Work will begin in the coming days to transform a dusty triangle of land wedged against a highway in Denver’s Overland neighborhood into a tiny home village with the capacity to accommodate up to 120 people before the end of the year, city officials announced.
The property at 2301 S. Santa Fe Drive is the first confirmed landing place for one of Mayor Mike Johnston’s promised micro-communities. The communities, pitched as collections of tiny homes or prefabricated Pallet shelters with on-site staffing, mental health, addiction treatment and other services, are designed to provide transitional housing and safer alternatives for people now living in tent encampments on city sidewalks or other rights of way.
The forthcoming groundbreaking marks a significant step in Johnston’s push, backed by an emergency declaration, to get 1,000 people off the street and into housing or temporary shelter before the end of this year.
The property, owned by the Colorado Department of Transportation, was one of 11 hotels, vacant land parcels and surface parking lots that appear on a preliminary list of sites Johnston released in August as possible locations for what the administration is calling the House 1,000 homelessness initiative. Now it is poised to host a tiny home village for the next two to four years, city officials say.
Some neighbors in Overland have opposed the administration’s plans to open a micro-community on the land citing fires, trash, human waste and safety concerns that they linked to illegal encampments that have cropped up on the same property over the years.
Administration officials emphasized Monday that the site was carefully vetted on criteria that included fire safety, risks to public health and traffic impacts. The property will be fenced off and will have on-site services including restrooms, trash collection, kitchens, laundry, mental health and employment support.
A yet-to-be-identified nonprofit operator will be tapped to staff and manage the micro-community 24 hours per day, administration officials say. Negotiations with potential operators are ongoing after 16 organizations submitted bids to operate sites, city spokeswoman Katie Ross Wamsley said Tuesday.
The goal is to help people who accept shelter at the micro-communities transition into a more permanent form of housing within six to 12 months, Wamsley said, but there is no hard cap on how long people will be allowed to stay at this point.
Following the mayor’s release of his preliminary site list, City Councilwoman Flor Alvidrez, who represents Overland as part of her District 7, said she believed the micro-community would improve the situation with homelessness in the area.
But Alvidrez’s view of the mayor’s effort has since soured. She joined Councilwoman Amanda Sawyer last month in voting against the latest extension to the emergency order that is giving the Johnston administration greater leeway to speed along its homelessness initiative. Her main concern is that her district had two proposed sites, including the South Sante Fe land, while others, like Sawyer’s District 5, so far have none.
“The entire city needs to … play a part in solving homelessness. It can’t be pushed into one district,” Alvidrez said before casting her no vote. “I just don’t see the equity. I don’t buy it. I was supportive of this when I thought that was a priority.”
As of Tuesday, Johnston’s emergency effort has helped 168 people move into converted hotel rooms, apartments or other forms of shelter and housing options.
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