DENVER — Students on the Auraria campus in Denver say they are concerned about their safety due to a large number of homeless people camping out in buildings on campus, defecating in public areas and sleeping in elevators.

The campus — located immediately southwest of downtown — is home to the Community College of Denver, the University of Colorado Denver and Metropolitan State University of Denver.

Cameron Malby is a senior at CU Denver. He says he’s seen arrests and confrontations involving homeless people on campus.

“He was just looking for a place to sleep. Everyday you go in the Tivoli (Student Union) or the library and there’s people that aren’t students just camping out there,” Malby said.

Others have seen it too.

Gregory Gonzales is worried someone on campus could be hurt.

“(Someone) just getting off the train approached me and he was trying to talk to me about pigeons and said, ‘Do you think people can be possessed by demons?’ And I was like, ‘I don’t want to have this conversation’,” Gonzales said.

Students say a lot of the problems have to do with proximity. The light rail runs right through campus and downtown Denver is just one block away.

“I’d just like to get the conversation started: what we can do about it?” said Malby.

FOX31 and Channel 2 reached out to campus police to get their perspective, but no one was available to speak with us.

The police chief of the Auraria campus says he hopes to speak with us some time next week.