Boyles baselessly claimed Denver “gave out” 5,000 cellphones to homeless

While discussing a Denver Post article about the success of regional homelessness programs, KHOW-AM host Peter Boyles baselessly claimed the city of Denver “gave out 5,000 cellphones” to homeless people.

On the September 20 broadcast of 630 KHOW-AM's The Peter Boyles Show, host Boyles baselessly claimed that “the city gave out 5,000 cellphones.” Boyles was discussing a September 19 Denver Post article about the reported success of regional homelessness programs with a caller and with guest Bob Cote. Cote is the founder of step13, a transitional housing program for homeless people with drug or alcohol addictions.

During his September 14 broadcast, Boyles referred to a voice mail box program noted in a September 13 Rocky Mountain News article about a report on the first year of a Denver homelessness initiative, which stated that the initiative had “establish[ed] voicemail boxes for more than 4,000.” Neither the description of the voice mail program in Denver's Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness nor the first-year report of the program released in September and highlighted in the News article mentions a cellphone giveaway.

The program is the Colorado Community Voice Mail (CCVM) service, which, according to an August 17, 2004, posting posted on the Denver city government website by Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper's office, “provides a personal voice mail telephone number and message retrieval to homeless or low-income people.” The article states that the service “is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, from any phone or pay phone, without charge.”

During the September 14 broadcast, Boyles asked, “how does a homeless person access a voice mail box -- some 4,000 -- unless they are given a phone?” Cote responded that “they all have phones” and suggested that taxpayers are paying for them:

BOYLES: Yeah, and so, how does a homeless person access a voice mail box -- some 4,000 -- unless they are given a phone?

COTE: Well, they all have phones.

[...]

BOYLES: Who pays, who pays for the phones for these guys?

COTE: We do!

BOYLES: Well, there's plenty of people, once again -- workaday people, hard workers, family people -- they don't have cellphones. Now how come a homeless guy -- 4,000 of them -- these phones -- were they given out, Bob?

COTE: Yeah, you just go down and you get them. You go down and you say, I have no way, and I'm looking for a job and there's no way for them to contact me. And if they call the shelter, you know, then they won't give me the job.

Similarly, on his September 20 broadcast Boyles claimed, “The city gave out 5,000 cellphones ... [s]o these homeless people could access job offers.”

An August 13, 2004, Denver Post article noted that, “The free voice-mail system may be accessed around the clock from any phone, including pay phones, according to officials. Homeless individuals and low-income families will be able to listen to messages they may receive from relatives, potential employers or landlords.” According to the CCVM website, several companies provide the infrastructure that enables the free voice mail box program at reduced or no cost: Multi-Link, Inflow Inc. (now owned by SunGard Availability Services), Liberty Bell Telecom, and Faegre & Benson. The CCVM website provided additional details on the funding for the program:

About $35,000 each year is covered by a group of local businesses who supply essential services through service donations. The remaining $40,000 of hard costs for employees, third party telephone expenses and other costs is provided through cash donations and normal fundraising activities. Without additional support, CCVM's funding will run out sometime in early Summer 2006, resulting in the closure of the program.

Colorado Media Matters found no evidence that homeless people were given cellphones as part of the Colorado Community Voice Mail service program. The description of the voice mail program in Denver's Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness makes no mention of a cellphone giveaway:

Currently, 5,000 donated voice mail lines are available for use by homeless person in the Denver metro area. Access to this service increases the changes [sic] of a person connecting with service providers, case workers and employment opportunities. The Commission recommends action to preserve this partnership with Multi-Link Communications.

Similarly, the first-year report of the program released in September and highlighted in the News article does not mention a cellphone giveaway:

GOAL 6: Education, Training and Employment

[...]

6.4 (Yrs 1-3)

Partnership with Multi-Link Communications for 5,000 voice mail boxes

  • Over 3,000 voice mail boxes are operational

The August 17 posting on the Denver Mayor's office's website noted that Nigel Alexander of the voice-messaging provider Multi-Link “committed to underwrite 100 percent of the costs of providing over 5,000 homeless people in Denver with free voice mail service, but has since received major contributions from other telecommunications companies in Denver.” And a May 20, 2005, Post editorial reported that the Denver Commission on Homelessness -- which helped produced the homelessness plan -- “secured a grant to provide 5,000 voice-mail boxes for homeless people looking for work.”

From the September 20 broadcast of The Peter Boyles Show:

CALLER MIKE: I'm just tired of having to care about everybody. I'm tired of somebody guilting me into wanting to give a damn. Excuse my French.

BOYLES: No, it's --

CALLER: But it translates into all sorts of different areas that I'm not even going to try and get into. All I know is that my $600-a-month apartment that I've been in for 12 years, that I go to work every day so I can continue living indoors and eating regularly, has two brand-new Section 8 complexes right next door.

BOYLES: Absolutely.

CALLER: And I've said it to you before, I'm curious if you're on Section 8, you're getting subsidized housing, why do you need a satellite dish?

BOYLES: Bob, what do you say to that?

COTE: Or a cellphone.

BOYLES: Remember the city --

CALLER: You know, I've got basic cable --

COTE: You're right --

BOYLES: Bob, how many cellphones did the city give out?

COTE: 5,000.

BOYLES: You have a cellphone, Mike?

CALLER: Oh, yeah. I got a cellphone, but I pay for it every month.

BOYLES: The city gave out 5,000 cellphones. The last time Cote was here on 630 KHOW. So these homeless people could access job offers.

CALLER: Well, they need to be reached. I think it's important that they have access to cellphones so they can text each other. I mean, I'm sorry, it's just making me (incomprehensible).

From the September 14 broadcast of The Peter Boyles Show:

BOYLES: And a guy named Rick Garcia --

COTE: He's a councilman.

BOYLES: Yeah, he's a councilman. Helping 701 homeless people find work while establishing voice mail boxes for more than 400.

COTE: 4,000!

BOYLES: Excuse me, 4,000 -- how --

COTE: Peter, if you go down and look at all those figures, they jump all over the place -- there's no meshing of them at all -- it's just like they just picked them out of their head and put 'em down. How do you have 4,000 phones with voice mail -- for what? Who has them?

BOYLES: Yeah well, again, there's plenty of people listening to this show that work every day and pay their taxes, that don't have voice mail.

COTE: I know.

BOYLES: 701 homeless people find work while establishing voice mail boxes for more than 4,000.

[...]

COTE: That's right -- they're the ones putting out the figures. You know, they just pick them out of the air, because 4,000 cellphones they gave away, and there's 701 jobs, and this doesn't add up.

BOYLES: Yeah, and so, how does a homeless person access a voice mail box -- some 4,000 -- unless they are given a phone?

COTE: Well, they all have phones. I'll tell you how I know when they're calling me --

BOYLES: All right --

COTE: They have a “1” in front of it, even though it's a 303 number, or 720, most of them are.

BOYLES: Who pays, who pays for the phones for these guys?

COTE: We do!

BOYLES: Well, there's plenty of people once again -- workaday people, hard workers, family people -- they don't have cellphones. Now, how come a homeless guy -- 4,000 of them -- these phones -- were they given out, Bob?

COTE: Yeah, you just go down and you get them. You go down and you say, I have no way, and I'm looking for a job and there's no way for them to contact me. And if they call the shelter, you know, then they won't give me the job. And, same with bus tokens, you know, Jeff Hubert for 12 years got eight bus tokens every morning -- he hadn't been on a bus in 15.