He knew a sweep was coming soon that would move him and his unhoused neighbors off the side of 20th Street, where Elias had been staying for about a week after being moved from an encampment at East 16th Avenue and Logan Street; he just didn't know when.
However, one thing was certain: Abebe wasn't going far.
"We'll just move down the block, around the corner," he told Westword. "That's what we usually do."
Biding his time until he can be put into housing under Mayor Mike Johnston's House1000 plan, Abebe said he was more concerned about the timing of the sweep than finding a new place to live.
Biding his time until he can be put into housing under Mayor Mike Johnston's House1000 plan, Abebe said he was more concerned about the timing of the sweep than finding a new place to live.
"We're just going to move when they tell us to move," he said, looking around at some of the others staying in tents. "They don't tell us when."
Hours after he spoke with Westword, the city came in and cleaned up the encampment on November 1.
"Relocation facility and exact date [of the sweep] will remain confidential for the time being," read an October 24 statement from the city's Homelessness Resolution Operation Center.
The 20th Street encampment wrapped around parking meters outside the post office, which Curtis Park resident Julie Rubsam said kept her from parking her car there when dropping off mail. The location also had to remove the blue mailboxes outside of the building "due to vandalism," according to a post office spokesperson, but they "should be reinstalled soon."
Encampment issues led Rubsam to start using other post offices.
At the corner of Champa and 21st streets, the encampments right on the doorstep of Bar Bar (aka the Carioca Cafe) were "having an extreme impact"' on its business, says bartender and manager Rich Granville.
"We don't get foot traffic, because the sidewalks are literally impassible," Granville says. "It's impacting our revenue massively."
Granville relates the experience at Bar Bar to statements made by Scott Coors about the indefinite closure of the Triangle Bar, which announced it shut down because of a loss of revenue and safety concerns related to nearby encampments. Bar Bar is just up Broadway from the Triangle Bar location.
The area that was swept on November 1, according to the city, included "Broadway Avenue, Curtis, 20th and Arapahoe streets," which are now all "permanently closed to any camping." But Granville says it's not enough.
"They've only cleaned up the parts of Curtis Street with fewer people," he blasts. "There are still hundreds of tents."
"Mayor Mike Johnston’s House1000 initiative is gaining momentum, with its second encampment closure resulting in 61 unhoused residents moving indoors where they can access case management, wraparound support services, and a pathway to permanent housing," according to a city statement released on November 7.
The city claims it's trying to keep the area closed by "working with local businesses and residents to ensure the area remains clear of encampments moving forward," the statement notes. But that only came after business owners in the area twisted the city's arm.
"We have been doing what we can to get the city to do something," Granville says.
A total of 61 residents received housing through the 20th Street sweep on November 1; they were identified through outreach teams that visited the encampments in October, according to the city. Fifty-five residents from the encampment were selected to go "to non-congregate hotel shelter, and six individuals transitioned to existing Tiny Home Villages operated by the Colorado Village Collaborative."
The Colorado Village Collaborative, a nonprofit founded in 2017 by Johnston's senior advisor on homelessness, Cole Chandler, operates several Tiny Home Villages and Safe Outdoor Sites throughout the city.
“This is another historic moment for Denver,” Johnston said in the city's November 7 statement. “This is another confirmation that we know our strategy works, and we will continue to prioritize this strategy to help 1,000 Denverites get off the street and into safe, stable units.”
The first "encampment resolution" — the city's term for sweeps that result in housing — took place on September 25 in front of the Governor's Mansion at Eighth Avenue and Logan Street. Numerous people at that encampment missed the opportunity for housing, but the city managed to get at least 83 into housing at the Best Western Hotel in Central Park.
With his first two encampment resolutions, Johnston says that he's been able to move more than 140 people from encampments into housing this year, though it's a drop in the bucket compared to the 1,000 people he promised to get indoors by 2024. According to the House1000 online dashboard, the city has housed 210 people via Johnston's plan.
Asked if he supports a sweep of the area in front of Bar Bar, Granville says: "It needs to be done."
Asked whether she supported an encampment cleanup, Rubsam replied, "Yes."
When Abebe was asked how he felt, he simply shrugged and told Westword, "Well, it's going to happen. We'll just move to the next spot."
