Denver shuts down property owner renting RVs, trailers to homeless residents
Kevin Dickson has been renting at least 10 of his RVs and trailers to homeless residents in Denver through Airbnb until the city shut him down.
By Brian Maass, Colin McIntyre
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DENVER, Colorado (KCNC) — Denver’s Community Planning and Development Department has issued “cease and desist” orders to a property owner in the southwest Denver Overland neighborhood who had been using Airbnb to rent out trailers and RVs parked on his rental properties to homeless residents.
Kevin Dickson, 69, owns or co-owns 17 properties in Overland, according to city records, and said he put trailers and RVs on 10 of his properties and had been renting them out to homeless men and women.
“I was trying to solve a bigger problem of affordable housing,” Dickson told CBS News Colorado.
“It was an experiment,” he said. “Sure enough, I was helping the homeless.”
Dickson said he was renting the units out for about $700 per month “to the people who can’t afford rent. There’s a lot of homeless people who have income but can’t afford rent.”
But city authorities were alerted in July to Dickson’s Airbnb ads and began investigating. Denver’s Department of Excise and Licenses hit Dickson with six notices of zoning violations, saying that his trailers did not have rental licenses. The Community Planning and Development Department followed up by issuing Dickson three “cease and desist” orders, saying that mobile homes, recreational vehicles, and trailers cannot be used as accessory dwelling units.
The orders told Dickson to “immediately stop all rentals and short term rentals of an RV, mobile home or trailer on the property. Scrub/remove all Airbnb and other short term or long term rental sites (…) It is unlawful to use a RV, mobile home or trailer as an ADU.”
Craig Arfsten has been an advocate for the Overland neighborhood and said he heard complaints about homeless residents living in Dickson’s trailers from several residents. He said he knew immediately that zoning laws do not allow property owners to have RVs for rent on their properties.
“All of a sudden, you have a neighborhood that has no rules or sense of order,” said Arfsten. He said residents were upset because “You don’t know who these people (renting the trailers) are, you don’t know what these individuals bring to the neighborhood.”
Besides, said Arfsten, Overland already has La Paz, one of the city’s micro-communities, housing some 60 people who are homeless.
Dickson said he is removing the trailers and ending what he calls an “experiment. I am a law-abiding citizen, so we’re getting rid of everything,” he said.
He had been renting one of his trailers to Josh Quinn, who describes himself as homeless. Quinn, 33, said he works minimum wage jobs, including working for Dickson, but still can’t afford a standard rental unit.
“There’s no affordable housing out here,” said Quinn, who said he is from Florida.
He said he had been paying Dickson about $600 per month for the last year to live in one of Dickson’s trailers. “It’s impossible to find anything under $1,000. I can’t afford anything out here.” He said living in one of Dickson’s trailers in the Overland neighborhood “is the only thing that kept me from being homeless in this past year. It sucks that it’s all closing down.”
The City of Denver has been grappling with a shortage of affordable housing for years. The newly approved Vibrant Denver Bond package contains $89 million for a family health clinic, a children’s advocacy center, and affordable housing.
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