Cities have an obligation to taxpayers to remove vagrant camps from public spaces. Enabling people to live in squalor isn’t compassionate, and it¶¶Òőap unfair to taxpayers who want to use their parks, storefronts, sidewalks, and streets without having to witness human degradation.

Fortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court recently decided in that cities can enforce bans on urban camping even if they do not offer free shelter. It does not violate the Eighth Amendment¶¶Òőap prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment to disallow encampments on public land.

Aurora and Denver have camping bans on the books but thanks to lawsuits and lower-court rulings, enforcement has been uneven. The Supreme Court decision has removed that legal cloud. City authorities should take the opportunity to redouble their efforts to disband vagrant camps and put individuals on a path to sobriety, work, mental health, a home of their own, and self-reliance. Human beings respond to incentives and when life on the street is discouraged, they will be more likely to seek help.

Denver and Aurora have adopted different strategies to provide assistance to homeless individuals while abating encampments in some areas. Enforcement of Denver’s camping ban has increased under Mayor Mike Johnston’s administration. Johnston set a goal of housing 2,000 people, at least temporarily, by the end of 2024. Denver is on track to meet this goal.

According to city’s dashboard 1,623 homeless people have been housed in motel rooms, tiny houses, or other temporary accommodations. Of these, half remain in temporary shelters, a third have found permanent shelter, and the remainder have returned to the streets, died, went to jail, or their whereabouts are unknown.

Denver’s All in Mile High Housing First-oriented strategy should be commended for helping a third of program participants to secure permanent housing. The city will need to continue to track participant outcomes over the long term. Only a minority of participants have requested help with substance abuse and many of the hotel-turned-shelters have become epicenters of drug use and violence.

Because the program does not require participants to commit to sobriety or work, they are at risk of returning to the street. Some people become homeless because of drug and alcohol abuse while others become addicted to cope on the street. Either way, sobriety and full-time work are key to long-term success and self-sufficient sheltered living.

By contrast, Aurora has chosen a Work First approach. The city is building a navigation resource center at the old Crowne Plaza Hotel that includes shelter and assistance in securing work training and employment. Additionally, those cited for urban camping in areas where it is not allowed, trespassing and other low-level offenses will have the opportunity to have their case heard at the new HEART (Housing, Employment, Addiction, Recovery, and Teamwork) Court. Instead of jail time, offenders would be ordered to participate in mental health treatments, job training, or substance abuse recovery programs. While Denver offers help, Aurora will require it.

Whether they have implemented a Housing First or Work First program, both cities and their adjacent suburban communities should strictly enforce urban camping bans. Cities show abundant compassion for those who are struggling on the streets, but they can do a better job providing clean and secure public spaces for those who live, work, operate businesses, and raise families within city limits.

Krista L. Kafer is a weekly Denver Post columnist. Follow her on Twitter: @kristakafer.

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Five hundred existing rental units that can be better leveraged by the city and its housing partners to make them available to people living on the streets; 500 hotel rooms in properties converted into shelters; and 500 tiny homes, ice fishing tents or other small-scale temporary shelters. That’s the formula Mayor Mike Johnston’s administration has in mind to achieve its ambitious goal of offering shelter to 1,000 people living on the city’s streets by the end of this year.

“We’re running at all three of those options as quickly as we can and with as much effort as we can in hopes that we deliver on a percentage of those targets on all of those parallel lines of effort get us over that 1,000-person goal,”  , Johnston’s senior advisor for homelessness resolution, said.

Chandler outlined the plan in a presentation before the City Council safety, housing, education and homelessness committee on Wednesday morning. It was the most detailed public description of Johnston’s administration’s approach since the new mayor declared homelessness an emergency on his first full day in office and opened the city’s emergency operations center, Chandler said. The administration is expecting to go back before the council on Aug. 21 to ask that the emergency declaration be extended for a second — and likely not final — time.

Those who hoping for some clarity about where the proposed micro-communities or tiny homes villages might be built were out of luck. The committee and Chandler had their discussion about site acquisition behind closed doors in an executive session, citing the need for discretion during potential negotiations.

Here are five of the most interesting things we learned during the public portion of the briefing:

Right now, there are no plans to rezone any land for tiny home villages.

Councilwoman Amanda Sawyer asked Chandler if the administration planned to subvert land use plans in her District 5 to make way for any tiny home villages there. She referenced previous statements that the administration wants to set up those temporary communities in each of the 11 council districts and noted that any rezonings have to meet specific criteria for passage including conforming with existing city plans.

Chandler responded that as of right now the only rezoning requests the mayor’s homelessness team is preparing to bring to the council are those that would rezone hotels — like the Clarion Inn on W. 48th Ave. — to make them available as shelter space.

“You will be the first to hear about any sites in your district that are being contemplated. And we are not currently contemplating any rezonings for micro-communities,” Chandler said.

Sawyer, who was the only council member to vote against extending Johnston’s emergency declaration last month, emphasized that all the city-owned land in her district is park space that can’t be used for tiny home villages.

Specifics about funding are still fuzzy.

Little bits of info about how the city will seek to pay for all of the housing units it needs to meet its goal have been revealed.

In the case of a 194-room Best Western hotel in northeastern Denver the city hopes to open as a temporary shelter before the end of the year, the Denver Housing Authority is the buyer. But the city is making the roughly $26 million purchase possible with $11 million in funding backed by its affordable housing fund and forthcoming request that the City Council allocate $16 million in American Rescue Plan Act federal COVID relief dollars to the effort.

The Johnston administration has also filed an application to access more state-controlled COVID relief dollars and has opted into the funding program set up by Johnston’s favored Proposition 123 affordable housing vehicle. But that won’t be the full picture.

“I want to express that we’re working to develop a comprehensive budget and identify funding plans for this,” Chandler told the committee. “Part of what we’re doing is looking at leveraging existing efforts that are already budgeted and underway. And we’re looking to expand local, regional, state and philanthropic dollars towards this as well.”

The city is buying pop-up Pallet shelters and looking for people willing to manufacture tiny homes.

Chandler is the founder and past executive director of , the nonprofit group that brought the first — and so far only — tiny home villages and Safe Outdoor Spaces tent camps into the city’s homelessness toolbox.

He said Thursday that the city has 50 tiny homes available for homelessness resolution today and the Johnston administration’s goal is to increase that 10-fold. He might not publicly be saying where those tiny homes might go, but he did explain where the administration hopes to get the structures. One source: , a company that makes easy-to-assemble temporary housing units that are shipped in the form of prefabricated panels.

“Some of what we’ll be bringing forward to council in the coming weeks include some Pallet homes. That is a product that we can move on quickly and order a large number of those,” Chandler said. “But we’re also procuring for tiny homes development to take place so that people can basically bid to build tiny houses in a manufacturing setting for us as well.”

The city is seeking to hire an “encampment resolution” contractor.

As demonstrated by Johnston visiting an encampment before a sweep last week and the city’s pilot program bringing trash collection service to two other encampments, the administration is taking a different approach to illegal camping compared to former Mayor Michael Hancock.

Changing outreach techniques so that instead of getting one or two people in an encampment access to housing at a time the city can prepare entire encampments to move — and therefore shut down for good — is a focus Johnston and his representatives have talked about often over the first few weeks of his administration. Chandler said Wednesday that the city is looking for an outside service provider to manage that effort and a contract for that work is likely coming to the City Council for approval in the months ahead.

“Part of what we’re doing is really building this as the foundational piece of how we mobilize people into housing. And so the first priority is deploying an encampment resolution program and so we’re active in the contracting process to get a contractor up and running to create this new encampment resolution program,” he said.

That contractor would be in charge of monitoring homelessness data, enrolling people in the program and tracking outcomes as the city works to get people into housing and low-barrier shelter, according to Chandler.

There is a website to keep up with the city’s progress.

For those looking to keep up with the Johnston administration’s work toward that 1,000-person goal, the city has set up a website at .

The information available there includes dates and times for upcoming public forums and a frequently asked questions page.  There is also a document explaining how property owners to the city to aid in the effort.

Back for its sixth year, the Colorado Tiny House Festival, June 24-25 at Riverdale Regional Park in Brighton, showcases everything that the spirit of tiny living has to offer. The festival includes professional tiny home builders, as well as contemporary designs from DIY builders and so-called “glamping” experts. From aspiring millennial van-lifers to soon-to-be retirees, there’s something in it for everyone, according to festival organizer Art Laubach.

“There’s a subset of the market that are looking for a more sustainable, minimalist lifestyle, and then there’s a subset that’s looking for something more affordable,” he said. “And then there’s another market of people who are getting older and they want less home to take care of.

“It¶¶Òőap different for different folks,” he added.

A home is considered “tiny” when it has less than 400 feet of living space. In such close quarters, tiny living is nothing short of a lifestyle that necessitates ingenious design and an open mind. For Coloradans seeking better access to the outdoors, though, tiny living might mesh perfectly with an adventurous lifestyle. Buyers can spend less on accommodation and more on experiences.

“Tiny homes and Colorado go well together. For a lot of younger folks who are very social, who love the outdoors, they’re just a perfect match,” said Laubach. “[It] gives them more money to spend on the experiences they want to have in life, whether those things are traveling, skiing and snowboarding or fishing or camping.”

Thanks to new state legislation, tiny living is about to be a lot more accessible. On July 1, House Bill 22-1242, which was signed by Gov. Polis last May, will allow local jurisdictions to establish modes of building regulation so residents can permanently dwell in tiny homes. There are currently no official building codes for tiny homes, so state-sanctioned tiny living has never been possible until now.

“Since this legislation has passed and we’ve implemented new rules as far as what a tiny home [is], and how they need to be built to be considered safe, they’re essentially real property,” Laubach said. “You can [now] live permanently in a tiny home, whereas before July 1, that was not a possibility.”

Even for those not looking to downsize all the way to 400 square feet, each dwelling featured at the festival will contain plenty of inspiration for the minimalist in all of us. For example:

• Optimal organization: Some tiny homes feature closets that look two feet wide, only to open and expand nearly six feet, or faux drawers that pull out to accommodate more closet storage.
• Contemporary design: Everyone wants a space that feels like home, regardless of square footage, complete with up-to-date design trends. According to Laubach, many of the professional tiny home building companies employ design experts who can offer tips on the latest colors and wallpapers, all in tiny living spaces you can actually stand in.
• Unexpected layouts: In addition to the best organization methods, tiny home builders have thought of countless ways to optimize living space without sacrificing the functions they need for daily living. The fest will feature layouts the average homeowner never thought possible, from living room lofts above bedrooms to beds that pull down from the ceiling on a winch system.
• Building ingenuity: Don’t let these tiny structures fool you; they may be small, but today’s tiny home builders are making sure they’re built to last. By using the latest forms of heavy-duty insulation and technology like rain screens, tiny home habitants can get the same insulated comfort that they can from foundation-based homes.
• High-efficiency comfort: A 300-square-foot home uses far less energy than a 3,000-square-foot home, and builders are making sure they’re making each square foot as efficient as can be. Using the newest HVAC systems, they can keep one part of a home hot while the other is cool, all while exchanging fresh air from outside the home without losing any temperature control.

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UPDATE 4:44 p.m. June 21: A previous version of this story said that HB22-1242 will pass on July 1. It passed the Colorado Legislature on May 9, 2022, and went into effect on August 10. The Colorado Legislature is not currently in session.

The clock was approaching midnight at Lynette Brooks’ home in Denver’s Central Park neighborhood when a bullet shattered a window and broke the silence of a placid weeknight.

“It came within eight inches of his head,” Brooks’ said of her husband, choking up over the frightening moment as they watched TV together in their living room earlier this month. “I want to know what’s going on with the gun situation.”

Recounted in front of dozens of Denverites gathered for a campaign stop in the backyard of a home near Sloan’s Lake, Brooks’ story was aimed squarely at Denver mayoral candidate Mike Johnston less than a month ahead of a runoff election that will deliver the city its first new mayor in 12 years.

Johnston, a 48-year-old former state senator and school principal, has fielded hundreds of tough questions and pent-up frustrations from voters in the last few weeks on issues ranging from homelessness to skyrocketing home pricesÌęłÙŽÇÌęescalating crime as he crisscrosses Colorado’s largest city in hopes of getting the support needed to defeat opponent Kelly Brough.

At a retirement home in southeast Denver, Johnston didn’t shrink when a collection of seniors peppered him with pressing questions.

“A very heated crowd — I love it,” he said with a broad smile on his face, seemingly energized by the mild chaos unfolding in front of him.

Johnston tends to think big, employing a visionary sweep when talking about the challenges facing Denver. Too big at times, according to detractors. In recent weeks, Johnston has been fielding charges that he tends to take more credit for things than he deserves.

He speaks of “hard truths” regarding the city but also about how Denver is “a jewel with a little tarnish.” But does his pledge to end homelessness in the city amount to more than just an applause-inducing talking point on the stump?

Former Denver Mayor Federico Peña is a fan of Johnston, endorsing him in April. Johnston, he said, is “intelligent, thoughtful, caring and he gets things done,” but may appear overbearing at times.

“He is very quick to give you a half-hour answer on an issue,” Peña said. “He may come off as a bit intellectual.”

Johnston’s arms-around-the-issues approach traces back to his childhood in Vail, where his father was known for thinking big too. And it comes from a school that didn’t just hammer the fundamentals but taught a course in ethics to Johnston and his fellow students at a young age.

“All of us kind of grew up with the idea that you would learn as much as you could and deploy that as best you could,” said Johnston’s best friend, Tom Boyd.

For Johnston, that has meant an embrace of teaching and the mechanics of education policy, especially where it intersects with the needs of students of color. It has also meant a stint in the state Senate and at the helm of a large Colorado philanthropy.

Back at the home on Perry Street where Brooks posed her tearful query, Johnston painted a vision of a safer Denver — a city where a family can go for dinner on the 16th Street Mall, confident they won’t be harassed while eating and drinking on a restaurant patio. He gets there through stepped-up patrols and by assigning officers to concentrated areas of the city to get to know the people who live there with an intimacy that matters. He wants 200 more first responders on the street.

“We can be a great city, and a good city at the same time,” he told her.

Brooks said she’s warming up to Johnston for the June 6 runoff election.

“He came across very genuine,” Brooks said. “He came across as having had to think about this already.”

An indefatigable campaigner, Johnston is personable and engaging, often employing tactile emphasis with his audience by lightly gripping a shoulder here and patting a back there to make a point. He rattles off facts and figures with ease and speaks in rapid cadence, as if the thoughts in his head can’t pass his lips fast enough.

“He’s just thinking ahead,” said John Everly, the long-time manager of the Johnston family-owned Christiania Lodge in Vail who has known the candidate since he was 11. “He’s always thinking ahead.”

Terrance Roberts, a former Bloods gang member turned anti-gang activist and a one-time candidate for Denver mayor, knows Johnston well. The two men shared office space in the Holly Square Shopping Center, known colloquially as The Holly, in Northeast Park Hill for seven years.

Johnston, a fresh-faced politician representing a part of Denver that had long been in a Senate district held by Black leaders, opened a community office in the Holly. That impressed Roberts.

“We never had a state senator have a community office like that,” Roberts said. “One thing I do know is that Mike will listen.”

But Johnston’s intense and detailed engagement with the issues hasn’t shielded him from criticism, whether it’s teachers denouncing him for pushing an education reform bill that they say still leaves a mark on them more than a decade later.

As far as the accusations go that he overstates his role in certain initiatives, a former state official called Johnston a “distraction” when it came to rolling out a statewide testing program for COVID-19 while he was CEO at Gary Community Ventures, a philanthropy with a $400 million endowment. He has also faced questions as to whether he took undue credit for advancing certain bills in the Capitol when he was a senator.

But for many who hear him speak and shake his hand, there’s a sense that Johnston is the real deal and that his critics are carping in the way critics do.

“After coming to this event, there is no doubt in my mind I am voting Mike Johnston,” 46-year-old Denverite Salil Parikh said after hearing the candidate speak in the backyard of a Park Hill home on a recent Saturday. “I wanted to get a sense of who he was as a person and he seems like a really genuine and caring guy who is empathetic.”

Vail roots, Ivy pedigree

Like several recent Denver mayors, including Wellington Webb and John Hickenlooper, Johnston is not a native of the Mile High City. He grew up in Vail, the youngest of four siblings.

His father, Paul Johnston, was a jack of all trades, described by his son after his 2015 death as “a soldier and peace activist, a painter and an author, an art dealer and a realtor, a small town hotel and laundromat and movie theater owner, a cowboy and a bartender, a pilot and a motocross rider, a mayor and a hospice volunteer and an ecumenical minister.”

He also served as mayor of Vail in the mid-1980s.

“He was a crusader. He was an activist. He was like the nuns that would strap themselves to nuclear reactors,” Johnston said of his father. “He boycotted mass for a year because he was mad the pope wasn’t objecting to the Iraq war. He was very much an activist for social justice.”

Paul Johnston bought the with his second wife and Mike’s mother, Sally, in the early 1970s and the younger Johnston remembers the family living for a while in Room 300 of the Bavarian-style hotel in Vail Village.

According to those who knew Johnston in his formative years, he was whip-smart and athletic, becoming an accomplished ski racer and soccer player. Jeanne Macsata, who taught Johnston in the fifth and sixth grades at Vail Mountain School, said her former student embodied the private school’s motto of “Develop Character, Seek Knowledge, Build Community.”

He graduated from Vail Mountain School in 1993, one in a class of just 14 students.

“He did everything here — he was in sports, he was in theater, he could sing and dance,” Macsata said. “He was the kind of kid that would come to the defense of another kid.”

Right behind the Christiania, and across a footbridge over Mill Creek, Gondola One whisks skiers up the mountain. Next to the lift is Pirate Ship Park, where a young Johnston spent countless hours with friends.

“He was one of those guys who was incredibly good at whatever he did,” said Boyd, who works for the Vail Valley Foundation. “Mike was that higher level of smart.”

Pressed for hijinks that his best friend might have perpetrated as a teenager, Boyd said he couldn’t think of any beyond the occasional powdered doughnut fight. Johnston, he said, did receive ribbing from friends for his anodyne music tastes — case in point, his embrace of Canadian rocker Bryan Adams’ 1991 album “Waking up the Neighbours.”

“He would hang out at the party for the first couple of hours and then go home,” Boyd said. “There wasn’t a lot of trouble to get into pre-internet in Vail.”

Early on, Boyd detected a fierce dedication to public service and social justice in Johnston, who held up Martin Luther King Jr. as a childhood hero.

“What can we do to make a better village, what can we do to make a better city, what can we do to make a better nation?” Boyd said of his friend’s mindset. “With him, it’s authentic — it’s real.”

Johnston told The Denver Post he just finished reading two Pulitzer-prize-winning books by black novelist Colson Whitehead, while also plowing through The York Times’ , a controversial reassessment of U.S. history that has become mandatory reading for liberals and a lightning rod for conservatives who .

At Yale University, Johnston did more than just roam the leafy campus and attend class. He ventured into low-income areas of the Connecticut city that is home to the Ivy League school, mentoring teenage boys in an afternoon program.

“I spent four years while I was in New Haven working in these public housing projects that were across the street from our dorms called Church Street South,” Johnston said.

He launched an effort that paired college athletes with those kids and ran sports leagues for youth in the city. It wasn’t long before Johnston saw education as his future track.

“And so when I was graduating and figuring out what to do I thought, well, the people who had a huge impact on my life were my teachers,” he said. “If there’s one concrete skill I have to give back, it’d be teaching.”

Johnston did a turn with in Greenville, Mississippi, a largely African-American city surrounded by historic cotton plantations. The experience affected him deeply, prompting him to write the book which chronicled his experiences in the Mississippi Delta.

“When I arrived in the Delta I knew that I might not stay forever, but hoped that my experiences there would teach me lessons I could carry on to other communities in other states,” Johnston wrote in his book.

After earning a master’s degree in education policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a law degree from Yale Law School, Johnston moved to Denver in 2003. A year later, he married fellow Teach for America educator Courtney Huffman, who had worked at another Mississippi school 90 miles away.

Johnston’s wife is a prosecutor in the Denver District Attorney’s Office, working in the juvenile unit. The couple has three children and the family lives in Central Park.

Upon moving back to Colorado, Johnston immersed himself in educational policy and school administration for several years. He became a principal both at Joan Farley Academy in Denver and at the Marvin Foote Detention Center in Centennial, which houses incarcerated students.

Next, Johnston helped found the Mapleton Expeditionary School of the Arts in Thornton. It was during his time at MESA that Johnston became an education adviser to presidential hopeful Barack Obama, who rewarded him with a 2008 appearance at the school during his run for the White House.

It was also while heading the Thornton school that Johnston felt his first impulse to pursue elected office, he says. Some of the school’s graduating seniors were undocumented immigrants who were locked out of pursuing their college dreams due to their immigration status.

“I realized our kids were stuck. They were prepared. They were ready. They were admitted,” said Johnston, a Democrat. “They were stuck without that policy getting fixed.”

Johnston threw his name in the ring to replace state Sen. Peter Groff when Groff was tapped in 2009 by the newly elected Obama administration to serve in the U.S. Department of Education. Johnston won the seat, which covers an area of northeast Denver centered on Park Hill, in an election in 2010 and was re-elected two years later.

In 2013, Johnston realized his long-sought goal of providing in-state tuition rates to Colorado college students in the U.S. illegally when the ASSET bill was signed into law. Johnston, a primary sponsor of the bill in the state Senate, took a picture of the audience at the signing ceremony.

“I’ve been waiting a long time to take that photo,” he said.

But in a cruel twist of irony, it would be a different education bill spearheaded by Johnston that would garner him years of criticism from many in his own party — and from none other than the teachers on whose behalf he had so vigorously fought.

“A very divisive bill”

“In my opinion, it was the most damaging bill for education in my 16 years in the legislature, and the ramifications from it continue to linger,” said Nancy Todd, a former state lawmaker and fellow Democrat who served with Johnston in the Senate.

Todd, a 25-year public school teacher from Aurora, said Senate Bill 191, a 2010 Johnston-led measure that tied teacher evaluations to student academic growth and changed how teachers obtain and keep tenure, was “a very divisive bill.”

“I felt it was very slanted,” she told the Post. “Instead of looking at the overall performance of teachers and the behavior of students, it was a heavy, heavy weight on how students do on their assessments to how well a teacher does.”

Rob Gould, president of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association, said he still hears from educators “that they remember” the measure 13 years later — and not fondly. Johnston’s bill, he said, established annual teacher evaluations that are “burdensome and time-consuming,” and counterproductive in an era of teacher and staff shortages.

Johnston defends the measure, saying it followed a simple premise: “Let’s expect students to know more when they leave school in May than when they started school in September, right?”

Opponents of the teacher performance bill, he said, were essentially arguing against the belief that students of color or from low-income backgrounds could be expected to show advancement like their peers.

“As a philosophy, I don’t back down from that,” Johnston said. “I don’t believe that we should have lower expectations for kids based on their background, and I’m happy to talk about how we implemented it or if we designed it the right way, but there are certain principles I’m not going to back down on and that’s one of them.”

Gould said it’s time for DPS to look for “a partner in the mayor’s office” — a partner to stanch declining enrollment in DPS schools and find a way to make it viable for teachers to live in the city in which they teach.

“Why do we have declining enrollment? Because no one can afford to live here,” Gould said. “How do we bring more affordable housing here?”

Johnston says he has a solution for those with a roof over their head but who are feeling the squeeze of ever-rising home prices in Denver, including providing units with deed restrictions that prohibit rents from exceeding 30% of an eligible renter’s income.

For those in deeper trouble, Johnston points to nearly 50 units at the Colorado Village Collaborative at East 40th Avenue and Monroe Street on a recent Saturday, as his wife and two of his children cleaned the windows and swept the floors in a collection of 96-square-foot tiny homes gleaming under an early May sun.

“This is the template,” he said of his hammer blow strategy to homelessness.

Johnston envisions establishing 10 to 20 micro-communities like this throughout Denver, with 40 to 60 tiny homes in each. They would be mostly located on parcels of city-owned land, according to his plan. He talks of picking up entire encampments and moving the inhabitants to the same tiny village.

Along with converting hotel rooms to permanent affordable living spaces, his plan will provide 1,400 units of housing for those without one now. Cathy Alderman, the public policy officer for the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, said ending homelessness by 2027 is an admirable goal but sketching it on paper isn’t the same as working it out on the streets.

“We would need to see significant investments in ways we have not seen investment before and I am not sure that I fully understand where the funding would come from,” she said. “I guess a lot of things would have to be coordinated and come together to make these sites work. That¶¶Òőap not to say they can’t. I think it’s much more complicated than saying, ‘We’re going to have 10 to 20 micro-communities.'”

Two years ago, researchers at the University of Colorado Denver and the business-oriented think tank Common Sense Institute claimed that Denver spends between $42,000 and $104,000 a person experiencing homelessness per year. That total includes city government spending and spending on homelessness by charitable groups and Denver Health.

In Houston, a city Johnston cites during campaign speeches for its work on the issue, 25,000 homeless people were moved into apartments and houses — amounting to a 63% reduction in homelessness — over the past decade, . The overwhelming majority of them remained housed after two years.

Houston announced last year a $100 million plan, using a mix of federal, state, county and city funds, to slash the homeless count in half again by 2025, the Times reported.

Johnston says his numbers for the Mile High City pencil out.

At $25,000 per tiny home, the total bill would amount to $35 million — much of it coming from one-time federal stimulus funding. Services like mental health counseling, addiction treatment and workforce training would amount to $20 million, which will come from Denver’s Homelessness Resolution Fund and from Proposition 123, a 2022 voter-approved measure that redirects 0.1% of state income tax to subsidize affordable housing.

“It’s very reasonable you could do it in four years,” Johnston said of ending homelessness here.

“He’s been in these communities”

At campaign stops, Johnston often touts the Gary-created , which provides up to $40,000 in down-payment assistance to first-time Black homebuyers. It’s that focus on marginalized populations that caught the attention of Leslie Herod, a Black state lawmaker who ran against Johnston in April.

She’s known him since he was appointed to his Senate seat, representing her neighborhood in that chamber. When Johnston says he will represent the interests of communities of color, it’s not lip service, Herod said.

“I appreciate that he didn’t just campaign in communities of color and then leave us behind,” she said. “He integrated the Black community into his work and constantly sought input from that community.”

Even if he sticks out as a white face in a diverse crowd, “he embraces that uncomfortable feeling to be able to do the work,” Herod said.

On Tuesday, Johnston gained the support of Lisa CalderĂłn, whose progressive campaign for Denver mayor just missed the runoff election by approximately 3,000 votes. While her endorsement of Johnston could best be described as lukewarm, she said he was the best choice to keep the interests of minority voters at the forefront.

John Ronquillo, a professor with the University of Colorado Denver’s School of Public Affairs, said Johnston “has built a lot of solid relationships with folks from all backgrounds across the city, and he knows the value of incorporating that diversity into City Hall.”

He noted a Johnston campaign “misstep” in March when it distributed flyers targeting different racial groups by neighborhood. Johnston denied approving the flyers, and asked that they stop being circulated.

“Despite this, he has notched some very strong support from a number of Black and Latino civic and community leaders, including former mayoral candidate Leslie Herod and former Mayor Federico Peña,” Ronquillo said.

Peña, who was Denver’s mayor for two terms starting in 1983, said he met with eight of the candidates running for mayor and Johnston was the “more dynamic” contender. The candidate’s experience teaching in Mississippi and representing a largely Black part of Denver at the state Capitol gives him credibility, Peña said.

Johnston is also fluent in Spanish in a city with a .

“We need a mayor who understands diversity and has worked with diverse communities,” Peña said. “He’s lived it — he’s been in these communities.”

When Peña ran for the same office 40 years ago, some things were different — homelessness and home prices weren’t as acute. But other things feel mighty similar, the former mayor said, like high inflation and rising crime. Peña, who lives downtown, said he’s disenchanted by what he sees.

“We’ve got a downtown that is distressed,” he said. “It’s embarrassing — we’re losing conventions.”

Cops Peña speaks to tell him they feel little support these days. Johnston is not a backer of defunding the police, he said.

“He’s not going to go the Seattle way,” said Peña, referring to attempts a couple of years ago to slash that city’s police department budget. “Mike understands we need to have safety in our city.”

And a big part of that is getting a handle on gun violence that continues to plague big cities all over the country. Mike regularly boasts about taking on the National Rifle Association, most notably in 2013, when Democrats in the statehouse passed a package of gun control bills that were so controversial they resulted in the first recalls of state lawmakers ever.

That, Johnston claims, has resulted in the passage of “gun control legislation like magazine bans that no one ever thought was possible.”

Self-promotion or nothing to see here?

Brough’s campaign in a press release issued this month pointed out that Johnston was not the prime sponsor of any gun safety bills while he served in the Senate, “though he added his name to a few of them as a co-sponsor after the bills already passed.”

“Johnston served eight years in the state Senate and never introduced one bill on gun safety,” the release said.

Critics point to what they see as a pattern of self-promotion and embellishment by Johnston. Sarah Tuneberg, a former senior COVID-19 adviser to Colorado’s public health department and head of the agency’s containment and testing team, said Johnston routinely inflated the importance of COVIDCheck Colorado, an initiative first stood up by Gary Community Ventures at the height of the pandemic.

“They regularly attempted to take credit for the work of public employees at (the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment), the governor’s office and the department of safety, saying their involvement in COVID response was so much larger than it was,” she told the Post. “To see Mike say I am ready to be mayor of Denver in part because he did this work is wild to me.”

And this from a former supporter of Johnston — Tuneberg even voted for him in the 2018 Democratic gubernatorial primary.

“I will say I was heartbroken to learn he was a really dishonest braggart and unqualified,” she said.

Tuneberg had multiple issues with the way COVIDCheck operated, including concerns about its billing practices and how it was choosing locations for state-sponsored testing sites.

According to a , COVIDCheck provided 1.9 million tests. But Tuneberg pointed out that’s less than 10% of  the state has tracked on its COVID-19 data dashboard throughout the pandemic.

Johnston called Tuneberg’s characterization of his organization’s role in COVID-19 testing “inaccurate.”

From acquiring generators to power testing sites to hiring staff to developing the technology platform to rapidly share test results, the organization did critical work before ever linking up with the state health department, he said. COVIDCheck Colorado, he said, had processed 100,000 tests before even contracting with the state in November of 2020.

“They provided the funding that was critically important. And every public release we sent out, we mentioned and thanked and gave credit to the state for their funding of that effort,” Johnston said. “But it’s incredibly clear that we built the operation and the infrastructure to do this.”

Chyrise Harris watched COVIDCheck evolve up close. Johnston hired her as Gary’s vice president of communications and external affairs in June 2020, just as the program was growing.

“Mike was involved in COVIDCheck on a daily basis,” she said, noting that he was on task as early as 7 a.m. daily speaking with various testing teams.

Ronquillo isn’t surprised Johnston’s record is getting greater scrutiny now that the race is down to just two candidates.

“I’m more inclined to say it’s just politics, but in a strong mayor system (of government) where people are looking for a leader who will have to make some serious moral decisions, character matters,” he said.

But Ronquillo doubts any self-puffery among two “very capable individuals with impressive records as a whole” will do much damage in the eyes of voters. That’s how Dan Pabon, a former Democratic lawmaker who served eight years in the House, sees it too.

He finds claims of Johnston taking too much credit for certain bills that moved through the legislature a bit rich.

“That’s every member of the legislature,” he said of the tendency to inflate one’s role under the gold dome.

Republican Jerry Sonnenberg, who served two terms each in the state House and Senate, had high praise for Johnston.

“He was one of my favorite Democrats to work with because he was always thoughtful,” he said.

In fact, he was a better person to have across the table than most of his Republican colleagues, Sonnenberg said with a chuckle.

One unspoken challenge for Johnston that lies ahead as the election draws near is the unwelcome prospect of meeting the same fate as one-time Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff. After serving two terms as a state legislator, Romanoff lost two bids for the U.S. Senate and a 2014 run for a seat in the 6th Congressional District.

Thus far, Johnston lost a bid for Colorado governor in 2018 and then withdrew from the U.S. Senate race two years later, after Hickenlooper threw his hat in the ring.

“I’ve thought: Is he the new Romanoff?” Pabon said of Johnston.

But he quickly realized that Johnston, with impressive oratory skills and powers of persuasion that shine particularly brightly in the retail politics environment of a mayor’s race, is probably better cut out for the city contest.

“The race finally came to him — it’s the race for mayor,” Pabon said. “I think he finally found the runway he was looking for.”

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“If you’re looking for a 24-footer in the next couple of weeks, I’ve got it!” he tells his 77,000 followers.

Six days later, another video from the same account: “We’ve got your new tiny home ready and waiting!” And again two weeks later: “We’ve got a tiny home for you!”

But customers of Holy Ground Tiny Homes say it does not have a tiny home for you. It doesn’t even have a tiny home for them. And they’ve paid tens of thousands of dollars.

The Englewood nonprofit and its owner Sowash — a convicted fraudster who was once the intended target of a bungled murder plot involving rattlesnakes — have taken their money, lied repeatedly about when their homes will be built, and refused to issue refunds, according to seven customers who spoke to BusinessDen and three others suing Holy Ground.

“He took my money knowing, ‘I’m not going to give this woman a house anytime soon, if ever.’ There’s no doubt about that now,” said Lori Birckhead, a Tennessee woman who took out a loan and wired $46,500 to Holy Ground in April for a home she was promised would arrive in July. She has since been told it will be delivered in 27 to 30 months.

Another customer’s lawsuit estimates “hundreds of consumers throughout Colorado and the United States have wired their life savings” to Holy Ground for tiny homes they didn’t receive. Some have waited 18 months for a house they were promised would arrive in three months.

As word has trickled out — the Better Business Bureau now gives Holy Ground an F rating — and customers across the country have organized online, Sowash has tried to quiet criticisms by warning that complaints and bad reviews will make matters even worse for clients.

In an interview, Sowash acknowledged that some customers have waited a long time for their houses and some will have to wait a long time still. It is all part of what he called “a constant juggling act to get us out of the situation that we got ourselves into.”

“I can’t help what has happened,” Sowash said of the past 18 months. “I take full responsibility for any time length, no matter what the situation. What I’m trying to convey to you is that we care about these people more than anyone can ever really imagine.”

“Out of the Wild West”

In 2006, Sowash co-founded a free amateur poker league in Denver — cashing in on a game that was exploding in popularity. After straddling a legal line for a while, by 2007 there were law enforcement investigations, a failed Las Vegas tournament and angry investors.

As police scrutinized the league’s gambling, they discovered something darker: Herb Beck, a bitter investor, and Christopher Steelman, a private investigator he’d hired, planned to kill Sowash by building a box, filling it with poisonous rattlesnakes, kidnapping him, forcing his legs into the box until the snakes bit him, taking him to a hiking trail and leaving him to die.

“It¶¶Òőap a story out of the Wild West,” a spokesman for the Colorado Bureau of Investigation said at the time. “There’s poker, rattlesnakes and unsavory characters. The only thing I haven’t heard is someone calling another guy a varmint.”

Beck and Steelman each pleaded guilty to one count of extortion and were sentenced to probation. Sowash, then 34, pleaded guilty to felony theft for bilking investors out of $470,000 and was sentenced to five years in prison. He served less than two.

While in prison, Sowash converted to Christianity. In 2019, he says, God whispered to him during a moment of frustration and doubt: “Matt, build a tiny house.”

Holy Ground Tiny Homes was born. In July 2020, the Internal Revenue Service determined it was a charity exempt from federal taxes, records show. By the next year, marketing led to a flurry of orders, Sowash said. Too many. After the cost of construction materials soared last year, Holy Ground raised prices but still built about 100 homes at a loss of $1 million, Sowash claims.

Others weren’t built at all.

Theresa Meggitt, of Lakewood, says she ordered hers in February 2021, sent a down payment of $14,000 and was told to expect it in July 2021. She liked Holy Ground’s low prices and Christian message but now believes both were lies. She hasn’t received the home.

Robyn and Mark Bellamy, who live in Oregon, each bought a Holy Ground house that spring. She wired $48,000 in March 2021 with assurances it would be finished that July; he sent $22,000 for a house he was told to expect in October, according to their June 6 lawsuit in Arapahoe County District Court. Neither received a house or refund.

After meeting Sowash at a Denver home show in October, Timarie Bashor’s 16-year-old daughter took out a personal loan and put $14,000 down on a Holy Ground home. The Northern Colorado mother and daughter were, like others, initially impressed.

“Their prices were a whole lot less than other companies. That was the biggest reason. And I liked that it was a nonprofit. I believed in what they said,” Bashor said.

That late spring day when the home was supposed to arrive has come and gone. So, too, has a second deadline in July. Bashor has asked for a refund but knows not to expect one.

“He has everyone afraid”

Through it all, Sowash has never stopped selling houses. Because he can’t.

“If I only built those older homes,” he said of homes ordered in 2021, “we’d be out of business in a month because we don’t have any money.” Holy Ground uses new money to finish old orders.

“There is no way he can keep going like he is,” customer Cory Anderson said of Sowash.

Anderson considers himself one of the lucky ones. The Utah man wired $34,500 to Holy Ground in March, despite misgivings about a too-good-to-be-true price, and was told to expect his house in July. “The second the wire transfer went across, I had this sinking feeling.”

Eventually, he says, he was able to get a refund. “(Sowash) was patting himself on the back left and right because he finally made good on something and all the while I’m thinking, ‘This is awful, he just sent me a bunch of people’s down payments to get me off his back.’ ”

Clara Davis, a 24-year-old teacher in upstate New York, was told early this year that she would receive free shipping by Aug. 1 if she paid for her tiny home in full. So, she wired her life savings, more than $42,000, to Holy Ground, according to a federal lawsuit she filed Aug. 12. Like others, Davis never received a house or a refund. The lawsuit is pending.

Birckhead, the Tennessee woman who has been told to wait 27-30 months for her house, operates a nonprofit farm where she grows food for Nashville-area food banks. The tiny home isn’t for her, it¶¶Òőap for a young homeless woman who works on her farm.

“It makes you feel really ridiculous. You think, how did a halfway intelligent person — how did I do this? But I really wanted this tiny house for this poor girl,” Birckhead said.

Disheartened Holy Ground customers say they have sought help from police, prosecutors, attorneys, private investigators, the BBB and the IRS, with little success so far. Sowash, by his own admission, has told them that posting negative reviews or filing complaints will only make their situations worse by restricting the cash flow he needs to build their orders.

“Somebody reached out to me and said, ‘Please shut up because if this guy goes out of business, we all lose our money,’ ” Anderson recalled. “He has everyone afraid that if these reviews gain any traction then it is going to shut him down.”

Sowash insists that customers are happy with the product.

“Every bad review you’ll see on BBB is all about timeframe. It¶¶Òőap not about quality of construction. People love our homes, when they get them. I mean, we build a great home.”

Holy Ground is operating on a financial treadmill it can’t step off of, a precarious position that requires it to take orders it likely won’t fulfill soon.

And its biggest gamble is yet to come: a planned 54-unit tiny home village at 5030 York St. in the Elyria Swansea neighborhood. Sowash said he “believes in his heart” the village is a blessing from God that will fix Holy Ground’s finances.

“I’m praying, brother, that this is the time that we will be able to do the things that we need to be able to do to really get out of the hole, get people caught up and either refund their money or build them a house, whichever they want, and move forward,” he said.

At the center of it all — Holy Ground’s past, its future and its failures — sits Sowash. In 2007, a former employee of his failed poker league described Sowash as “a convincing salesman” who could “look at people with his big blue eyes, tell them ‘I don’t lie,’ and they believed him.”

In the eyes of angry Holy Ground customers, Sowash is a fraud who will never change his stripes. In his own eyes, he says, he is a reformed man carrying out the whispered wishes of God.

“I don’t sleep well, brother. I really don’t,” he said. “Because my compassion is for these people. I don’t make any money. I live in the back of one of my car garages. I don’t have a house. I don’t have a home. That¶¶Òőap where I live. I don’t draw a salary.

“So, it¶¶Òőap not like I’m doing this for the money.”

This story was reported by our partner .

If you’ve ever considered downsizing, this weekend’s in Brighton is a good opportunity to see what it looks like to live in a smaller space.

“As the cost of buying real estate in Colorado has sky-rocketed, so too has the interest in alternative living options,” said Art Laubach, organizer of the Colorado Tiny House Festival. “Although there are a few places where tiny home living is an option, including Durango, El Paso County, and Lyons, zoning that allows for tiny homes needs to be adopted in more communities and people need to learn about the tiny living options that are currently available.”

More than 40 unique and small living structures will be showcased at the event, which includes tiny homes, container homes, recreational campers such as teardrops and domes, remodeled vans and skoolies (homes that are built within a school bus). According to the, a home is considered tiny if it is between 100 and 800 square feet.

Interested in exploring the tiny-home lifestyle temporarily? Check out , near Meeker, in Lyons, in Loveland, in Avon, in Mesa, in South Fork and in Woodland Park. There are also multiple listings on .

RELATED:

The festival will include five keynote speakers to discuss topics such as building methods, van design and products as well as developing a tiny-home community. Food trucks will be available during the event, such as, , and more. Go for a list of participating vendors.

The Colorado Tiny House Festival will take place on Saturday, July 10, and Sunday, July 11, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Riverdale Regional Park in Brighton (formerly Adams County Fairgrounds). Adult weekend passes are $15 online at or $20 in-person. Children ages 12 and under get in for free. Note that advanced ticket pricing ends Friday, July 9. For more information, visit 9755 Henderson Road, Brighton

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Whether you’re a seasoned bargain hunter or new to being thrifty, you now have the perfect excuse to explore the Mile High Flea Market (Interstate 76 & 88th Avenue) in Denver. This summer, admission is free on select Fridays: May 28, June 25, July 30 and Aug. 27. The traditional flea market offers everything you need for a fun weekend day on the cheap, including a four-season farmers market, covered shops, food stands and, of course, lots of deals. Open every weekend year-round, the market often boasts more than 2,500 sellers. If you don’t make it on one of the free Fridays, admission is affordable at $2 per person on Fridays and $3 on Saturdays and Sundays. A $5 three-day pass is good all weekend. Kids (12 and under) get in for free. Go treasure hunting from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday to Sunday.

Water falls

Make a big splash without breaking your summertime fun budget at Surfside Spray Park (5330 W. 9th Ave.) in Lakewood. The low-cost water park is open from May 29 to Sept. 6 and boasts one main splash pad and a second splash pad for small children. Both areas offer plenty of fountains and fun. Plus, there’s an abundance of shade, grass and water features throughout the family-friendly park. Admission is only $1 per person for Lakewood residents, and it¶¶Òőap just $3 for non-residents. For the regular season (May 29-Aug. 13), the park’s hours are Monday to Thursday from 9 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. and Friday to Sunday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. To check the park’s daily status, call the Aquatics Weather Hotline at 303-987-7006.

Strike out

Families will be bowled over by this summertime offer. Through September, kids can bowl two games daily for free at Arapahoe Bowling Center (Greenwood Village), Chipper’s Lanes (Broomfield), Holiday Lanes (Lakewood), Coal Creek Bowling (Lafayette) and The Summit (Thornton.) There are additional participating locations throughout the state, and hours and age requirements vary by location. Kids Bowl Free participants must be registered at the specific alley. Shoe rental is required, but not included in the offer.

Hole-y day

You can celebrate National Donut Day at national chains, but many prefer their bakery treats local. On June 4, Denver’s only potato-style doughnut shop, Berkeley Donuts (located within Hops & Pie), is celebrating the day with a free honey glazed doughnut. No purchase necessary. The shop is open from 7:30 a.m. until they sell out for the day.  In years past, chains like Dunkin’, Krispy Kreme and LaMar’s have honored National Donut Day with a discount or giveaway, so check for more deals as the food holiday approaches.

Gone fishin’

Friends and family can get hooked up this weekend, as fish start to bite at waters across the state. Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) invites anglers of all ages and skill sets to participate in its annual Free Fishing Weekend June 5-6. Although no license is required, all other rules and regulations apply. It¶¶Òőap the perfect opportunity to enjoy a favorite pastime or bait a hook for the first time. The CPW website is a river of helpful of information, including stocking reports, bait fishing basics and the best spots to take kids to. Kids (15 and under) always fish for free and seniors (Colorado residents 65 and older) can obtain an annual fishing license for $10.07.

Family entertainment

Families looking for frugal summertime fun will appreciate the curtain rising on Harkins Theatres’ Family Fun Series. The series runs at both Harkins locations this summer from June 11 to July 22, at Northfield 18 (8300 E. Northfield Blvd.) and Arvada 14 (5550 Olde Wadsworth Blvd.) Harkins loyalty members pay $3 for each kid-friendly flick; non-members pay $5 per film. Each week, the screenings run from Friday to the following Thursday, with typically two showtimes daily. The series includes “Despicable Me,”  “Trolls World Tour,” “Kung Fu Panda” and more.

Art works

Families can make their world a little more colorful at Marjorie Park at the Museum of Outdoor Arts. To celebrate the art park’s major facelift, the museum will host a free family-friendly event on June 12 from noon to 4 p.m. Enjoy artwork walking tours, art activations and entertainment by DJ Walt White. Drinks and food are available for purchase from Simply Pizza Food Truck and Em’s Ice Cream. The park features more than 40 permanent artworks, most of which are sculptures. MOA will regularly fill Marjorie Park with a variety of programs and entertainment, including a summer concert series, artwork demos, a weekly fitness series and more. Event registration is required at .

Your move

Tiny homes – 500 square feet or less — are a growing trend in the United States. Proponents appreciate the pared-down lifestyle because it¶¶Òőap easy on the budget and environment. If you’re looking to make a “small” move, the Colorado Tiny House Festival returns for its fourth year at Riverdale Regional Park on the Adams County Fairgrounds. The festival features an assortment of small living structures including tiny houses on wheels, container homes, van conversions, skoolies, gypsy wagons, teardrops and yurts. There will also be presentations, a product and service marketplace, food, drink and live entertainment. The event takes place July 10-11, and you can get early bird tickets before June 15 for half price, just $10. Pile on even bigger savings by using promo code MHOTC-TINY and save an additional 25 percent. Children (12 and under) are free.

“Fore” your fathers

Hit the “mini” greens with dear ol’ dad on Father’s Day weekend at The Orchard at Town Center in Westminster. From June 18 to 20, the shopping center will host a neon-lit mini golf course. A Master of the Green putting contest will win one participant an Orchard swag bag. Challenge pops to a golf game while enjoying music, special offers, a photo booth and axe throwing. Attendees will have a chance to win a full bag fitting from Club Champion. Hours and events vary each day.

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It’s not the ideal alarm clock, and the construction zone makes the small village space feel even tighter. But despite the clatter and clutter, Babcock knows more than anyone what a tiny home can mean for someone experiencing homelessness in Denver’s tight housing market.

“It was such a weight off my shoulder,” Babcock said, recalling the day in 2017 when she moved off the streets and into her tiny home, then at 38th and Blake Streets. “It’s one of the best and safest answers for homeless folks in this city.”

By next month, there will be eight new tiny homes in the village off 44th and Pearl Streets, expanding the novel affordable housing idea to 19 houses for people experiencing homelessness. The tiny home concept has been embraced by city leaders, but it has caused consternation among some neighborhood residents resistant to what they see as more intrusion by a city accustomed to meddling in their affairs.

Organizers say the tiny home expansion could be the start of a new wave of similar projects around the city. In October, the City Council voted to make it easier to build tiny home communities in most areas of Denver.

“The city has made a considerable investment with this,” said Cole Chandler, an organizer with Colorado Village Collaborative, which has spearheaded the tiny home movement. He cited $125,000 in the 2020 budget earmarked for this type of work.

The eight new units could house up to 16 more people in the Beloved Community Village, designed to be a transitional stop on the path to more permanent accommodations. On Saturday, a mix of volunteers and professional contractors installed doors, sawed wood and put in interior sheathing inside the houses, which will top out at less than 90 square feet.

A new community center also is being constructed, complete with three bathrooms and showers, a full kitchen and community space.

It’s the next phase of what’s been a winding path for the tiny home community. In April, the city approved the new location in Globeville after new development forced it out of its location at 38th and Blake.

The village is nestled between train tracks on one end and Globeville residents on the other. And the relationship between the two communities has taken time to evolve. As the new site was being discussed this year, residents at public meetings expressed distrust with the process and worried that the tiny homes community would bring in drugs and exacerbate problems in a suffering neighborhood.

Seated on a camping chair with a pink umbrella blocking the sun, Babcock recalls her home being vandalized after someone took issue with her Halloween decorations. But recently things have been much better. The village residents took part in the neighborhood Thanksgiving celebration and were invited to a jacket drive at the nearby community center.

“They see we’re not the demons they thought we were,” she said.

Now the community must determine who gets to live in the brand-new homes. More than 100 people have applied, Chandler said, including a handful who grew up in Globeville but have since lost stable housing.

Beloved is a self-governing village, which means the residents ultimately decide who gets to join their small cohort.

“It takes a lot to work in this village,” Babcock said, taking a drag from a cigarette. “We’ve had some mishaps, so we have to be extra careful.”

The ideal candidate is someone who doesn’t just hide in their home, she said.

“They should be involved in the community,” Babcock said. “They should be open-minded with a positive attitude and a great deal of patience.”

Those miniature houses aren’t as cheap as most think, and there are zoning issues and exorbitant transportation costs (if they’re portable). And a village of 20 or so tiny homes here and there around the country would seem an imperceptible solution to the staggering number of homeless people — more than a half-million people in the United States, including more than 10,000 in Colorado.

My ideas about tiny houses were shaped largely by HGTV shows and ads for cute vacation spots, as well as stories of those who struggled to find permanent — and inexpensive — parking spots for their homes.

Tiny homes have evolved into a luxury version of a mobile home even if the trend was driven by minimalists and skyrocketing housing costs.

So, as a public hearing on proposed zoning code changes regarding temporary tiny home villages looms before the Denver Planning Board, I dug into the subject. If approved, the changes could open the door to the creation of villages in commercial, mixed-use and industrial areas or where there is an existing public or civic use.

First, let¶¶Òőap deal with the semantics. The Beloved Community Village, the first and only village so far, started with 11 “sleeping units,” two portable toilets, a bathhouse and a common building. This is not a community of 11 tiny houses or cottages. It is a communal living arrangement where the residents get a 12-foot by 8-foot standalone room with electricity and heat to themselves.

Go measure your own bedroom or storage shed — or if you live in a McMansion your walk-in closet — and you’ll get an idea of the space.

The units were rearranged on the property at 38th and Blake streets once and in April the village was approved for a move to 4400 N. Pearl St. in Globeville, where it will have 20 sleeping units and communal facilities with plumbed bathrooms and a full kitchen. It had to move as the property it was on was being redeveloped and the permit was temporary.

It¶¶Òőap still temporary. The property lease is for a year, with an option for three more.

Of course, it¶¶Òőap not meant to be long-term housing, but rather to help people transition from living on the streets or in parks to an apartment or other housing. Still, it costs money to move those sleeping units and to build communal facilities, even if they are projected to be part of some other community amenity in the future.

Early results of the village experiment are positive — several people have moved into more permanent housing, most are working and residents say having their own safe place has helped them get back on track. (Two residents were kicked out for rules violations.)

The villages are aimed particularly at those who struggle to find other temporary shelters, such as couples, those who have pets or are part of the LGBTQ community.

The nonprofit Colorado Village Collaborative wants villages throughout the metro area and had hoped to have a women’s village running, but it¶¶Òőap proposed location on the grounds of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church was rejected by the city’s Landmark Preservation Commission because it didn’t fit the historical nature of the neighborhood.

Even if Denver approves the proposed code changes, as it should, the villages would be temporary, permitted for up to four years. A permit would allow up to 30 units, with a minimum of 70 square feet per sleeping unit.

There are similar housing communities in Madison, Wisconsin, Portland, Oregon and Seattle, among other places. There’s been little study of them, including cost/benefit, impact on homelessness and neighborhoods and other issues. Advocates for the homeless like them.

I remain skeptical but adding communal villages to the arsenal of ideas to get homeless people off the streets is worth a try as long as costs associated with the temporariness of the solution are closely monitored. It’s a small step up from a tent city or dormitory-style shelter (more secure and private) but should clearly be a short-term transitional use.

And we should not pretend that it will have much — if any — impact on the critical shortage of decent affordable housing. You know, the kind of places these folks should be able to move into as they transition out of homelessness.

Sue McMillin is a long-time Colorado reporter and editor who worked for The Gazette and Durango Herald. Now a freelance, she lives in Cañon City.

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The popularity of tiny homes has risen in recent years, and it seems they are more popular in Colorado than any other state.

“Colorado is the hub for the tiny house movement,” said Art Laubach, director of the . Laubach founded the organization, which began in March, to advocate for the development of tiny homes.

Colorado is at or near the top for number of builders compared to other states, according to Laubach, and it is one of the leading states for tiny home living.

The state has over 20 builders who are constructing more than one tiny home unit at a time, and over 40 companies that have built at least one tiny home. On tiny home websites, other states with a growing number of manufacturers include Oregon, Washington and Texas.

The tiny home movement is being driven by people who are more interested in prioritizing experiences over material goods, Laubach said. Colorado is ideal for that lifestyle because there are so many outdoor activities within a short distance of urban areas.

Laubach used the example of one tiny home owner who is an avid fly-fisherman.

“He wants the freedom to do that at his leisure, but not have to make a ton of money to be able to afford it,” Laubach said. Not having a large mortgage gives him the ability to put more resources into his hobby.

The rising cost of home ownership is another factor driving interest in tiny homes, Laubach said, especially for young people.

“It’s a great option to be able to afford your own home,” Laubach said. “Some of the young folks today that come out of college with thousands in debt, they simply can’t afford to buy a traditional home.”

Along with millennials, Laubach said older people are another group driving the tiny home boom. Many tiny home buyers are empty nesters or retirees looking to downsize.

Environmentalism is also a factor, with people looking to reduce their environmental impact and live a more simple life.

At the Colorado Tiny House Festival in June, thousands of people came to Brighton to evangelize or learn about tiny home living. Laubach, who organized the festival, said it is the largest tiny living event in the country, with people coming in from every state in the U.S. and nine countries.

Over 50 tiny homes were on display. The styles were varied, with trailers, container homes, yurts, tipis, vans and converted buses all on display. The homes ranged widely in price, decoration and size. Some were whimsical and artistic, others sparsely utilitarian. Some were the size of an RV, while one had a pole outside with a sign reading “you should be shorter than this to enter.” But each had a long line of people waiting to take a peek inside.

Adam and Elizabeth Paashaus and their 6- and 9-year-old daughters were at the festival displaying their home. Dubbed the “,” the family converted an old school bus into a tiny house. Originally from North Carolina, they now drive around the country, exploring and sharing about their lifestyle.

The bus took two years to convert, and the family has been on the road for eight months. Adam Paashaus said he and his wife had always been interested in alternate housing. It was Elizabeth’s dream to travel the country in a mobile home during retirement, and they decided, why wait?

Paashaus said the bus allows them to live life on their own terms and to be homeowners. But he also acknowledged that the lifestyle has risks. It takes a lot of money to convert a vehicle into a home, and if it breaks down you can end up stranded.

Regardless, a steady stream of visitors lined up to see the bus and to ask Paashaus for advice about creating their own. The festival even had a workshop teaching people how to convert school buses (or “skoolies,” in tiny home lingo) into mobile homes.

For those who didn’t want to build something from scratch, the festival had a lot of vendors selling their products, including many from Colorado.

Brian Eck was there promoting his Castle Rock-based tiny home company, Eck Architecture. A graduate of University of Colorado Boulder’s architecture program, Eck decided to follow in his father’s footsteps as a builder. After watching a show about tiny homes on TV, he and his wife thought it would be fun to specialize in building them.

Eck caters to a mix of clients. Some are people in their mid 20s and early 30s who want to own a home, others are people over 50 looking to downsize.

Eck said that interest in tiny homes has increased over time, but financial institutions aren’t backing them yet, which makes them hard for many to purchase. Most banks won’t give out home loans to buy tiny houses, so people have to take out personal loans instead.

“And at that rate you might as well just go buy a $300,000 home, because the monthly payment will be lower,” he said.

Zoning is another problem impeding the development of more tiny homes. Many counties don’t allow for tiny homes to be developed in their jurisdictions. They are gradually becoming legal in more places — Lyons recently changed its accessory dwelling unit rules to allow tiny houses on wheels to be legal. But Laubach wants them to become legal statewide, and created the association in part to advocate for that.

Right now, the process for becoming a tiny home dweller is murky. Some people buy land to put their tiny homes on, but they have to make sure they’re conforming to local building codes, which may have minimum square-footage requirements. Many people with tiny homes on wheels live in RV parks. Laubach said that a lot of people use Craigslist or tiny homes Facebook groups to look for places where they can put their homes. Some just live outside the zoning laws and stay until they get a citation.

Companies sell to retailers as well as potential homeowners. Ivy Fife, marketing manager at the Colorado Yurt Company, said their business sells about half their products to buyers and half to commercial businesses like campgrounds.

Most of the people who buy yurts (a circular hut of Mongolian origin) are not living in them full-time, Fife said, but using them as cabins. She said they have become increasingly popular as a form of luxury camping.

“People, especially millennials, are looking for experiences,” she said. “Not just a place to sleep.”

The company was founded in Montrose in 1976, and has grown every year, Fife said. She said Colorado has been a great location for their business because it’s a desirable place for employees to work and because it lends them credibility.

“As an outdoor brand, the location adds some authenticity to our business,” she said.

Laubach worked in construction for a long time, and got involved in tiny home building because he wanted to support affordable housing and environmentalism. Seeing the positive effects of tiny homes on people made him a strong advocate for the lifestyle.

Though he lives in an RV for part of the year and has plans on building something for himself soon, Laubach does not currently live in a tiny home. Why not? Well for one thing, he owns six 100-pound dogs.

“They would be hard to fit,” he said.