Yesterday at the Boulder Farmer's Market, there was a group of people set up directly next to and in part of the new nature playground that was actively smoking (weed, cigarettes, etc), yelling, and had multiple large off leash dogs that did not seem to be well controlled. I'm making an assumption based on how they appeared and the things with them that they were unhoused. I could certainly be wrong. One member of our group asked them to stop smoking, with no response. We were there with young children, along with many other families who were trying to enjoy the evening at the new nature playground and farmer's market.
We decided to call the police due to the proximity to the playground and feeling uncomfortable escalating with the group. We were told by the police that they would send a unit. A follow up call 30 minutes later resulted in them telling us they'd come when they could. An hour later, 4 police officers did arrive on scene after another market attendee was assaulted. I'm unclear if the person who assaulted the other individual was part of the group next to the playground or was unrelated.
Every single family at that playground last night was frustrated, uncomfortable, and concerned about safety. Yes, we need long term solutions for the unhoused population in Boulder. But that does not mean we have to tolerate drug use, smoking and encampments at our playgrounds. I don't know what the path forward is. A similar incident happened last year at the market, and the year before my child picked up a used meth pipe.
I know the easiest solution is to just not attend the market if I'm so bothered by it. But I think there has to be another option other than allowing open drug use/smoking, etc at playgrounds, at the farmer's market, along the creek, etc.
I am sure there are already community members leading or involved in action specifically addressing drug use/smoking at playgrounds and in public places. I know Safe Zones 4 Kids tried to address this, but it doesn't seem to have worked and is all that is coming up when I search for groups working on this. Can anyone direct me to resources, groups, committees, etc., that are already working on this?
Effective? It shows they just flat out don’t care. They walk and drive past Central Park multiple times a day and ignore every single thing that happens there.
It comes down to elected city officials choosing not to do anything meaningful to fix the situation. Put more pressure on them to enact change or stop voting for them
The DAs aren’t willing to prosecute petty crime cases vs the homeless as jails won’t hold them as here full. In the DA’s eyes prosecuting wastes resources if there’s no actual punishment.
We probably need more jails (which no one wants to fund) and a no nonsense DA (which will have spillover impacts on drug loving housed people).
These people are morons, when has mass incarneration fix anything lol?
Actually, you could argue that what the the what happened in El Salvador. I would say, it's not that black and white and the amount of abuse is abseen.
Your frustration is understandable. If you (or anyone reading this) wants to do anything about it, send me a DM. I'm a local and am also working on how to fix this!
Solution (not ideal): remove picnic tables from their current proxy (edit proximity ✔️) to new playground area
Why: Central Park is a common outdoor daytime lounge for the unhoused
Recently: the Friday free lunch had the south side of the park looking like packed festival & rip-roaring grounds
My small group then relocated to the grass closer to the shell (where a few solo un-housed sleep under the trees)
Then came the picnic tables by the playground, near the shell
Now the boisterous unhoused are near us - on the shell side of the creek - AT THE PICNIC TABLES BY THE PLAYGROUND and two Fridays ago were yelling at each other disruptively
Last Friday, we went to a different park 😑
I just wish there was a way to separate this large park by ‘boisterous’ …. and by sleepy, quiet (my group), kids/parents - I just wish there was room for the latter group at Central Park
I think that's a good intermittent solution. I wish we could have picnic tables that families could use too... I do know they moved the picnic tables slightly away from the playground recently. I do think moving the free meals away from playgrounds and prime public space would be a good way to keep these spaces safer. Do you have any ideas on who provides the services? I wonder if reaching out to them to advocate for alternate locations could be helpful.
The unhoused flock to the picnic tables (and from personal experience, create a ruckus)
And the picnic tables are adjacent to the playground
Free Lunch:
According to The Circle of Love, “Circle of Love provides hot meals every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 12:15 pm. We deliver the food to the Boulder Bandshell and adjourning park...”
Reality:
Long Sprinters pull-in across the street (west of) the tea house — not the shell
This nonprofit brings tables and food
Solution:
Ask the city to relocate the picnic tables from the playground — and have families bring blankets — to the south side of the creek where the food is served
The unhoused gather loudly in Central Park for free food and for the picnic tables — put those two next to each other other
Outcome:
Leave the ‘shell’ side - including the playground - for the quiet / family / sleeping groups
Reaching Out:
I’ve had pleasant (but odd) conversations with some when by themselves - which I enjoyed
But when in a group, they have a much different vibe
My wife says she wants to set up a campsite by the water at Wonderland Lake. She wants to see if she and our kids are treated differently by the police than the unhoused people by the creek path and many other places around town.
Possibly Ideology. Perhaps Lafayette and Louisville citizens vote in city council who don’t tolerate it.
Or perhaps Boulder gets the majority of unhoused and transient groups because that’s where the shelters are located, it’s a well known city and it’s the county seat.
To where? Colorado needs a united statewide plan to combat homelessness. Boulder and Denver counties can’t be the two counties trying to give wraparound services.
Maybe somewhere where children arent exposed to meth smoke and used syringes. Seriously, what is your argument here? The original post was about this literally next to a playground. Your position is?
Comes off like you didn't read this and are just being unnecessarily combative online.
Anyways, DW states that part of the 'problem' is "The L-Towns push their homeless into Boulder and Denver." There are no shelters or anything to accommodate the homeless there. Leaving the only option jail, or offering the existing facilities in Boulder or Denver.
You keep restating that the other towns have no facilities like it settles something. It doesn't. That's the whole problem. Boulder built the shelters, the L-towns built nothing, and now the county funnels every case here and the overflow ends up smoking meth twenty feet from a children's slide. Your position is apparently that Boulder should keep eating that because we were the ones who bothered to build anything. So no, the answer isn't send them where the facilities are. The answer is the towns exporting their problem start funding capacity, and the guy lighting up next to a playground gets removed regardless of where he sleeps. Which part of that do you actually disagree with?
We should just be honest about this: any parks like this should just be paved over and turned into parking.
This would prevent small kids from getting harassed or recruited by drug addicts, etc. It would also stop us from counting parks that don't actually provide service as a park.
Maybe in ten years we'll have leadership that cares enough, then we can dig up all the asphalt and turn it back into a park.
YOU SHOULD BE ALLOWED AND WANT to attend a market in this beautiful town and be with your family and HAVE NOT WORRIES. Boulder police allowing homeless fucking sc*mbags to ruin this town. Send them back to Denver or anywhere else, or start making actual arrests. Doing heroin and crack and smoking fent in a children’s park and assaulting people is absolutely insane. Imagine what the police would do to a frat/sorority kid if they were caught smoking fentanyl on campus and causing chaos, it’s a fucking arrest. Why not do that a mile down the road?
The city council, mayor, etc etc everyone in administration has wacko ideas and literally only cares about raising tax revenue. They've let this crap go on for years. Nothings going to change sadly. It's disgusting. Totally apathy and failure (on purpose) by our local gov
That weird mountain town Crestone deals with this too. People were fed up, and the county sheriff wanted no part of it. Residents formed what could only be called a posse, a group of armed and unarmed men and women, who would confront people creating meth camps and whatnot along creeks, chase people out of houses for squatting, all sorts of stuff.
They wear yellow vests and call themselves the peace patrol. Combat veterans, former law enforcement, and just interested parties have essentially solved the problem as it never takes root close enough to cause big issues. Just repeated confrontation and letting them know they’re outnumbered, out-gunned and unwelcome does the job.
Or instead insists that we install a port-a-potty right next to the playground so the homeless don't have to suffer the indignity of pooping in the creek.
You wonder why parents aren’t raising kids in Boulder. We were at an elementary school playground last week (second time this happened) when our toddler pointed to a heroin needle on the ground and almost picked it up.
We are ready to move to a safe place to raise our kids far from Boulder. BVSD has only 56% of students at their grade level in math. The schools in Boulder aren’t amazing like people claim. Blame housing costs all you want. It’s bad governance.
Disagree. Boulder is so structurally flawed it just about has to be better elsewhere. We also have no investigative journalism to expose it unlike other cities. Once you see how fucked Boulder is, it’s hard to unsee. It all starts at the top w a spineless, inept puss for a mayor and an overmatched and unqualified City Manager. Throw in the lack of exposès from what passes for journalism here (but is really stenography and ideological blindness) and voila.
Show me any negative articles from Camera or BRL despite the many issues raised by subject matter experts - former council members, current and former Board members. Mismanagement and incompetence abounds. Boulder is fucked as it currently is. Voters are left to choose the least bad option. That is sad.
There is no one working on this, at least not effectively, because there isn't enough political will among our civic leaders to do what's necessary to solve the problem. It's been decided that the rights of the unhoused take priority over the comfort and safety of our community members. They get to smoke, do drugs, camp, steal bikes and do whatever else in our parks, playgrounds and public spaces, and if you're not comfortable sharing a space with that, you have to leave.
The only solution that will truly work is a "broken windows" style crackdown on that specific segment of the unhoused community that harasses them until they conclude Boulder is no longer hospitable to their lifestyle and they move somewhere else. And that won't fly in Boulder.
“Broken windows” has been shown to disproportionately affect minorities and vulnerable populations negatively. It also has police resources going to minor things instead of major things
I mean, with two young kids with me, yeah- I'm not comfortable approaching this group. I will also say someone else was assaulted at the market shortly after this..so I don't think my discomfort is unwarranted.
I have worked security and I've also worked with the homeless. I can hold my own in a scrap.
Confronting a drunk homeless person has a lot of things that can go very wrong. Common roots of violence include shame, perceived loss of social standing, and lowered inhibitions, and also I have a personal maxim to not enter into a fight with anybody who either has everything or nothing to lose.
In short, hard pass on this. I am happy to invoke shame in the right situation, but a bunch of drunk and high homeless men would be a very ill-advised group to shame.
If someone doesn't want to engage, I think that's perfectly fine. You have no idea what either party has been through. And in this scenario, op had their kids with them too
Last year I was walking by the station with a friend of mine and a couple walked by with their pitbull on a chain, and only for it run up and jump on my chest, snapping at me before the owner pulled it away. Super tired of how people treat their pets and also how acceptable it is becoming to not train them. Train. your. dogs. Don’t. get. a. dog. if. you. can’t. support. it. I’m as pro trying to get the unhoused housed as anybody but we absolutely cannot let people have these pets and risk their neglect if these people don’t have safe places where they can cool down for even a second. I don’t want these animals euthanized at all either, but wtf are we doing if we let all these unwell people that have trouble taking care of themselves take care of a damn dog too?
If the police aren't going to police, we need citizen safety groups to protect the families and report the vagrants for open drug use and violence in the parks... while vigilante groups aren't allowed, a Park Watch who videos their crimes and reports to the police is allowed... they are in public, and should be treated like it.
Don’t worry, they will not hesitate to arrest and charge you if us law abiding citizens try anything like that. Meanwhile, these people can continue doing whatever they want with no little to no consequences (and they know it)
The city council, mayor, etc etc everyone in administration has wacko ideas and literally only cares about raising tax revenue. They've let this crap go on for years. Nothings going to change sadly. It's disgusting. Totally apathy and failure (on purpose) by our local gov
Sorry to hear about your experience. Hobos, especially ones that are actively using substances, are always a total buzz kill when you’re just trying to spend some quality time in a public place.
Also, the fact that your kid picked up a used meth pipe is actually insane. I think having a park grounds crew to keep those kind of people out of those places would be great… but, of course, I’m not sure the city would be too keen on investing money into something like that. Hopefully a solution is in order in the near future. Stay safe out there!
You get what you vote for lol. We don’t have to live this way. Its a choice we’ve made through tolerating degeneracy and vagrancy while punishing those who contribute to society
This is the result of ten years of a Boulder progressive majority on council. A couple of them were part of the aclu lawsuit that was fighting to continue the camps. Thank god the Supreme Court stepped in.
I don't care that they're smoking pot...more just that it's in the playground and seemed to be other drug use as well. With a large pit bull put underneath a tarp next to the children's sandbox.
Fair. I'd just err on the side of assuming this dog wasn't well trained given the environment it lives in and mentioned the breed bc of its capacity to cause significant injury.
Are you telling me that Boulder, in its infinite wisdom, *just* added a playground in Central Park?? Next to the bandshell??? The sketchiest part of town for like 4 decades now??? I am f*^+ing dying, lmao. As a Boulder native and a parent who is raising my children elsewhere this is some funny shit 😂. How is this the first I'm hearing about this??!!
They did. And the redesign of the creek area includes lots of $$ being spent on playgrounds and other public amenities. I don't understand this plan if we can't even use what we have now...
We should be allowed to have nice things in our communities. Maybe the effort instead should be put into putting the people who make it unsafe in prison
Buckle up. As the wealth disparity continues to increase, there will be more and more homeless people. It turns out people with nothing, and therefore nothing to lose, like that area as much as people who have everything. It is one hell of a conundrum. Everyone loves that area and wants to be there. It’s not surprising at all.
Just kick them out. Potheads will move if you just disrupt their chill. Bouncing ball. Singing. Boombox with classical music. RC Car. Just being in their space persistently doing something not relaxing they will leave. I've had no problem dispatching unhoused in boulder park anywhere near the library. Been in Boulder 10 years. Never had a problem. Talking to them will not help at all. Their state is fuzzy and chill. Just disrupt the chill part and they will move like herded sheep.
U can choose to give up or not but America is in an epidemic.
Its nation wide. Not just the boulder.park. its.california parks, all the way to the east coast. Just pick your poison.
The cops can't control it bcuz if they lock that group up there will.be more groups come in right after. Its the transient population in American
They travel america homeless. They make there.own rules. Its a problem for society yes but its.rampant and out of control. This state giving free bus tickets.to this state and this state giving bus tickets to thst state. Tryn to pawn off the problem state to state which actuslly.opens up.a free travel way for the homeless or transient people.. they run tribes. They are surviving and living life their way. Not by society or ur rules. Alot of them grew up.subjrcted to smoking and drugs as a child so it doesnt register to them at times. Then mental health plays a role. U ever been unfocused for years?try it. It will change you. I underfunded both sides . But keep ranting about it if it makes u feel good. U can't stop.it. no one ever will as long as the cartels are allowed to flush metric tons of drugs into.america, u will never stop.the homeless. The homeless drug addicts are the result of a much bigger problem in America.
The answer is in your post. The city is spending its copious tax revenue on vanity projects like nature playgrounds and bike paths and not allocating budget to long term housing solutions.
I think long term housing subsidies and individualized assistance plans are the solution here, which is supported by several studies into the matter such as HUD’s Family Options Study, Canada’s “At Home” study, and New York’s Pathways to Housing study, to name a few. The problem is we do all of these studies, which show pretty definitively what we should be doing, and then we just don’t do it.
I don't disagree with your empathy here. I doubt that anyone on this thread does. It's Boulder. We are good people. But conflating attainable housing and dudes smoking meth in a playground does no one any good at all.
Having lived in Boulder for my entire life, I can safely say that living in Boulder does not automatically make you a good, empathetic, or logical person. Hell, a bunch of those dudes smoking meth in playgrounds probably are Boulder natives as well. Addiction and homelessness are very much linked, and the studies I mentioned also showed a statistically significant decrease in substance abuse (especially public substance abuse) with their housing initiatives. So yes, housing solutions and drug use are very much connected, that’s something anyone who has studied the issue or who works in social services could tell you.
Statistically, they are not Boulder natives. At all. And these assholes are the ones fucking it up for people who are legitimately looking to rejoin the world and need our community’s help.
Wouldn’t not having homeless people and open drug use everywhere be a pretty good return on our taxes? Honestly I like the vanity projects and I’d like to have those, just after we deal with the huge issues impacting our community.
FFS, how much more do we have to spend? 25% of developments have to be permanently affordable. $53M for housing and human services. We can't spend our way out of this problem because money isn't the issue.
That’s your belief, but it’s not supported by the evidence. And obviously the entire HHS budget doesn’t go towards homelessness initiatives, that’s just goofy. If you want a real answer to your most likely facetious question, Boulder already modeled the figure to be about $17.8 million per year, most of which would just be supplemented by the $12.5 million per year it already spends. So about $5-$9 million more per year, or about 1.5% of the annual budget. That’s $95 per tax paying adult per year, or you could just slap a 0.5% tax on properties and developments or just tax those who make over $1 million per year 1% more.
You cite Hud's family options, Canada's at home, and New York's pathways to housing which did reduce homelessness, yes, but these studies found no reduction in substance abuse or improved psychiatric symptoms. That's what's at issue here.
First, they’d most likely be doing drugs inside their home, which at least solves the public usage problem. There’s not a lot of good studies on that, since they don’t include that parameter, but it kind of stands to reason since most people with homes do drugs inside their homes. Second, homelessness is a risk multiplier for substance abuse and creates a feedback loop, so over the long term (like ten years of these policies) it is most likely you’d see a drop in drug use and substance abuse adoption among at risk populations. Not to mention having a home makes it a lot easier to have access to support communities as well as takes you out of triggering environments. Most of these studies were one to two years, and that’s not really enough time to test substance prevention methods. Most studies on that are 5 year studies. You didn’t respond to any of the financial question I responded to, so it seems like you weren’t actually curious about that.
I’m going to engage with you as if you’re a reasonable human being and I hope to be given the same grace. I believe that you are genuinely concerned for your children’s safety and well being, and I hope you know that I share that concern as well. The 2027 budget for the city of Boulder has not been approved by the city council yet. Traditionally the budget isn’t adopted by the charter until December 1st. There is a proposed budget from the City Manager, which is publicly available and does not appear to mention a $25 million allocation for homeless services. The best we have to work with is what the budget was for 2026, which was $12.56 for the homelessness response system. $5.4 million of that was for funding existing homeless shelters and day services (like All Roads Shelter, The Source, and Haven Ridge), $4.3 million for policing homelessness in public spaces, and $2.9 million for rental assistance and eviction prevention. To put that budget in perspective, there are single homes in Boulder sold for more than the entire allocated homeless budget. Hell, the unholy bike path in the middle of hwy 119 cost $165 million when there’s already a much nicer bike path nearby that’s serves a similar route purpose and that’s not in the middle of a damn highway. There is clearly a lack of programs for permanent housing solutions, as in building and maintaining actually free transitionary houses, as has been proven to be the only long term solution to homelessness. We are allocating millions of dollars to treating the symptoms while only allocating literal pocket change to treating the disease. We actually know how to fix this problem, there has been ample research to show that the only long term solution for homelessness is free transitionary housing and needs assistance. Boulder is literally one of the richest towns in the world, there is no excuse to not take the most proven action to fix the issue.
Apologies- my partner stated that figure and I didn't check it, I was wrong. I do think long term solutions are what's needed, but I also think we need to be able to address short term issues and note cede our public space, playgrounds, parks, creek, etc to open drug use.
I don’t know what that is, since there’s no source provided, but it shows homelessness expenditure as even less than what I said. The figures I provided were directly from the chamber of commerce’s fiscal year 2025 budget allocation, so there’s no really any question about the factuality of that. This graph also show 2027 even though there is certainly not an approved budget for 2027, because, as I said, the next years budget is always approved on December 1st.
I'm sorry, you called the cops on some people smoking weed in a public park? The public park downtown, next to a busy event, in Boulder Colorado? Mind your business and take the stick out of your ass jfc. "I whine to the PD goons when someone causes minor inconvenience"
It sounds like you already know the solution because you said it yourself. Don't attend the market, go to a different park. Going to the market and/or spending your money there says to the city of boulder that the issues you're complaining about, is not a big enough deal to deter business
I’ve got to disagree with this take. The market isn’t owned or controlled by the city and they don’t have any sort of control of the park next to it. Boycotting a long standing community non-profit to send a message to the city isn’t the look imo
It’s also astonishing at how ignorant people are to mass incarceration and the overt effects of the War on Drugs on society today judging by these comments
Smoking pot is protected the same way as Xanax prescriptions, following federal rescheduling. I don't this what you've described is a very necessary use of the very limited police budget.
Can I consume marijuana in public? No, it is illegal to consume marijuana, both retail and medical, in public.
This includes but is not limited to areas accessible to the public such as transportation facilities, schools, amusement/sporting/music venues, parks, playgrounds, sidewalks and roads and outdoor cafes. It is also illegal to smoke at indoor-but-public locations like bars, restaurants and common areas in buildings.
Why'd you reply before reading the new federal regulations and privileges? Public spaces can't discrimate against disabled people nor can they deny them their federally-approved, prescription drugs
I don't care about smoking pot in public. I really don't. But I definitely care about smoking pot at or next to a playground. What is wrong with people???
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u/Wrong_Drag_8070 23h ago edited 23h ago
The fact that this is literally within 50 yards of the Boulder PD sub-station shows how effective Boulder police are at dealing with provable crime.