'conditional' housing.

The rule of living there was one must work to earn the right to stay in their base minimum dormitory cots. Those suggesting this solution thought the community could support hiring these folks to work producing firewood. All proceeds went directly to the church to offset costs of operation.

The idea behind this was that those who genuinely needed a hand up would be helped and it was structured to empower them with a sense of earning their keep. This was in contrast to providing housing without merit, which they said created dependency and was, therefore, counter-productive.

If a homeless person did so successfully over a set period of time, and still needed housing, they could earn the right to upgrade to a bare minimum "shed-type" unit only housing themselves.

Those who refused to work were not allowed to stay in this housing. Those with medical conditions were funneled to a different program where the homeless people could gain help managing their medications until they were able to hopefully function on their own. Those unable to do so were placed in sanctioned nursing homes, of sorts.

I'm not done with this book, and do not know where the plot may lead. In contrast, I glanced at my Google feed and noticed an article where a homeless man just won $43,000 against a rescue mission homeless shelter because they refused to accommodate his ESA in addition to his service dog. So, the homeless shelters are already working on a thin budget of donations and are losing lawsuits over pet care. The shelter admitted that adding pets into these equations escalates the potential for problems, as some pets do not do well with other pets, or with other people. If things get out of hand, the danger is serious to staff and to other residents. How did this case ever win???

Usually, I try to remain optimistic about navigating whatever politically passes. Voting rights have extended so vastly to cater to so many who do not contribute financially to the laws they vote to pass. Those with no understanding or incentive to do otherwise will vote in ways that will collapse a working system.

Meanwhile, I will do as some of you have suggested and see if I can either trade, sell, or enhance security in some way so as not to lose my income source. I just find the whole situation to be a case of the tail wagging the dog. Ugh!

Veering off topic slightly but I had not heard about the lawsuit against the shelter.

Did a quick search and found the main reason. It is in San Diego, California.

The man didn't provide any proof that the dog was a service dog and had a doctor's slip saying the dog and the cat were ESA's.

So now the shelter that was trying to help the homeless has to pay this guy a lot of money and then change their policy to allow said animals.

It is getting far out of hand for sure.

The quote popularly attributed to Edmond Burke, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,” comes to mind.

Except, good men (and women) who follow laws passed by multitudes don't stand a chance. The hungry will always vote for the pantry to be empty.

Tying this back to the original post, this is what has enabled homeless takeovers of parks, business districts and recreational areas.

I do have compassion for those who are suffering, but I believe misplaced efforts to accommodate this population have led us to a place where societal safety is at risk. People cannot walk pets, have picnics with their toddlers, or read books in the aforementioned park anymore. I helped fund this park with taxpayer dollars and my vote. I did not do that so that ANY segment of society could monopolize the public "gift" and turn it into a haven for drug deals and violence.