As a Colorado native I've seen the explosion of the homeless population in real time - it's been disturbing to say the least.

I feel like the initial leagalization of marijuana brought a huge infulx of young people thinking they were going to make a killing working in a dispensary - only to discover they were low paying, entry level, retail jobs.

A couple of years ago the Mayor of the City of Aurora did a social experiment where he pretended to be homeless for a week. He spent a few nights in shelters and then a few nights on the streets - his take-away was that people WANT to be homeless and that we shouldn't be offering services, but rather we should be punishing them for making the "wrong" choice. The tent camps along the side of the freeways break my heart - but the cities just keep throwing up laws and barriers and raiding camps in the middle of the night.

Maybe Salida isn't doing the thing that will truly help people, but at least they are offering something - unlike the city of Denver, which just keeps throwing people's stuff in the street and telling them to leave.