{"id":92235,"date":"2019-10-14T02:56:32","date_gmt":"2019-10-14T02:56:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/50-volunteers-spend-sunday-cleaning-homeless-camps\/"},"modified":"2019-10-14T02:56:32","modified_gmt":"2019-10-14T02:56:32","slug":"50-volunteers-spend-sunday-cleaning-homeless-camps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/50-volunteers-spend-sunday-cleaning-homeless-camps\/","title":{"rendered":"50 volunteers spend Sunday cleaning homeless camps"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"About
About 50 volunteers helped clean abandoned homeless camps in Overend Mountain Park on Sunday. The cleanup was sponsored by the La Plata County Sheriff\u2019s Office and Trails 2000. Michael Brown with Trails 2000 provided some hints about safe tool uses and safe ways to work on uneven, steep terrain.<\/span>Patrick Armijo\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Work gloves on, rakes, shovels and hoes at the ready, about 50 civic-minded residents dedicated their Sunday afternoon to cleaning up scores of recently active homeless camps in Overend Mountain Park.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been epidemic up here, so I thought I could help get it cleaned up,\u201d said Matt Goodson as he cleared garbage from one the former homeless camps.<\/p>\n

Before starting, La Plata County Sheriff Sean Smith handed out yellow flags to volunteers to place in areas where they found intravenous needles or human feces. He warned volunteers not to clear those area, but to mark them with the flags. He also offered precautions about dealing with broken glass.<\/p>\n

The Sheriff\u2019s Office and Trails 2000 sponsored the cleanup. The Sheriff\u2019s Office brought along several all-terrain vehicles to get to harder-to-reach areas.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s your job to stay protected. If you don\u2019t like what you see, don\u2019t go near it,\u201d said Steve Ilg of Trails 2000 before volunteers headed into the woods to clean the area.<\/p>\n

In the past, Smith said he\u2019s had jail inmates clean homeless camps, but he currently doesn\u2019t have the staffing to bring inmates to the former camps.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to thank all the community members who volunteered to help. This is quite an undertaking,\u201d Smith said. \u201cSome volunteers signed up for an hour, some signed up for four hours. We\u2019re just appreciative of all the community members who came out to help.<\/p>\n

\"Matt
Matt Goodson, left, and Pat Owens, right, joined about 50 other volunteers on Sunday to clean scores of abandoned homeless camps in Overend Mountain Park.<\/span>Patrick Armijo\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

In addition to 50 residents of Durango and La Plata County who volunteered, Smith said, seven members of the homeless community now living in the Purple Cliffs area came to help.<\/p>\n

At least 23 recently active campsites were in need of cleaning, Smith said. In addition, scores of older, abandoned camps in the hills in an area dubbed \u201cthe Test Tracks\u201d by mountain bikers needed to be cleaned.<\/p>\n

Scattered around hillsides is common camping equipment \u2013 tarps, tents and chairs. Mixed in are random items, such as wall clocks, furniture, old mattresses, bike parts, cigarettes, shoes and other clothing. Human waste is typically found left in buckets or in a dug-out hole with a tarp on top.<\/p>\n

The homeless camp in the Purple Cliffs area has dumpsters, trash service and port-a-potties.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully, we\u2019ll keep the new camp clean. We don\u2019t want to re-create what happened here, and the campers are committed to keeping a clean camp,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n

Tim Sargent, a homeless resident now living in the Purple Cliffs, thought cleanup crews had more than an afternoon\u2019s work ahead of them.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people have an addiction, and it\u2019s hard for them to stay clean,\u201d Sargent said. \u201cAt the Purple Cliffs, the primary practice will be to keep the camps clean. And, if they aren\u2019t, the community is going to speak to them about why it is so necessary to keep the camps clean. I am glad to see this turnout.\u201d<\/p>\n

parmijo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

service, port-a-potties at Purple Cliffs camp aimed at preventing similar refuse problems<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":92236,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5918,5931,5736,5735,6019,6018],"tags":[174,611,2636,5458],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-92235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environmental-cleanup","category-homelessness","category-local-news","category-news","category-sean-smith","category-trails-2000","tag-environmental-cleanup","tag-homelessness","tag-sean-smith","tag-trails-2000"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92235"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=92235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}