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Catholic Charities of Central Colorado: Marian House staying put
COLORADO SPRINGS. In an effort to revitalize Colorado Springs’ downtown area, a group appointed by Mayor Steve Bach is looking at ways to centralize services for the homeless and working poor, city officials say. But despite recent news stories, relocating the Marian House soup kitchen or the Richard C. Hanifen Self-Sufficiency Center are not options that are currently being discussed, said Catholic Charities of Central Colorado CEO Mark Rohlena.
“Catholic Charities of Central Colorado has no plans to move the Marian House, either the Soup Kitchen or our self-sufficiency programs. Many, many donors — including downtown churches, business and countless individuals — have made it possible for us to serve those in need at this time and in this place,” Rohlena wrote in a Feb. 13 e-mail to the Herald.
Reports that the city had plans to relocate the soup kitchen surfaced after the mayor’s office notified Bob Holmes, head of the organization Homeward Pikes Peak, that it was cutting direct funding of the agency beginning in 2013. After efforts to meet with the mayor were unsuccessful, Holmes then made public an e-mail he sent to the mayor. In the e-mail, Holmes suggested that the mayor wanted to move the soup kitchen in order to make the homeless population less visible.
“The question about the Marian House moving came up in an email Bob Holmes sent to Mayor Bach. We are not having any conversations about moving, nor is the City pressuring us in any way to move,” Rohlena said. “We enjoy a very strong relationship both with the City and with Bob Holmes. Bob has done a tremendous amount of good for the community, and the Mayor’s Downtown Solutions Team, of which we are a part, is focused on creating a vibrant downtown. We are committed to this effort, and moving the Marian House is not a discussion in those meetings.”
Steve Cox, the newly-appointed Chief of Economic Vitality and Innovation for the city, confirmed that Mayor Bach’s Downtown Solutions Team, headed by developer Chuck Murphy of Murphy Constructors, is considering various options for homeless services. But he emphasized that nothing would be done without informing Catholic Charities.
“A subset of the Downtown Solutions Team is meeting with a group of downtown churches to look at what opportunities might exist for creating more of a central location for service in the downtown area,” Cox said. “The CEO of Catholic Charities is now a member of the Downtown Solutions Team and will be involved in any of those discussions. Separately, we must deal with aggressive panhandling in order to revitalize our city center and achieve a true renaissance for downtown Colorado Springs.”
Bach is holding a town hall meeting on the topic of downtown renaissance on Feb. 22 from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at Penrose Library.
“As in all we do, we are focusing on reinvention and innovation in our city, and we must rethink how we deliver services to the homeless,” Bach said in a Feb. 9 statement to the Herald.
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