The following report from Safer Leaks looks at the anti-homeless network Safer Boulder which has called for increased policing of the local houseless community in Boulder, Colorado.
Like other cities across the nation, Boulder, Colorado is facing it’s own set of challenges as activists work in collaboration with local houseless people to create safer options and to fight back against problematic legislature that criminalizes homelessness. Boulder, who’s median annual income is $88,500 per year, is a town of just over 107,000 people and home to the University of Colorado. Boulder is known widely for it’s fairly progressive, white, hippy culture. But, as they say, scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds.
Safer Boulder is a classist, racist and transphobic organization that exists to lobby @bouldercolorado officials to be more cruel toward the homeless.
We have obtained a complete archive of the group's Slack workspace: https://t.co/ooQ3zp0R3h pic.twitter.com/md6XLKZsXU
— Safer Boulder Leaks (@SaferBoulder) October 6, 2020
An anonymous activist coalition, Safer Leaks, released the Slack chats of a closed, anti-homelessness group who, despite their name “Safer Boulder,” and their so-called commitment to finding solutions for homelessness, expresses violent fantasies, hatred, racism, ableism, classism, and trans* and queerphobia, just to name a few. This group has been platformed at Boulder City Council meetings and has ties to city council members and the Boulder Police Department.
Friend: Why did we give Safer Boulder their own slide? Other community groups wrote in? And we made it even with HAB/HRC?
Firnhaber: That was a council member request.— Shay Castle (@shayshinecastle) July 15, 2020
As a result, the chief of the Boulder Police Department, Maris Herold, wrote a personal thank you note to the anti-homeless group along with a @boulderpolice badge. pic.twitter.com/6Iuv1f9iBC
— Safer Boulder Leaks (@SaferBoulder) October 6, 2020
In public, Safer Boulder is actively working to criminalize the houseless community in Boulder, with their largest project being a petition demanding an increase of policing of homeless Boulder residents, which has over 7,600 signatures as of this writing.
If you follow Boulder politics closely, you may recall a petition that from a few months ago which asks city leaders to fully enforce the urban camping ban, “step up” the use of the Boulder police department’s Homeless Outreach Team and increase police patrols around the city pic.twitter.com/5qArCjGsLj
— Safer Boulder Leaks (@SaferBoulder) October 6, 2020
Safer Boulder talks a big game about the popularity of their petition demanding more police repression on people experiencing homelessness in Boulder, but internal chats show that much of their support is from out of state pic.twitter.com/vYttKdi2tJ
— Safer Boulder Leaks (@SaferBoulder) November 14, 2020
In private, a more violent, disturbing dialogue is happening:
Here is Craig Books and other Safer Boulder members brainstorming methods of physically attacking the Occupy Boulder protest camp at the Municipal Building pic.twitter.com/IekHi9xkD0
— Safer Boulder Leaks (@SaferBoulder) October 6, 2020
In addition to the leaks, Safer Leaks also exposes the identities of Safer Boulder’s leading members. Here’s a breakdown of this vile group:
- Mark Mallen, owner of Glacier Ice Cream and Rocket CBD. Mark likes to host Safer Boulder’s hate-meetings at his ice cream shop. More about Mark here.
- Todd Root of Boulder Bike Sharing‘s contributions to the chat are particularly violent & horrifying. He has expressed his desire to tie up houseless young people to 5 lb buckets of feces, as well as posting racist comments in response to racially motivated policing. Todd is active in the chats, posting multiple times a day, everyday. More about Todd here.
Todd Root works as a fleet technician for Boulder Bike Sharing and is one of the most active members of Safer Boulder. He believes virtually all unhoused people are criminals. pic.twitter.com/pDfWSpjRH9
— Safer Boulder Leaks (@SaferBoulder) October 6, 2020
- Craig Books, co-owner of Mama Bears Brews. As stated in Craig’s SB leaks page, “Craig’s rhetoric about people experiencing homelessness is noticeably violent and morbid.” More about Craig here.
- Jillian Lloyd, attorney and yoga instructor in Boulder, Colorado is one of the most active and racist members of Safer Boulder. She has posted anti-homeless propaganda by Steffan Tubbs, the fascist-adjacent radio host on the right-wing 710 KNUS talk radio station. Jillian insinuates that houseless folks in Boulder are lying about their disabilities, and she regularly encourages police brutality against houseless members of the community. More about Jillian here.
- Shari Roth is another active member of Safer Boulder and also acts as an intermediary to Republican Boulder City Council member Bob Yates. Her posts are less openly violent than her peers. However, she does not push back on Safer Boulder’s calls or wishes for violence upon people experiencing homelessness. Shari regularly coordinates with Boulder City Council member Bob Yates in opposing progressive initiatives that provide integral support and services to houseless people in Boulder. More about Shari here.
- Leslie Chandler, owner of Flow Redesigned is an active member of Safer Boulder who’s notable contributions are the photos she takes of houseless people, without their consent or knowledge, that she then reposts in the chats for everyone to comment on. Leslie has some horrifying beliefs about how to “support” or “solve” the issue of substance use/addiction. More about Leslie here.
- Next is Steven Rosenblum, Boulder resident and Managing Director at the investment firm Gentrust. Steven is a conservative COVID truther, and believes that “making life as miserable as possible” will solve homeslessness. Steven spends a lot of time on Reddit forums discussing his COVID theories and classism. More about Steven here.
- Brooke Harrison is a leading member of Safer Boulder who works as the Therapy Area Director at Oncology Resource Group and sits on the Boulder Police Department’s Community Dialogue and Engagement Panel. Brooke is the creator of the Safer Boulder Slack channel. More about Brooke here.
- Peggy Sands, Boulder artist & anti-homeless bigot, has helped w/ the Safer Boulder website that hasn’t ever gotten off the ground. On the “Transients page” Peggy refers to houseless people as being “like locusts.” On July 7th, a community member spoke against Safer Boulder in Boulder City Council’s public comment section. In retaliation to these comments, Peggy posted that speakers home address, phone number, and age to the rest of the group. More about Peggy here.
- Shirley Anne Frewin of Gunbarrel, Colorado used Safer Boulder to advocate violence against people experiencing homelessness even talking about modifying the suspension on her car, named Boo, to make it a “curb hopper” so that she can “go after meth heads.” More about Shirley here.
- Katharine Hauge is a physical therapist practicing at Functional Fitness in Boulder. Katharine’s post are most notable because they support police brutality and encourage violence against the poor. More about Katharine here.
- Next up is Elaine Dannemiller, Boulder resident, self-employed graphic designer and an outspoken opponent of the youth-centered homelessness non-profit Attention Homes. Attention Homes serves youth ages 12-24. More about Elaine here.
- Next up is transphobe Katie Lehr. She is a co-owner of Jamey Valentine Construction, and a former spokesperson for the Boulder Builders’ Association. On her social media accounts she posts anti-Semitic propaganda and support for far-right figures like Milo Yiannopoulos. Katie makes an intentionally transphobic (and unscientific) remark by crudely saying gender is determined by one’s genitals. More about Katie here.
- Andrew Rice, Boulder Resident and owner of Colorado Design Group, worked with Peggy Sands on the website that never took off. More on Andrew here.
On October 11th, in a completely unsurprising response to the leaks, Safer Boulder published their own blog titled, “Safer Boulder Doesn’t Have Time for Bullies.” It is a pathetic, hollow attempt to cover their bigotry by trying to center themselves as the victims of such accusations. Safer Leaks responded by tearing through Safer Boulder’s blog point-by-point, and ending the response with:
Safer Boulder can use all the weasel words they want to imply that our release of their Slack Workspace is fraudulent, but at the end of the end day, they have provided no evidence to backup any of their claims against us, while we have over 1,000 screenshots from their chats that you can access and come to your own conclusion about the group.
Safer Boulder exists in a network of anti-homeless groups across the country like Safe Seattle and Save Austin Now who organize to make their cities more hostile and less habitable to poor and unhoused residents. These groups typically rely on pressuring local police to increase homeless sweeps and ticketing while encouraging local governments to defund shelters and other lifesaving programs. The goal of anti-homelessness groups is inherently exterministic and fascistic: They want to use the State to purge their cities from ‘degenerate others’ in order to restore them to a mythologized former glory.
Steven believes that the unhoused people in Boulder aren't actually homeless, they're outsiders pretending to be homeless in order to "destroy our environment and city" and need to be "treated like the filth they are"
Steven moved to Boulder from NYC a few years ago. pic.twitter.com/uYtflOHwQP
— Safer Boulder Leaks (@SaferBoulder) October 6, 2020
photo: Jon Tyson