COMMUNITY PROFILE Seen but Unseen: VEHICLE DWELLING IN RURAL COLORADO BY PAULA BARD CREDIT: PAULA BARD THE SAFE PARKING INITIATIVE Sheltering in vehicles is often the last stop. SHELTERING IN VEHICLES is often the last stop. Hundreds of individuals and families are estimated to be sheltering in vehicles in the Denver metro area. According to the Metro Denver Homeless Initiative Point-in-Time Survey, there are nearly a thousand individuals statewide, a figure supplemented by municipal- and county-level counts. The actual number tends to be higher than official counts because surveys of the unhoused tend to undercount people living in vehicles. Vehicle dwellers are considered the ‘seen but unseen’ unhoused — very easy to miss. They are indistinguishable on a lot with many other cars or discretely parked in a neighborhood. Sheltering in vehicles is often the last stop for those who lose jobs and permanent housing. Cars tend to break down and are increasingly expensive to fix, register and insure. (Not so long ago, repair shop rates were $20 per hour.) Without intervention and support, many vehicle dwellers can spiral down into homelessness and end up on the streets. The Safe Parking Initiative is a volunteer organization that focuses on creating safe parking spaces for people living in their cars. They collaborate with faith-based organizations and have set up safe parking lots in Arvada, Broomfield, Longmont, and Boulder. They are working on lots in Denver and Adams County. Each small and dispersed site hosts fewer than 10 Vehicles. “What we want to see is that every community could do this if they’ve got people who are living in vehicles,” said Chelsey Baker-Hauck, co-founder of the Safe Parking Initiative. “They need to be connected to services and need a safe place to park.” Right now, the group is focusing on the 7 county Denver metro area and aiming for underutilized church parking lots. In Jefferson County, in addition to the safe parking lot in Arvada, there is one planned for Golden. Working in concert with community partners, the goal is not just to create a place for people who shelter in vehicles, but to wrap them around with essential support that includes sanitation, showers, help with keeping vehicles road-worthy, and keeping track of who’s coming and going — with a formal check-in process. They encourage the hosting groups to offer housing assistance, job training, healthcare access, and food. Breckenridge has led the way in Colorado. Their local overnight parking program offers a safe and supportive environment just at night for 10 residents living in their cars. It is an overnight parking lot with portable restrooms and snow plowing for both the working and non-working people who are unhoused. It began as a collaboration between Good Bridge Community and the Summit Colorado Interfaith Council with local county partners. First in the state, it has proven to be a successful working model. “We’ve heard about people in Montrose and Durango. So there really is need. I think wherever people are living there’s probably people experiencing homelessness,” said Baker-Hauck. “What we want to do is make this model available and provide technical support assistance to as many communities as possible. It is such a low-barrier service; it’s low cost for communities to do. It is easy to scale up or down.” She pointed out that it’s easy and effective in fitting in with community norms. The Safe Parking Initiative group can work with unique individual needs, enabling the community to do it for themselves. NIKI “They are not designed to live in, and they don’t last.” IMAGINE LIVING THE TRAVELING RV LIFE, and your partner dies unexpectedly. Do you carry on? Niki’s partner, Kenny, died in her arms a year ago. They had been traveling together for 10 years. “It’s a choice; we had to keep the scenery changing, otherwise he got bored.” She intends to resume a solo RV traveling life after a challenging year of grieving. She has been living at her mother-in-law’s ranch up in Park County while fixing up the RV. Confident about her own abilities, she intends to depend on their previous itinerant handyman skillset for travel — an ambitious project with her older RV. Niki is antsy; she and her dog are ready to hit the road. “Living in a vehicle is a choice because that means you go CREDIT: PAULA BARD CREDIT: PAULA BARD anywhere, anytime.” She is ready. Possibly, she’ll head back to back to California, where she grew up. “At least the part that hasn’t burned,” She is anxious to meet her first grandchild. Alone now, she still hears the road call. 8 DENVER VOICE May 2021
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