Nation briefs 9/12/04

Colorado Sand Dunes to become national park

DENVER -- Colorado will become home to the country's newest national park when Interior Secretary Gale Norton officially reclassifies the Great Sand Dunes National Monument. Norton will join Rep. Scott McInnis and Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell in a ceremony Monday at the dunes to designate the southern Colorado site a national park. McInnis, Campbell and fellow Republican Sen. Wayne Allard sponsored legislation and lobbied to have the 750-foot dunes, North America's tallest, the surrounding mountains and the sagebrush-dotted high desert turned into a national park. The dunes hug the bottom of the snowy Sangre de Cristo Mountains that tower over the San Luis Valley. The landscape changes from 8,200-foot-high grasslands, to the dunes, to 13,000-plus-foot mountains and alpine lakes -- all within four miles.

Architect Jahn designs building for homeless

CHICAGO -- Renowned architect Helmut Jahn has designed sleek, one-of-a-kind structures for bankers and office workers, dabbled in sports and entertainment venues and even erected a modern airline terminal. But one of his latest structures is an environmentally friendly structure intent on a larger purpose: housing the poor. Jahn's stainless steel and glass "single room occupancy" building is expected to be built next year on a vacant lot near the Cabrini-Green housing project, which is gradually being torn down. The silver, Twinkie-shaped structure will consist of 100 units, and includes public areas where residents can meet and socialize. But more importantly, homeless advocates say, it will draw attention to the "supportive housing movement," which promotes SRO buildings as a way to ease the homeless problem.-- From wire reports