Last year, after his tenant moved out of his mother-in-law apartment, Burien’s Jason DeLeo decided to try renting the space out to travelers on Airbnb.

“When I used to rent it out to a tenant it would be about five to six hundred dollars a month,” DeLeo said. “But when I decided to try Airbnb the revenue pretty much quadrupled.”

So this June he expanded to his backyard.

“So this is the RV courtyard,” DeLeo gestures to the two RVs set up in the back of his lot. “This is the first RV which we bought used, it’s a 1976 Dodge. Decided we thought it would be fun to have an RV for Seahawks tailgating. Then I had the bright idea: hey, why not put it on Airbnb and see if anyone would be interested in it? Well, people were and it booked almost the whole summer. Because it was working so well, that’s when I bought the second one. I had the room and I thought it would serve a need.”

But recently, Jason was paid a visit by a city code inspector who told him that in the City of Burien, it is against the city code to sleep, eat or live in an RV. He was told to take the RVs off Airbnb, and he did. But he was curious why the code was in place.

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“Well, I asked her why and she said it was a law that was designed to not have RVs parking all over Burien, homeless people in RVs. Which surprised me and I’m like, wow, that’s kind of extreme for a rule, especially with the homeless problem right now.”

DeLeo said he was actually in talks with a homeless advocacy group to work out a deal where vetted, transitioning homeless families could stay in his RVs for periods over the winter, when they weren’t likely to be booked by paying guests. He thought other local RV owners might want to do the same.

“And everyone thought that was such a great idea,” he said. “So when this happened … my first thought was, ‘Whoa! I can’t do that anymore.'”

Earlier this year, protesters and some news outlets called the City of Burien ‘anti-homeless’ when the city passed an ordinance that allowed police to issue trespass warnings to people on city property with “bodily hygiene or scent that is unreasonably offensive to others.” That clause was later revoked, but the story became fresh in Jason’s mind after he learned that living in an RV is illegal in the city.

“Interesting. I would not have equated those two together,” said City of Burien communications officer, Katie Trefry. “This really is more of a zoning question. The homeless issue I see is a very different one. How many residences can you have on a single, family zoned property? It has more to do with that. The other aspect of that is safety and public health. We just can’t let a risk like what happened in south Pierce County [on Wednesday] happen here. Someone died in an RV fire. They’re still investigating, it sounds like it was a heating unit.”

DeLeo never spoke with Trefry, but he did have several conversations with a code inspector and a city business development manager.

“And he was telling me how his job is to welcome businesses into Burien,” DeLeo said. “I happen to mention, I said, ‘Well, not only is it anti-homeless but I believe it’s also anti-business.’ Especially when Airbnb is now remitting 10 percent occupancy tax to every city that has an Airbnb. So it’s a shame that they aren’t even willing to discuss looking at the current codes. Because I respect the codes, the codes are put in for a reason. But times change and they need to look at things and say, OK, maybe it’s time to amend this code. But according to my conversations with the city, don’t even bother.”

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Trefry says DeLeo’s idea to help house the homeless is creative and she says the city is supportive of Airbnb.

“Burien doesn’t have a hotel,” Trefry said. “We would very much like to attract one. In the meantime, our bed and breakfasts and our Airbnb opportunities are really this great opportunity that’s there in spite of not having a hotel. So we do encourage that.”

Trefry said Burien doesn’t have a permanent homeless shelter, but like many other communities they’re concerned with the issue.

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