White supremacy alleged at tiny home village for homeless

Photo/Colorado Village Collaborative

Two men during public comment period Monday at Denver City Council meeting alleged racism and white supremacy at Beloved Tiny Home Village, housing for people experiencing homelessness in Globeville.

Jesse Lashawn Parris pleaded with the council to do something about white residents who he said are “a mob” and are “antagonistic, argumentative, self-righteous and hostile,” among other things.

Dwayne Peterson, a resident of Beloved Village, said threatening and illegal behavior has been going on there since he moved in last year. He said illegal acts include stalking, racism, disturbing the peace, manufacture of various drugs, “and I suspect child porn.”

Parris, who describes himself at meetings as the next mayor of Denver, asked the council to do something. The speakers said Colorado Village Collaborative, which manages Beloved Village, have not responded to complaints.

"These issues of peer to peer racism are being investigated and evaluated by our diverse staff," Cole Chandler, executive director of the collaborative, told NewsBreak.

The City Council does not publicly respond to people who speak during comment period. The idea is to maximize the 30 minutes allotted so that resident voices may be heard.

Study deems Beloved Village a ‘success’

In a study that occurred during its first year of operation in 2017, the University of Denver hailed Beloved Village a success. “The results from this evaluation, conducted by the Burnes Center on Poverty and Homelessness, demonstrate that over the course of the first nine months, the Beloved Community Village has been a success,” according to the report’s executive summary. “In July 2017, when the evaluation began, there was no certainty that Beloved Community Village would still be operational come May 2018. Yet, by all accounts, Beloved Community Village is operational and widely considered a fully functioning and productive community.

“Importantly, understanding Beloved Community Village’s ‘success’ is complex given the developmental process of an alternative solution to homelessness using an intentional community model, which does not arrive at a fixed destination but rather continues to evolve, change, and grow.”

Sometimes pain results from growth, however, and the Beloved Village has grown since its inception. “However, all reported findings indicate that Beloved Community Village is a demonstrably positive effort operated and supported by an intentional community of individuals largely working for the betterment of those involved, chiefly those living in the Village.”

Tiny home villages allowed citywide

The Barton Institute for Community Action at University of Denver calls Beloved Community Village a cross-sector partnership.

“While the Barton Institute is not a traditional grant maker, we support community members as they build projects that create safe community spaces where people can build lives with more opportunities to thrive,” the institute shows on its website.

“Since early 2017, the Barton Institute has supported the Beloved Community Village, Denver’s first tiny homes village for people experiencing homelessness. Focusing on people who are not able to be served by the traditional shelter system … the village has housed 18 people over the past two years in 11 cottages that surround a shared bathroom and kitchen facilities. Five of those people have moved on to permanent housing.”

The Barton Institute calls tiny home villages a “low-cost alternative.” In October 2019, the Denver City Council agreed and voted 11-0 to “allow organizations that wish to establish tiny home villages to do so throughout the city, except on land designated as open space.”

According to the Colorado Village Collaborative website, Beloved Community Village in February 2020 “nearly doubled in size by adding eight new tiny homes designed by Radian and one new Common House designed by our partners at Shopworks Architecture. The common house, complete with showers, flushing toilets and a full kitchen, will become the heart and soul of the Beloved Community Village. It's where we will gather for meetings, meals, and community events.

“It's where we will host our friends, family and neighbors as we seek to reweave the social fabric of our society and build what Martin Luther King Jr. called, “'The Beloved Community.'”

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