Fort Lyon community calls for action after serious crime committed by former homeless coalition resident

FORT LYON, Colorado (KKTV) – A month ago, Randa Morlan's home was nearly broken into by a former resident of the Fort Lyon Coalition for the Homeless.

Morlan lives with her husband and two teenage daughters; neither of them was home at the time of the attempted break-in.

Now Morlan is pleading with state and local homeless coalitions to provide more safety.

She tells 11 News she doesn't know what will motivate her to hire security guards.

“Does your house have to be broken into or someone injured before you do something about it?

“We had to invest in gates for our property and they are locked 24 hours a day and night. Now I feel more comfortable in my home.”

Morlan believes the increased security benefits everyone, including the program.

“I just think it would even help their program, not to mention the neighbors out here, if they had security.

“It would help reduce drug and alcohol use. I don't think the sheriffs would be out here as much. I don't think the ambulances would be out here as much.”

She also says she no longer feels in danger in her home.

“I'm sad because when I moved here it was such a nice community, but now I think I may have to move because I don't feel safe here anymore.

“When I moved here, it was a prison. I wasn't worried at all, they're locked up.

“I'm not saying that these people should be locked up. Of course they are free and I want them to be better off, but if they put people with a criminal past here, I think they have to tell the public.”

Lisa Trigilio, on the other hand, is program director of the Fort Lyon program, which is part of the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, and she says people don't have to be afraid to live near the coalition.

“The most important thing people need to understand is that this is not a prison. These people are not in prison, they are here to change their lives, they are working on their recovery. Amazing things are happening.

“This is not a scary program.

“Yes, sometimes people don’t behave the way we would like them to, but that happens in every organization.

“We’ve been here for 11 years now and I haven’t really heard of too many problems.

“…We have night staff here, you know, they keep an eye on us. We go to the gate and sit down, and I have never felt unsafe in 11 years here.”

Trigilio also says that sometimes there are big misconceptions and people don't understand how the program works, so they make wrong assumptions.

“I think it's just that nobody knows what we do and nobody really listens to our story and understands why everyone is here.

“They're not here to commit criminal activity. They're here to do life-changing, wonderful things in their lives, and sometimes they have the opportunity to do so for the very first time.”

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