KHOW's Boyles likened student project for feeding homeless youth to "feeding wild animals" and "feeding squirrels"

Summary: Criticizing a Denver Post article about students from a Christian college who provided food for Denver's homeless youth, 630 KHOW-AM's Peter Boyles said the student project was "like feeding wild animals" and later added, "It's like feeding squirrels." Guest Bob Cote said, "Why didn't they rent a van and take them up to Winter Park for a ski vacation? See how many wound up, you know, tied up to a tree up there."

Criticizing a March 5 Denver Post article about students from a Christian college who served food in a city park to Denver's homeless youth, on the March 6 broadcast of his 630 KHOW-AM show, Peter Boyles said to frequent guest Bob Cote that the student project was "like feeding wild animals." Boyles later added, "It's like feeding squirrels."

Cote -- who frequently has promoted misinformation about the homeless on Boyles' show -- called the article about the students from Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas, "a PR stunt" after saying, "Why didn't they rent a van and take them up to Winter Park for a ski vacation? See how many wound up, you know, tied up to a tree up there."

According to the Post article, "This year, [Daniel] Phillips, 19, and 12 other Harding students signed up for a program that brought them to Denver to work with the homeless." The article continued:

The group partnered with Dry Bones, a local organization that ministers to homeless people between the ages of 12 and 25. Students who go on Harding University Spring Break Missions pay their own way, often through fundraising, said April Fatula, director of news services at Harding.

[...]

This is the third time in six years that Harding students have come to Denver to help Dry Bones.

"Our goal is to give the college students a new perspective on life," said Matt Wallace, director of Dry Bones. "We challenge them when they go back to where they're from to take notice of the people on the margins of society."

Such a perspective was one of the first they experienced upon arriving in Denver. Monday afternoon, Wallace led the students on a "turf tour" of downtown Denver.

"It was really eye-opening," Davis said. "We were seeing where they slept and hid, and it was in the same places we were shopping the night before."

Blending into the scenery is a skill many of the street youths have had to learn well. Some of them, Wallace said, are runaways or are wanted for other reasons.

Because of the youths' leeriness, Wallace asked the photographer for The Denver Post to leave a picnic Tuesday. Within 10 minutes of the photographer's departure, the group of five youths grew to about 25.

From the March 6 broadcast of 630 KHOW-AM's The Peter Boyles Show:

BOYLES: So this piece yesterday in The Denver Post, "Charity begins at homeless."

COTE: Yeah.

BOYLES: And it, they're taking their spring break to come to Denver to make sandwiches for your homeless youths.

COTE: Yeah. Me and you could go down there and make sandwiches. Hey, I'd come.

BOYLES: If I get a spring break I'm not comin' to make sandwiches for anybody.

COTE: No.

BOYLES: But, I, well, I love how it was written. This is from Gerald Davis, the 21-year-old junior.

COTE: Uh huh.

BOYLES: [reading] "It was really eye-opening. We were seeing where they slept and hid. And it was the same place as we were shopping the night before."

COTE: What did they think they did, went out to Centennial, got a hotel room or something? They're all over the place.

BOYLES: And they called it a picnic.

COTE: Yeah, picnic.

BOYLES: [reading] "Tuesday's picnic was the first opportunity for half of the Harding students to work directly" -- work directly - "with Denver's homeless. Students took turns making sandwiches and introducing themselves." Now, wait a minute, is that working directly with your homeless youths? Making sandwiches and introducing themselves.

COTE: Yeah, well, don't have anything to give away, there's no one going to come around you.

BOYLES: No, and it gets better. [reading] "The other half of the group was walking around downtown looking for people to take to a movie." [Laughs]

COTE: Yeah. Why didn't they rent a van and take them up to Winter Park for a ski vacation? See how many wound up, you know, tied up to a tree up there.

BOYLES: Here is this one student who said, "It's just reminds me of everything I take for granted, like a warm house to stay in." [Laughs]

COTE: A warm house to stay in. You know, they're full of it.

BOYLES: Oh, boy. You know --

COTE: All these stories are leading up to the final thing when you say, "Who's the new neighbor?"

BOYLES: [Laughs] Well, we've talked about that.

COTE: Yeah, that's exactly what it is. It's a PR stunt.

BOYLES: That's like, wait till they parachute into one of these guys into your neighborhood.

COTE: Yeah.

[...]

BOYLES: [reading] "But this is the third time in six years that these Harding students have come to Denver. 'Our goal is to give the college students a new perspective on life. We challenge them to go back to where they're from and take notice of the people on the margins of society.' "

COTE: Yeah, well, the nutty professor.

BOYLES: I like the "turf tour."

COTE: Sure.

BOYLES: Like downtown Denver. I'm in downtown Denver everyday, walkin' around, and it says it was a "turf tour," as though they're going, what, to, I don't know, like the green zone in Lebanon or something.

COTE: It looks like they're sitting by Highland, Skyline Park.

BOYLES: Well, that's exactly where they are.

COTE: Yeah, that was a beautiful -- won awards for design, and they had to level it, ground level. Why?

BOYLES: Because...

COTE: Because all the street dudes were laying up in there and, you know, they'd say, "Hey!" Scare the hell out of ya.

BOYLES: How about this one. This is like feeding wild animals. [reading] "Because of the youths' leeriness, they had to ask the photographer of the Denver Post to leave" -- they called it a picnic -- "to leave the picnic. Within ten minutes of the photographer's departure the group of five youths grew to about 25." It's like feeding squirrels. [Laughs]

COTE: That's a picnic.

BOYLES: [Unintelligible] the picnic? Is it--

COTE: I tell ya, if they want to learn something, go down there and try to round them up without giving 'em something.

BOYLES: [Laughs] Ah, Bobby, I saw this and I thought about you, and I said, "This is up Cote's alley and down his block."

— C.H.

Posted to the web on Thursday March 6, 2008 at 4:03 PM EST