And without rent control - which died under the governor’s veto threat last year - landlords can still hike rents as high as they please. Corporate owners continue to snatch up available parks.
Lawmakers, advocates and residents acknowledge these success stories are still the exception, not the rule. Meanwhile, a new state-run revolving loan and grant program recently doled out nearly $30 million specifically to help residents purchase the land beneath their homes or keep rents manageable. A park in Durango is trying out a community land trust model, which operators hope could be replicated across the state. Another three parks were bought by nonprofits or cities, with the goal to transition ownership to residents. Whitehaven’s saga is a shining example of Colorado’s recent legislative efforts to boost protections for the tens of thousands of residents living in the state’s more than 700 mobile home parks.Īs private equity giants and national real estate investors gobble up these communities across the country, the state’s new laws have birthed a swath of creative solutions designed to keep mobile homes out of corporate hands.īefore state lawmakers in 2020 passed the “ opportunity to purchase” bill - which hoped to make it easier for residents to purchase their parks - there existed just one resident co-op in Colorado.īut after a slow start and key legislative updates, eight parks are owned by residents - and two more are on the way. “It was like, ‘Oh my God, we can actually save our homes,'” said Jake Dombrowski, Whitehaven’s HOA president. With a few large anonymous donations and a favorable loan, the Yampa Valley Housing Authority stepped in and bought the park, with plans to transition ownership to residents in three years. New owners usually come with steep rent increases, the type that force low-income residents out of Steamboat - or Colorado entirely.īut a 2022 law allowed for a new possibility: Residents could sign over their right-of-first-refusal to a nonprofit or public entity. The park went up for sale, with an asking price of $3.2 million. Last summer, Frombgen and the other 26 families in the park thought they might be living here on borrowed time. In a resort town where the average home price is close to $1 million, the Whitehaven Mobile Home Park represents one of the last vestiges of affordable housing for the community’s vital laborers, teachers, cooks and ski workers. “As far as life goes,” he said, “I’m pretty (expletive) spoiled.” The kitchen floor slopes at odd angles and water sometimes leaks through ceiling cracks during heavy rainstorms.īut the home allows Frombgen, 70, to continue living in a place he considers paradise - a place that has allowed him to ski 100 days a year, bike on gorgeous pathways and kayak the blue waters of the Yampa River. The ramshackle trailer might represent the most unique living arraignment in Routt County: A 1953 silver airstream cut in half, with a standard mobile home haphazardly welded in the middle.
#BUDGET TRAILER RENTAL ALAMOSA CO FULL#
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS - Peter Frombgen tries not to take this for granted.Įvery morning for 20 years, the former ski bum and bike mechanic peers out the window of his mobile home tucked alongside Lincoln Avenue, basking in a full view of the town’s famed ski area and lush Emerald Mountain before him.
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