DENVER — After three years in Denver's Globeville neighborhood, the tiny home village on East 45th Avenue and Pearl Street is moving out.
Dorothy Leyba, tiny home village program director with the Colorado Village Collaborative (CVC), says the group's lease with the City and County of Denver at the current site is ending.
"We've been on that site for three years, so our three-year lease is up now on April 30," she said.
The site has 19 tiny homes, a community space and shared bathrooms. All of it will be moving to the new site in the Elyria-Swansea neighborhood near the corner of East 42nd Avenue and Monroe Street.
"Currently, we have around 13 residents, so around 10 households, that will be moving over to the new site," Leyba said. "With the other residents ... we're looking at other permanent situations for those individuals."
Students at Cherry Creek Innovation Campus helped build five additional homes, bringing the total at the new site to 24.
"We've worked with a couple of community organizations within the Swansea neighborhood to make referrals directly to our tiny home units, and we'll also be utilizing the service providers that we currently use for referrals," Leyba said.
New and old residents will also have a new community garden on the half-acre piece of land. The city is leasing the vacant site to CVC for just $10 a year.
"We have some land that's available, and right now we are charged with thinking about every use that we can for reducing unsheltered homelessness here in Denver," Britta Fisher, Denver's chief housing officer, said. "We're really excited about the 24 spaces that will be added at this site right now."
Some nearby neighbors and business owners have already expressed concerns about the new location, Leyba says, and the group is working to address them all.
"I'm a Denver native, and so it's important to me that the neighborhood is heard and that their concerns are validated," she said.
The lease at the new site begins May 1, but the group plans to move the homes before then. Opportunities to help with the move will be announced on the Colorado Village Collaborative website.
