COLORADO SPRINGS — The city is considering changes in the way it cleans up homeless encampments after being accused of illegally seizing residents’ property.

Homeless people and their advocates say prescription drugs, military service medals, sleeping bags, tents and other personal property were taken during the regular sweeps by city-backed crews.

The city has paid the nonprofit Keep Colorado Springs Beautiful to perform sweeps since 1998. After a veterans group threatened a lawsuit, claiming the civil rights of the homeless were being violated, the city in October declared a moratorium on the cleanups.

The City Council will vote Feb. 24 on a plan to reinstitute the cleanups under new guidelines.

Representatives for police and the nonprofit say they targeted trash, not usable personal items, during the sweeps. They said the only drugs taken were either illegal substances or mixtures of pills in plastic bags and other containers that did not show any indication of having been prescribed.

Police said they do not keep lists of items taken from the camps and that many such items were destroyed.

Robert Moran, founder of the Street Church, which serves homeless people, said he believes there is more behind the cleanup effort than a desire to keep the city beautiful.

“Nobody is against cleaning up trash. But the sweeps are a desperate attempt to solve the homeless problem by making them go someplace else,” Moran said.

It was Moran who brought the sweeps to public attention when he videotaped police and the nonprofit cleaning up a campsite in October.

On the tape, workers for the nonprofit are shown stuffing a pillow and other items into trash bags, and an officer is shown opening and searching a suitcase.

“You come back, and your whole camp is upside down,” said Jeff Wempe, 43. “I lost my whole camp, my tent, my sleeping bag. They took my ID. I had to send back to Missouri where I was born, and they had to send me a birth certificate.”

But Colorado Springs police Cmdr. Kurt Pillard denies that either police or the workers — many of them young people ordered by a judge to perform community service — have trashed personal possessions.

“When you hear that sleeping bags are being thrown away … they are no longer usable because of the extreme filth. Items have also been disposed of that are infested with rodents and insects,” Pillard said.

Similar cleanups around the country have led to court rulings saying the sweeps violate the constitutional ban on unwarranted search and seizure, said Tulin Ozdeger, civil-rights director for the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty.

“People do have a right to their property, and if the city wants to clear out a public space, they need to follow proper procedures. (The homeless) should be given notice, and they shouldn’t destroy property immediately. It should be stowed so that it can be reclaimed,” Ozdeger said.

The Colorado Coalition for the Homeless said it isn’t aware of any other cities in the state that sponsor such cleanups.

Since the sweeps were stopped in Colorado Springs, the city has reviewed ethical and legal issues, said Colorado Springs Councilman Jerry Heimlicher. The proposed rule changes would require the nonprofit to post a notice in areas where a cleanup is planned, giving the occupants 72 hours’ warning. The city also is considering storing personal property someplace where it can be reclaimed without police involvement.

An estimated 800 homeless people live in Colorado Springs. Some spend the nights at the Salvation Army New Hope Center, a nonprofit, 210-bed shelter, Moran said. Others find a place to stay at about a dozen other facilities, each with only a few beds, that are run by nonprofits.

That leaves hundreds of homeless people who cannot find shelter.

Last year, El Paso County cut its $209,000 contribution to the town’s only detox center, a blow that, coupled with an annual $1.4 million shortfall, led to its closure early this month.

Homeless who have mental problems often require medication to avoid slipping into confusion or worse. Others are in pain and have been prescribed painkillers.

Still others inject insulin to control diabetes, said Patrick Ayers, who heads a local chapter of Pax Christi.

At the Peak Vista Community Health’s Homeless Health Center, demand for prescription-drug refills spiked whenever police and cleanup crews swept the camps, said Lynn Pells, spokeswoman for the clinic.

Pillard said, “If a prescription was found in an appropriate container with a name on it, we would have tried to locate the owner. But these are drugs that have been compromised. They are taken to the evidence custodian at the Police Department, and when we have enough stuff, it is destroyed.”

Police do not document the medications taken from the camps, only those drugs seized when criminal activity is involved, Pillard said.

How police handle drugs they find in such situations is an internal affair, according to the El Paso County District Attorney’s Office and the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Pillard also said police try to give the homeless a warning of impending cleanups. But those who aren’t in the camp at the time cannot be told.

Some homeless people said they would receive at most 15 minutes to pick up belongings or lose them, or no warning at all.

Mel Brant, 52, a one-time cowboy with a straight, black ponytail, said he lost his military discharge papers, a sleeping bag, a tent and other property to a cleanup.

Others say the commendations they won serving in Iraq and other countries were taken, said Rick Duncan, head of the Colorado Veterans’ Alliance.

“We are working through our congressional delegation to get those replaced,” Duncan said.

If personal items appeared to be abandoned, they may have been taken during the sweeps, but police did what they could to return them to owners, Pillard said.

Heimlicher said police posted notes saying that if valuables were missing, the homeless should check for them at the police station. Few items were reclaimed.

“A lot of those folks don’t consider the police as friendly,” Heimlicher said. “Very little is ever picked up.”

Tom McGhee: 303-954-1671 or tmcghee@denverpost.com