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Originally Posted by Brett's Honey
This was back in 1987-88 and things may have changed, but......back then it was so easy for a single homeless man to get food stamps in Colorado Springs with just a finding address (like a tent by a creek). They could then walk two blocks and sell them for fifty cents on the dollar to a woman whose father owned a restaurant. Then to the liquor store they went...... For food, there was homeless shelter meals, and while there, you could go to a shower room, throw down your dirty clothes, shower, and put on some donated clean ones.
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Colorado Springs has changed since your Dad's day. I suspect that even back then it wasn't as easy to get food stamps as he may have made it sound. Colorado's social programs are among the most miserly in the nation. No able bodied single man can get food stamps here these days. Anyone who has the ability to work is given an emergency one time only amount of food stamps (actually food money on their Qwest card), and sent down to work at Goodwill, there after.
You cannot actually sell "foodstamps" since what people get these days is a dollar amount that will only work toward food purchases on an electronic debit style card. Someone with a Qwest card could give it to someone else to buy food with for whatever sum of money in exchange, but the transaction would not be an easy one. I, personally, have never witnessed a single man pull out a Qwest card at a supermarket here. It is always either a mother with her children or a disabled person.
All other assistance is through privately funded charities and they have been overwhelmed by the increase in needy applicants since Colorado has cut its assistance programs to quite literally nothing. There is a soup kitchen downtown that serves one meal a day to the homeless. Various churches and other groups will give out a weekly box of food to those who pass the scrutiny of their screening programs. Ecumenical Social Ministries downtown does still provide hot showers. They will also provide some clothing. Winter shoes and boots are hard to get, however.
I personally witnessed a volunteer at ESM send a schizophrenic boy from Denver, whom someone had dropped off in Colorado Springs, back out onto the street to spend the night, rather than give him a bus pass home to Denver.
The homeless shelter in Colorado Springs is a deadly place, renowned for knifings and rapes. Many homeless people prefer to brave the subfreezing temperatures of a Colorado winter night than brave the shelter.
If a homeless person in this town can come up with the price of a cup of coffee and is able to sit quietly and not disturb anyone, their best bet on a winter night is to go to the Denny's downtown on Bijou Street. The $1.50 or so for coffee will allow them to sit in one of the back booths until daylight.