A Las Animas code enforcement officer accused of starting a fire that burned nearly 3,000 acres — including homes — in a few hours on April 12 has been arrested. Charles Gregory Champney, 67, turned himself into the Bent County Sheriff’s Office, facing three felony arson charges related to the fire that investigators say originated […]
Fort Lyon
Posted inNews
The next big move to solve homelessness is a metro Denver recovery campus. But which city will host it?
Eight years ago, Colorado repurposed an old Army fort surrounded by farm fields into a homeless recovery center, a peaceful campus on the plains, far from the gritty streets where its residents previously slept. More than 1,700 people have lived at Fort Lyon, about three hours from Denver in Las Animas, and about half of […]
Posted inColoradans, Economy, Health, Housing, News, Politics and Government
Colorado governor eyes former youth corrections campus for new homeless recovery center
WATKINS — On the treeless flatlands east of Denver, in a field of yellow-brown weeds that feels like the middle of nowhere, sits an empty campus with seven dormitories, 500 beds, a cafeteria, a gym and a football field. Gov. Jared Polis has big plans for the place, a state-owned facility that for two decades […]
Posted inGrowth, Health, News, Politics and Government
Colorado spends $4.7 million a year helping homeless people rehab from drug and alcohol abuse at Fort Lyon. Is it worth the cost?
LAS ANIMAS — The farther the white van got from Denver, away from the sirens and honking horns and closer to desolate stretches of two-lane highway through corn fields and melon farms, the more panicked Linda Fitzgerald became. When the van pulled into Fort Lyon, a former Army fort and then tuberculosis sanitarium, she had […]