Get rid of the barbed wire

The state of Colorado has a plan to repurpose a correctional facility into a homeless housing and services center.

The rural Fort Lyon prison facility, shuttered by Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper amid budget cuts in 2011, reopened Tuesday as a repurposed facility intended to aid the state’s homeless population.

After intense back-and-forths and political wrangling at the state Capitol this year, lawmakers passed a measure that appropriated funds to bus the state’s homeless to the rural facility to receive substance-abuse support services, medical care and job training.

Only 14 people have agreed to be bused and "housed" in the facility, but the plans call for up to 300 residents within two years.

The plan has a certain warm and fuzzy appeal.

“This project will give homeless veterans and others new opportunities,” Hickenlooper said in a statement. “The men and women who go to Fort Lyon will learn the skills they need to get back on their feet.”

The legislature scaled back funding for the program, which will make it more difficult to operate the facility as anything other than a prison for the homeless. In order to successfully "transition" to subsidized housing elsewhere, one has .

According to a news release from Hickenlooper’s office, after at least one-year of residency at Fort Lyon, clients will be eligible to receive a Section 8 housing voucher from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to return to permanent housing in another community.

I wonder what happens to participants that fail to complete the one-year minimum residency requirement. Perhaps I am not thinking charitably about the program, but you have to be somewhat skeptical of political motives when so many cities across the country have passed laws that criminalize homelessness. At least Colorado has given some thought to helping the homeless.