Pubdate: Sat, 26 Jul 2014
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2014 The Denver Post Corp
Contact:  http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: Tom McGhee
Page: 1A

LURE OF LEGAL MARIJUANA TIED TO INFLUX OF HOMELESS IN STATE

When Edward Madewell's mother asked him to come home after five years 
of homelessness and drift, he bought a Greyhound bus ticket and 
headed for Missouri.

Halfway there, his mother told him he would have to give up the 
marijuana he uses to control seizures and switch to prescribed 
medicine. Madewell changed his plans and headed for Colorado, where 
recreational weed has been sold legally since Jan. 1.

"I'm not going to stop using something organic," he said. "I don't 
like the pills."

Madewell is among the homeless lured to Colorado by legal marijuana 
who are showing up at shelters and other facilities, stressing a 
system that has seen an unusually high number of people needing help 
this summer.

"Of the new kids we're seeing, the majority are saying they're here 
because of the weed. They're traveling through. It is very 
unfortunate," said Kendall Rames, deputy director of Urban Peak, a 
nonprofit that provides food, shelter and other services to young 
people in Denver and Colorado Springs.

Younger visitors to Father Woody's Haven of Hope, which serves people 
age 18 and older, typically are more demanding and difficult than 
their elders, director Melinda Paterson said. "Typically, they have 
an attitude. But we are really strict here. We treat you with 
respect, . and if they are not respectful, we ask them to leave," she said.

Combined with an increase in those who arrive penniless and seeking 
jobs in the state's strengthening employment market, the homeless 
influx is straining a service network already under stress, said 
Murray Flagg, divisional social services secretary for the Salvation 
Army's Intermountain Division.

Not everyone who works with the homeless singles out marijuana as a 
contributing factor to their arrival here.

"We have had an influx, and the majority of them have been from out 
of town. I have no idea if the marijuana law has had an impact," Paterson said.

But homeless advocates agree that numbers have swollen, sometimes 
dramatically, over the past year.

The number of those who go to Father Woody's normally rises by about 
50 people per month during the summer, Paterson said. This year, she 
said, "we have gotten 923 new homeless over the last three months," 
more than 300 a month.

About two months ago, she added, the shelter began bringing those who 
eat breakfast and lunch there to the table in shifts to accommodate 
the increase.

"It is worrisome in the sense that how are we going to clothe and 
feed and find shelter for them?" she said.

Between May 1 and July 15, Urban Peak's drop-in center, where 
homeless people 15 through 24 can get a meal, do laundry, shower or 
take GED and other classes, saw the number of new visitors jump by 5 
percent over the same period last year, Rames said.

Last summer, the Salvation Army's single men's Crossroads Shelter in 
Denver housed an average of 225 men each night.

This summer's average is about 300 per night, and when other shelters 
are full, the organization provides a bed for as many as 350, Flagg said.

In the past, the shelter's residents averaged between 35 and 60 years 
old. "Now we are seeing a much larger number of 18- to 25-year-olds."

An informal survey performed at the shelter suggested that about 25 
percent of the increase in population was related to marijuana, Flagg said.

While many come to smoke without worrying about the law, others "are 
folks looking to work in the industry, a lot of them have an 
agricultural background," or other experience they expect will be in 
demand, he said.

They may also have a felony on their record that automatically 
disqualifies them from getting a job in the highly regulated business.

Those who do find jobs in pot shops and grow houses often don't earn 
enough to pay rent or buy a home in Denver's expensive housing 
market, Flagg said. They, too, can end up homeless.

The shelters don't require anyone to explain why they came to 
Colorado, but some do volunteer their reasons.

On the list of reasons given at St. Francis Center, a daytime 
shelter, marijuana trails only looking for work, said Tom Leuhrs, the 
executive director.

While marijuana use contributes to the number of homeless, the growth 
in their numbers indicates that people are having difficulty moving 
into the work force from high school and college, Leuhrs said.

"The economy is not supporting them. There are not enough jobs," Leuhrs said.

He sees an almost even split between those, like Madewell, who say 
they use pot for medical reasons, and others who crave easy access to 
a legal high.

Dusty Taylor, 20, who was standing in line for breakfast at Urban 
Peak this week, said he came back to Colorado, where he grew up and 
had been homeless in the past, after hearing weed had been legalized.

"I said, I should go back. It was, like, I don't want to catch a 
felony for smoking."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom