NPR - LISTEN TO STORY - COLORADO PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL FOR HOMELESS
Article excerpt : That proposal by the Democratic governor would bring mentally ill and addicted homeless people to Fort Lyon, at one time a psychiatric hospital for veterans and then a prison. The facility, near the tiny town of Las Animas, has been closed for two years.
Under the plan, people would leave the streets of the cities where they live now and voluntarily come to Fort Lyon. And the town would welcome the jobs that reopening the facility would create.
Jack Simms, who's been homeless in Colorado Springs for a decade, says it's needed.
"I see it, man. They need to open some beds somewhere, at a mental health facility or something," says Simms, who says he struggles with depression and smokes pot to cope. "I can survive out here, [but] these mentally ill people, it's rough. They just walk up and down the paths. They look like zombies. I'd be a guinea pig. I'd try it out."
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