Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of an Aspen Journalism article that was published in two parts starting Sept. 25. Visit aspenjournalism. org to read the full story.
A key policy goal set out in a recent study of local and state mobile housing parks is to give citizens the opportunity to acquire their parks before owners enroll them.
But that opportunity is very limited under the law aimed at helping citizens to homeowners, which was first passed in 2020 and imposes a 120-day deadline for citizens to draw up a competitive offer. Confusion among park citizens about how to arrange a deal that serves as a purchase agreement. The difficulties in obtaining financing and the lack of support from landowners despite the provisions of the law are obstacles, concludes the study conducted by the Mountain Voices Project, an advocacy network created in Manaus. a social justice nonprofit founded in Carbondale, and the Partners in Evaluation and Research Center (PiER) at the Kaiser Permanente Health Research Institute of Colorado.
The location of a park can have consequences.
Manaus partnered in 2021 with Colorado-based Thistle ROC, which is helping finance resident-owned acquisitions, to organize citizens of the 50-space Roaring Fork cell home park, on Basalt Avenue, near the confluence of Roaring Fork and Fryingpan. Rivers.
Jon Fox-Rubin, who works in Manaus as director of the Housing Innovation Project, noted that 98% of citizens agreed to pay to buy the park and the owner was willing to sell it. But riots arose in the floodplains, affecting their ability to discharge funding and would have resulted in the removal of several residential stands located in the floodplain.
The plan failed.
“So the bad news is that the procedure created false hopes that they will buy it,” Fox-Rubin said.
Roaring Fork Park, which straddles the border between Pitkin and Eagle counties, enjoys some level of coverage against rent increases on the Pitkin County side, an approval condition that accompanies a 1996 property rezoning, which restricts space rent increases to zero. % per year, Suzanne Wolff, Pitkin County’s director of community development, showed.
There are complaints of pressure on homeownership among citizens, including the Latino community, which makes up a significant percentage of citizens of mobile housing parks in Roaring Fork Valley and Garfield County.
Alex Sanchez, president and CEO of local advocacy organization Voces Unidas de las Montañas, believes the resident-by-household style would likely be a “false choice,” especially for families running in the Colorado interior, where real estate is incredibly expensive.
“A lot of those other people live on a very tight budget, and many are retired or elderly, some with disabilities or mobility issues and some kind of government assistance,” Sanchez said. Difficulties similar to the prestige of immigration can hamper efforts to obtain loans, he said. aggregate.
Also this year, Colorado Governor Jared Polis created the new Mobile Home Park Acquisition Fund, which will be administered through DOLA’s Housing Division, and will provide $28 million in loans and technical assistance through 3 other entities: ROC USA, Impact Development Fund, and Thistle ROC: to help make homeownership less difficult for residents.
But, as Sanchez points out, this total amount is less than what would be needed to buy one or two giant mobile home parks, restricting their viability to some of the smaller parks, if all the factors are put together.
Voces Unidas has been at the forefront of lobbying efforts with the Denver State Capitol to pass some of the recent cell home park laws.
Sánchez noted that Voces was instrumental in drafting and passing the buyability laws, and fought to expand the payment requirement from 90 days to 120 days. The style can work, Sanchez said, “if we have the right mix of incentives and reduce barriers. “He added that the organization is looking to get more budget on the loan program to help citizens buy parks. Most likely, the next consultation will focus on adding rent stabilization.
“We surveyed 1,500 Latino voters last year, and the vast majority of them, whether or not they live in a cell home park, supported some form of hiring or stabilization of hiring,” Sanchez said.
A last-session effort to pass such a measure, co-sponsored by Rep. Elizabeth Velasco, D-Glenwood Springs, was reversed when Polis indicated she would veto the bill.
Sanchez pledged to continue, in the 2024 legislative session, with secure control of hiring as a more potent hedge than he thinks residents’ asset-style can provide, saying the latter raises false hope for citizens and other unintended consequences.
3-mile pilot project
But Manaus and at least a small organization of citizens from the area’s cell home park gave up on the concept of homeownership as a solution.
Last year, Manaus resurrected the previously dormant Roaring Fork Community Development Corporation (RFCDC) and in April effectively acquired the 20-space 3-Mile mobile housing park outside Glenwood Springs for $2. 5 million. the existing lease, while striving to organize citizens so that they can eventually acquire the land.
“While we are in the game to ensure the preservation of the community, we now fully understand the obstacles and documents that the citizens of the cell home park will have to overcome to acquire the land for their homes,” said Sydney Schalit, who runs Manaus. and the RFCDC, they said at the meeting.
“We are stronger than ever in our homeownership opportunities for residents in our valleys and on the West Slope and expect other entities like the RFCDC to step in to become interim homeowners as citizens coordinate their collective efforts,” Schalit said.
The deal was only made possible by the willingness of the former owners of 3-Mile Park (Eagle-Vail’s Krueger circle of relatives) to sell Manaus rather than accept what would likely have been a superior offer from a personal investor. .
“My father had owned the park for about 40 years and had gotten to know the other people who live there very well,” Bern Krueger said of his late father, Ben, who passed away in 2021. “When you get to know others a little bit, the willingness to allow them to stay where they are without having to move.
“When he died, we knew this was what he would do,” he added. “And we didn’t need someone to come and deport 20 families. “
At closing, the RFCDC partnered with Common Good Management, a nonprofit that works in particular to help manage network-owned mobile housing parks in Colorado, and hired Brianda Cervantes as park manager and network organizer. Cervantes was once a network liaison and organizer for the Roaring Fork School District and helped start the bilingual English-Spanish K-8 Riverview school in Glenwood Springs.
Since then, she has continued to earn as a network organizer as part of the Mountain Voices project.
“He’s been a replacement for me, of course, but I feel very supported in this role and in a position to receive a lot of information on how to get there,” Cervantes said in an interview in June. “In my first two weeks, I go to the park almost every day to see what the wishes were and meet the people. “
In late June, citizens showed their appreciation by teaming up with Manaus volunteers for a day of clearing nets, clearing brush and removing some of the clutter built up outside their homes.
“In doing this, I know some neighbors I didn’t know before,” said Elizabeth Vega, a resident. “We build relationships and make it a better position to live in. “
Resident Felix Jimenez, who has lived at 3-Mile Park for 35 years, has been the park’s semi-official administrator for most of that time.
“It’s great to have an explanation of why and get everyone out and communicate it with others,” she said of the cleanup day.
While citizens are still mulling over the concept of pooling their resources to buy the park, it’s the little things like running in combination to beautify things that help.
“If other people feel a little more united, we can work to make that happen,” Jimenez said.
Cervantes said it is this type of network construction that is desired first, before tackling the much larger task of organizing the acquisition of the property.
“Everyone is very excited to see the park evolve in a bigger way,” Cervantes said. “This is an example of how everyone is mobilizing towards the same purpose and contributing to the progress of this park. “
This story has been updated to explain Voces Unidas’ stance on resident-owned units.
John Stroud is a freelancer founded in Carbondale and a veteran journalist from the Roaring Fork Valley for 35 years. Aspen Journalism covers social justice, water, the environment and more. Visit http://aspenjournaism. org.
Editor’s Note: Rob Pew, chairman of the Manaus board of directors, is a non-public funder of Aspen Journalism. Aspen Journalism is only for its editorial content.
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