Jason Pohl

jasonpohl@coloradoan.com

Heather Manier often starts her workday around 5:30 a.m. by clearing left-behind garbage from her Old Town cafe entrance.

There's occasionally someone still sleeping outside Café Ardour when she gets in. It's not uncommon for a group of transients to be milling around in front of the Linden Street business. Sometimes, she calls the police because of rampant harassment. Other times, she doesn't have enough hours in the day.

Ask any north Old Town business owner, and they'll admit they're fed up. They're more frustrated than ever before in dealing with disrespectful transient populations — a group that many distinguish from the homeless in greater need. Declining foot traffic from wary customers equals declining sales, and that's something Manier stresses about every day, especially as her quaint corner of Old Town is increasingly overrun with disrespectful groups of people at nearby Jefferson Park.

"It could very well shut our business down after 11 years," Manier said, a pile of trash sitting on a nearby curb and a man — not a customer — leeching WiFi from the cozy coffee shop. "People don't want to come to this end of the block."

Business owners, city planners, parks staff and law enforcement agree that issues plaguing Jefferson Park and the surrounding areas have reached an unprecedented level this year. While many planners continue to push for continued dialogue about how to address the issue, others have had enough.

Fort Collins police found a 69 percent spike in the number of contacts with transients from Jan. 1 to Sept. 7 this year compared to 2013 in the area that encompasses the run-down and overrun park and the the Fort Collins Rescue Mission. The number of disturbance calls has doubled, and there's been a spike in trespass and welfare checks, records show. Police are routinely called to assist other emergency services.

Many are asking that the park — which sits on land leased from the railroad — be decommissioned.

Another group, Ripley Design, is going through planning stages to turn the land into a parking lot, and a development proposal on Monday kick-started a monthslong process that, if approved, could transform the trampled land.

And others still are hesitant to do anything just yet for fear of sending young transients into surrounding areas, including areas that a primed for multimillion dollar developments in coming years.

"There are plenty of people in need, and those people are getting screwed by the other people who are sucking the resources — big time," Manier said.

Officials under fire

Police and emergency services aren't the only resources eaten up by issues at the intersection of Linden and Jefferson streets.

That park has one of the highest costs of maintenance per acre in the city, Manager of Parks Bill Whirty said. Employees only enter the park in teams, and crews are tasked with above-average trash collection each week — trash that ranges from clothing to emptied booze bottles.

Jefferson Park in 2013 accounted for 447 hours of maintenance. By way of comparison, Freedom Park at Shields and Elm streets accounted for 178.

These issues aren't new to officials.

City email accounts, available for review under the Colorado Open Records Act, are rife with business owners' and residents' anecdotes of being harassed and cursed at in recent weeks by transients in the park. One person described it as being "totally out of control."

"The issues are more pronounced than ever before," City Manager Darin Atteberry said. "I think what Jefferson Park does for me is it makes it obvious that we have some problems, and we've not come up with solutions to completely resolve the issues."

Pressed about what those resolutions are, his frustrations are apparent.

"It's very complex," Atteberry said. "In my 10 years as city manager for the city of Fort Collins, it's certainly been one of the most challenging issues I think our community and our organization has faced."

Mary Atchison, director of social sustainability with the city, is charged with finding those answers. While she is optimistic that a solution exists somewhere, it won't be easy to find it.

While it's legal for anyone to hang out in a park, additional police have dealt with increases in drug dealing, alcohol consumption, and managing crowds that neared 100 people on some summer days.

Knowing that not all homeless individuals are causing problems, Atchison's office must then distinguish where those individuals would go if the park disappeared or if it were decommissioned.

"There would likely be a public outcry since there are many people in our community who believe it is critical for homeless people to have a place to go," she said. "The people who use the park would simply have to go somewhere else. It would simply displace the problem."

Fort Collins Rescue Mission also has been thrust into the debate.

While it provides resources — approximately 150 meals daily and beds for around 60 men and women — the problems from the park aren't rooted in the homeless trying to find a way out, said Aneta Storvik, spokeswoman for the Mission. Among businesses and leaders, there has not been a recent push to move the Mission from its current location, and many in the area admit the Mission is unfairly facing the negative effects from the transients in the park.

"It's just unfortunate sometimes that a certain population can bring such a negative stereotype," Storvick said.

Call for action

After nearly nine years at the corner of Jefferson and Lindens streets, Colleen Barricklow earlier this year closed Green Logic. The Old Town Fort Collins store sold environmentally friendly products. In the six months since she abandoned the business — largely due to the nearby transient issues and harassment — she's still waiting for something to change.

"Everyone sort of takes this hands-off approach," she said. "Nobody wants to deal with any of the stuff that's going on over there, and it seems to me that things are getting worse and worse as time goes on. It certainly hasn't gotten any better since we left."

To her, the responsibility falls on the city, and the solution should be about changing the culture and making a walk down Jefferson Street part of the downtown experience.

"We've sort of talked it to death," she said referring to the repeated notion of starting a dialogue toward a solution. "What needs to happen is some action."

From the quaint bar and intimate room lined with dozens of varieties of handcrafted wine, Kate Atkin fields questions every day about the park that sits a stone's throw from the front door at Blue Skies Winery.

Some customers ask why mounds of trash and dozens of people sit by blue tarps on a daily basis. Other wonders if they'll be safe walking across the tracks to their cars, she said.

Her answer is usually the same: "I don't know."

She's hopeful an answer will surface soon.

Asked what she wishes the park could be turned into, she hesitated before saying she wanted it to stay a park — one that people could actually go to, feel safe at and play with their families.

More and more, she said, that seems like a far-off dream.

"There's millions of dollars being spent around here, but they're ignoring what's in the center of it," she said. "I don't know how many people have to say something."

WHAT TO REPORT TO AUTHORITIES

While there are no solutions yet to the Jefferson Park woes, city officials continue to urge people to report illegal behavior as they see it. Police can't enforce people gathering in a park or sitting on a public bench, because that's not a crime. But if a resident is harassed or witnesses illegal activity, they are urged to report it to authorities.

ATTEND A COMMUNITY SUMMIT

After a summer of heightened transient activity downtown, leaders are planning a Community Summit in coming months that will pool homeless resources around the city. A date has not yet been set, and details are sparse. Anyone seeking more information can contact Mary Atchison, director of social sustainability at matchison@fcgov.com.