6 AUGUST 8-14, 2024 westword.com WESTWORD | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | Packing Up Tents COLORADO VILLAGE COLLABORATIVE PLANS BIG CHANGES AT A TINY HOME VILLAGE, ADDING MORE PALLET SHELTERS WITH PLUMBING. BY BENNITO L. KELT Y One of Denver’s largest homeless service providers, Colorado Village Collaborative, is upgrading three housing sites over the next few weeks in partnership with the City of Denver, and has already moved residents out of a now-closed site in Montbello. Founded in 2017, CVC has provided living spaces for about 1,000 homeless people in Denver through its Tiny Home Villages and Safe Outdoor Spaces (SOS) programs. Tiny Home Villages are micro-communities of about a dozen shed-like units for people transitioning from homelessness to stable housing, while SOS sites are larger, fenced-in gatherings of tents with services that help residents fi nd stable housing. The nonprofi t is expanding two Tiny Home Villages, both in Elyria-Swansea, by adding fi ve units to each. The bigger project, however, is replacing the tents at an SOS site with shed- like pallet shelters and installing plumbing in those new units. That 41-unit SOS site is in the Clayton neighborhood, near the Denver Human Services (DHS) East offi ces. Elizabeth Szewczyk, director of development and communica- tions for CVC, says that the pallet upgrades will turn the site into a micro-community with a capacity for 51 residents. “The SOS models were a strategic pivot during the pandemic to ensure people experi- encing homelessness were provided with safe and healthy shelter experi- ences,” she notes. “By shifting these models to micro-communities, we will be able to provide a more digni- fi ed shelter experience, around-the- clock support, and increased stability for both community members and staff.” Szewczyk says that “the timing of the move was aligned with the city’s process for upgrading” nearby DHS offi ces: After the agency’s permits to start construction were approved, the city added CVC’s additions into that project timeline. “This is a planned expansion. The city saw an opportunity for a more compre- hensive infrastructure upgrade aligned with the micro-community model, and we are pleased to collaborate with them,” she says. “Ultimately, these changes will bring improvised hygiene facilities, internet, site infrastructure like fencing, and, of course, more dignifi ed shelter units.” Colorado Village Collaborative has per- manently closed an SOS site in Montbello near 46th Avenue and Peoria Street, near the Arie P. Taylor Municipal Center. The Montbello site was one of the few Native American-inclusive sites in Denver, but the space isn’t large enough to fi t a pallet shelter upgrade, and the zoning permit will expire early in the fall, according to Szewczyk. With the closure of that Montbello site, CVC will have one remaining SOS, on West 13th Avenue in the La Alma neighborhood, which is also Native American-inclusive. Native Americans make up 1 percent of the Denver population but 6 percent of its homeless population, according to the federally funded Point in Time count. Native American-inclusive sites are meant to reduce that disparity by prioritizing housing for people referred through Native American- serving organizations, according to CVC. Advocates and residents asked city lead- ers for an inclusive site for Native Americans after a 2021 sweep of “Denver’s Indigenous refugee camp,” the nickname for an encamp- ment where a couple dozen homeless Native Americans lived outside the Four Winds American Indian Council community center at West Fifth Avenue and Bannock Street. Former mayor Michael Hancock’s ad- ministration responded by funding the creation of an SOS site by CVC in the La Alma neighborhood on Eighth Avenue and Elati Street. That site closed for a couple of months after a fi re in September 2022; CVC moved the SOS site to Montbello the next year, after its lease with Denver Health for the La Alma location expired. One Native American resident at the 34-unit Montbello site, Wenceslaus Espinoza, says that CVC started kicking out residents of the site weeks before the closure, which was “a surprise” to its residents. According to CVC, residents were noti- fi ed of the impending closure on July 26 and had until July 31 to leave. Espinoza says she was kicked out a couple of weeks before the closure was announced, however. “Over the last couple months, more and more residents were displaced on unfair ac- cusations and circumstances. ... Myself and so many others are shaken and disturbed about how all of this was handled,” she says. “CVC didn’t give me another place to live. I was kicked out for having belongings outside of my tent while I was cleaning. ... When the other residents left the camp, they were told they were being moved to other sites, and they were told there was only so much room for a certain amount of people.” Szweczyk disputes Espinoza’s claims, and says no resident lost housing because of the upgrades. Residents were moved to other sites, such as the La Paz micro-community, one of the Tiny Home Villages or the SOS site on West 13th Avenue — all of which have plenty of room, she notes. “Our staff helped community members pack, transport their be- longings and pets and move into their new space,” Szewczyk says. “We acknowledge that moving is not comfortable or easy for many people. We have case managers, peer support and a clinical social worker on staff to help folks through this process. ... No community members lost shelter, and many are upgrading from tents to Tiny Home units or the manufactured sleeping units at La Paz.” The sites are models for a controversial, taxpayer-funded set of micro-communities that Mayor Mike Johnston has used to house a couple hundred homeless residents dur- ing the past year. The founder of CVC, Cole Chandler, is now Johnston’s senior advisor on homelessness resolution. Colorado Village Collaborative started building SOS sites during the pandemic in partnership with the mayor’s offi ce. The organization also manages one of Denver’s three existing micro-communities, the sixty- unit site in the Overland neighborhood. According to Szewczyk, the changes at the Clayton, Elyria-Swansea and Montbello sites “are a refl ection of CVC’s alignment and ongoing partnership with the City and County of Denver and Mayor Johnston’s All In Mile High initiative,” a citywide effort to house another 1,000 people this year. In a recent interview with Westword, Johnston said that his plans for the year ahead include upgrading the SOS program, but micro-communities are no longer a major focus. Early in his administration, Johnston envisioned using ten micro- communities to help move 1,000 homeless individuals indoors by the end of 2023, but after seven of those sites were nixed last year, he doesn’t have plans to open more in 2024. Instead, the mayor says he wants to sup- port and upgrade existing sites and hotels that were purchased by the city and con- verted into homeless shelters. “Some of the safe outdoor spaces that we have, we’re going to upgrade to micro- communities. We’re going to replace what were tents with tiny homes to make those more stable, more permanent, more digni- fi ed,” Johnston explained. “But we’re not looking right now to new micro-communities again. Last year was re- ally the capital and infrastructure part of the project, which is fi nd these sites, stand them up, get them up and running, and then get people moving through them. Now it’s really focusing on the programmatic components of how we run really high-quality services at these sites to make the through-put even faster,” Johnston said. Email the author at [email protected]. NEWS KEEP UP ON DENVER NEWS AT WESTWORD.COM/NEWS Colorado Village Collaborative runs Beloved Village at 4201 Monroe Street. BENNITO L. KELTY CVC just closed this Safe Open Space in Montbello. BENNITO L. KELT Y
