Throughout the downtown area you will see red parking meters with the words "Denver's Road Home." Which is some sort of slogan for a social works campaign to support the local homeless outreach organizations. Now, don't get me wrong, this is not a knock on this organization, they are probably doing great work.
When you see these meters you can park in front of them, or just go up to them and put money in the slot. A portion of the proceeds from these parking meters go towards helping the homeless in Denver with community programs that provide meals, job training and education services, substance abuse help, and affordable housing, all good things by the way. Each of these meters are located in an area of high homelessness and panhandling, in hopes of encouraging you to instead of giving your loose change to a panhandler, rather, insert it into these "donation" meters and "help end homelessness."I have never been an advocate of giving any money to panhandlers, it is impossible to tell if you are truly helping someone with a meal, or helping continue an addiction. I have and will continue to ask people who are panhandling if they would like me to take them to lunch, or to get a cup of coffee, or even to buy them a bus pass, but I will not give them my loose change.
To be honest, I'm not sure what I think about these "end homelessness" meters by the city of Denver. Instead of crossing a street and giving your loose change to a meter when you are presented with an awkward interaction with a homeless person, why don't you just save up all the change that you would have done that with and then take a street-person out for breakfast? At least then the person would be treated with dignity and respect rather than ignored, which is what I think these meters do to a certain extent: allow us to ignore the homeless and interact with a coin machine instead. All the while making you feel pretty good about "helping" the homeless with your gift of charity (they will probably start issuing receipts that you can claim on your taxes).
The reason I think this is strange is that even though the article I read claimed that over $2,000 was raised by these meters in the first month, I can't even imagine what the interaction would look like. Can you picture it? A lady is walking down the street and sees a homeless man sitting on the sidewalk strumming his guitar. As she approaches she begins to feel uncomfortable, she diverts her eyes and looks down at the tires of the cars parked on the street. She has an idea and reaches for the cell phone in her pocket and acts like she is talking to someone on it. She is now within 10 ft. of this man, but low and behold she sees a red meter - ahhh, her saving grace, she can now feel good about herself and donate to this meter rather than engage with this grizzled man, listen to his song, or ask him about his day, you know, treat him like he is a human being. Besides, I'm not sure if Jesus would encourage us to avoid human interaction and help God's creation by placing money in a meter, and I'm almost positive that since this is a city sponsored program, none of the proceeds go towards faith-based organizations.
A side note: Denver is the same city that while we were there prior to the Democratic National Convention, the city was trying pretty hard to persuade the street people to move somewhere other than downtown Denver in order to paint the picture that Denver was a special place to live.
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