Denver police often order Connie Smith to pack her stuff and move along. She has been without a home for five years, and while she sometimes couch-surfs, she doesn’t flinch from spending cold nights huddled out of sight on Denver’s streets or on the banks of the South Platte River. But she’s not always safe. “After dark it is not good,” she said one recent evening on a perch overlooking a path running alongside the dark river. Sometimes the threat surrounding life on the street drives her to take shelter inside a Porta-Potty. “It is nasty,” said Smith, 45.