Dan Haley writing in the Denver Post this morning says the Mayor is right, the homelessness problem in Denver is better:
The mall is downtown's backbone and a top tourist attraction, but for years strolling it was often a hassle.
Aggressive panhandlers would get in your face, shaking you down for cash to feed a booze habit or an empty stomach. The passive panhandlers, those who simply held a sign to tell their tale of woe, weren't much of a problem, but the guilt of passing them by could be taxing.
And even though social workers tell you never to give them a dime, I'll confess to digging into my pocket on a few occasions - either to make them go away or to make the pangs of guilt ebb.
But it's different this summer.
I hadn't actually realized it - remember, I was trying not to look in the first place - until Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper mentioned it in his inaugural address last week.
"In just two years, the number of chronically homeless individuals in Denver decreased by 36 percent," the mayor said, "and panhandling on the 16th Street Mall decreased by 92 percent."
http://test.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_6418292
What do you think? Does it seem to you that the problem with street people in Denver is better? Or is this just another example of a Denver newspaper serving up J-Hic propoganda rather than reporting the facts?
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