The homeless camps that pop up, mushroom and then fester in and around Colorado’s urban centers often enough turn into drug dens and death traps. That’s over and above the other problems they pose for the surrounding community. They are way stations for petty lawbreakers; pitstops for alcohol abuse; home base for panhandlers, and of course all-around eyesores and trash receptacles emitting stench and teeming with waste.

These are impolite truths we are all, at times, too timid to utter. We don’t want to appear “judgmental.” We don’t want to seem insensitive or backward thinking. Perhaps above all, we don’t want to displace the people in the camps because we fear they have no place to go.

But here’s another impolite truth: Between public agencies and private nonprofits offering wide-ranging homeless services, Colorado’s larger cities have considerable bandwidth for helping the homeless. They can offer them warm beds and meals as well as guidance and resources to find employment and maybe even take the first steps toward getting their lives back on track.

What this vital social safety net can’t provide is meth, or booze, or pot, or drunken brawls, or passersby to panhandle, or a marketplace for dealing drugs.

Which is why Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman was right on the money a few months ago when he publicly observed that a lot of the homeless people who camp out rather than take advantage of a bed in a shelter are making a “lifestyle choice.” He had witnessed it firsthand, having spent a week undercover on the streets, living among the homeless both in shelters and in camps. Coffman took heat for daring to speak the truth, but he stood his ground.

And Coffman is on the right track, as well, in his plans announced this week to introduce a camping ban for consideration by the Aurora City Council. The ban in Aurora, Colorado’s third-largest city, would be similar to those in effect next door in Denver, the state’s largest city, and in Colorado Springs, the second largest.

Again, Coffman is taking heat, including from some feckless Aurora council members. They seem to prefer the status quo.

As reported by The Gazette on Tuesday, one council member called the proposal “inhumane and ineffective.” The council’s Curtis Gardner declared, “A camping ban, by itself, isn’t a solution to all homelessness — if it was, we would see the results of that in other cities … We need to address veterans’ issues, drug abuse, economic distress, mental health and more.”

Hold on. Coffman’s proposed ban, as well as the policies in Denver and Colorado Springs, never purported to be “a solution to all homelessness.” The bans aim simply to be a solution to the very real problem of camping in and of itself. Those like Gardner may not want to view the camps as a problem, but it’s a safe bet a lot of his constituents feel otherwise.

And is it really a community’s duty to find a solution to all homelessness in general, including to “veterans’ issues, drug abuse, economic distress” and the like — before it can safeguard its public spaces from the aberration of homeless camps? Oh, please.

Absent from Gardner’s rationale is what’s good for the rest of the community — including his constituents. Also absent is what’s actually best for the campers themselves.

Make no mistake, the unauthorized camps — ad hoc settlements of squalor that include lean-tos, boxes and tents pitched in parks and other public property — are not only a blight on the surrounding community. They are a ticket to a short, miserable life for those who choose to dwell in them. And, yes, it is a choice.

You have to wonder if the real reason Coffman’s conclusions riled those who have invested political capital in championing the homeless camps is that he hit a nerve. Deep down, his critics know he’s right.

That’s not to doubt that many of the chronically homeless denizens of the streets are victims. Among them are victims of substance abuse; of mental illness. Perhaps there were events beyond their control that had traumatized them earlier in life and in some way or another, sadly, set them on a course for life on the streets.

Those who frequent the camps are not, however, victims of society. They are not, by and large, being “let down” by a presumably selfish local or state government that supposedly failed to provide adequate funding for housing or other services.

We hope Coffman and his proposal get a fair hearing before the Aurora City Council. We’re not optimistic, however, given the current council lineup. It appears skewed toward those who would rather enable homeless campers to the public’s detriment — than truly empower them and set them free.