Wellington Edward Webb was born Feb. 7, 1941 in Chicago, where his father, Wellington Marion Webb, was captain of the club car on the deluxe Union Pacific passenger train called the "City of Denver." That crack overnight 100 m.p.h. train inaugurated in 1936 left Chicago at 6:20 p.m. and arrived in Denver at 9:20 the next morning.

Asthma bedeviled young Wellington, so the family took him to Denver when he was five. Like thousands of other families, the Webbs came for Colorado's climate cure. In Webb's case, it worked. The sickly youngster grew into a giant of a man, standing 6' 4" in size-12 sneakers.

Webb became a basketball star at Denver's Manual High School and received a scholarship to the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, where he earned a masters degree in education. He taught high school and coached basketball at Adams City High School, then taught African-American History part time at the University of Colorado at Denver.

After being elected mayor, Webb said: "Denver is still a friendly city. Most people still look you in the eye. My election and that of Mayor Peña shows that Denverites give everyone a chance, regardless of their skin color. My goal is to keep this a friendly, safe, tolerant, and exciting city."

Mayor Webb presided over a prosperous city as well. But even the flush times had a downside. For example, the 1990s boom has been a curse to the homeless, who traditionally squatted in the South Platte River bottoms. Arapaho Indians had camped along the river, later followed by busted prospectors, broken down cowboys, homeless homesteaders, poor immigrants, and downsized capitalists.

For decades squatters were allowed this unofficial reservation. Ancient hobo paths along the river bottoms, however, are evolving into cafe and condo lined trails for strollers, in-line skaters, joggers, and cyclists. These newcomers do not want to be disturbed by the sight of possibly begging indigents.

Nor are leisured indigents welcome in Denver's old skid row-- it is now trendy LoDo with million-dollar lofts, Coors Field, and upscale restaurants selling $25 cigars. The homeless were also chased out of their nests under the bridges over Cherry Creek. Denver Country Clubbers had complained about vagrants following the creek into their golf course.

On an average day in the metro area, some 3,300 people are homeless. Not all of them wanted help from the Catholic Worker House, Central Presbyterian Church, Denver Rescue Mission, First Baptist Church, Sacred Heart Shelter, the Salvation Army's Crossroads Shelter, Samaritan House or other overnight shelters. Many called the riverbank home, until some 200 were evicted early in 1997 as part of a $40 million campaign to transform the riverfront into upscale housing, offices, parks, and even an aquarium.

Despite this removal, the homeless generally have found that they had a big friend at city hall. Mayor Webb agonized over the removal, vowing to relocate the riverside homeless--and even their pets--into comfortable quarters.

In 1995, when the corpse of a vagrant was found in Civic Center, most people and all but one politician, looked the other way. Mayor Webb, however, called the press to publicize the plight of the homeless. On December 19, 1996, the mayor hosted a candlelight memorial service at City Hall for the 43 homeless people who died in Denver in 1996. "I wanted," he explained, "to dignify their tragic deaths."

"Neighborhoods don't step forward to welcome the homeless," the mayor observed. "It's always `Not in My Back Yard.' So we've put these people in our own backyard down here at City Hall."Webb's administration offered the city-owned office building just across 14th Street from City Hall to the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless. The coalition revamped it in 1996 as 100 single-room apartments.

"I toured the Forum Apartments before the homeless moved in," Mayor Webb recalled. "It has security, a shower and a kitchen in every unit. Now, when I walk into City Hall I no longer see a vacant, deteriorating building but one filled with people. It looks just like any other apartment or condo." Nor has it deterred upscale loft and restaurant development in the adjacent Golden Triangle neighborhood bounded by Broadway, Speer Boulevard, and West Colfax Avenue.

What motivates his honor?

"I don't help the homeless because they vote. They don't. In fact, they are a political liability. Helping them alienates some voters--who want the poor to just disappear."

"I learned to be kind to all kinds of people from my parents, my grandmother, and my great, compassionate wife. I also learned from my first real job, working at Fort Logan Mental Health Center. For three and a half years, I taught gym classes for emotionally disturbed kids. Many of our homeless remind me of those kids."

The mayor was raised to practice Christian kindness. "My folks wouldn't let us five kids go out on Saturday night unless we went to church on Sunday--no matter how tired we were. If we fell asleep in church, we had to sleep with our eyes open!"

"I've learned to take chances on people. In 1991, when I was at 7 percent in the polls, the people of Denver took a chance on me. I want to gamble on people, to create opportunities. There is a lot of talent in any pool of people--the homeless too."

"Denver is one big family. We need each other and we need to care for everyone. When I spent the night in the Samaritan Shelter, I was struck by the diverse backgrounds of the homeless. You can't stereotype them as comic strip hobos, bums, and winos. Most distressing are the homeless mothers with children. Kids under 17 make up almost a third of that population. If we ever turn our back on the homeless, no matter how far we have advanced otherwise, we have become a backward society."