Chantel and Thomas Found Shelter After 9 Years Unhoused—But Denver’s System Left Them Separated, Criminalized, and Still Waiting for a Real Home
In March, Chantel Draper and her boyfriend, Thomas Turner, received temporary housing in Denver after being homeless for nine years. While that may seem like good news to some, the couple says their experience has been full of headaches.
Draper and Turner have lived in recreational vehicles for almost a decade. They currently live in a 1990s Ford RV that they bought with money Turner earned as a mechanic. Their three previous RVs were all impounded by the Denver Police Department, Turner told Invisible People.
Even though they have a room at one of Denver’s temporary shelters, the couple says they are not allowed to park their RV on campus. That forces them to make a nearly impossible choice. They either must allow the city to impound their RV, thereby taking their secondary shelter and transportation away, or sleep in the vehicle and risk facing criminal penalties…