STEAMBOAT SPRINGS — Jeff Morehead’s cat slips through the small, square door carved into his wooden fence, a gateway from Morehead’s mobile home lot to a serene landscape of blooming flowers and shade trees. On the other side of the wall is the Yampa River Botanic Park, a public garden that hugs the edge of […]
Parked: Half the American Dream
Posted inColoradans, Growth, News, Politics and Government
Parked: New state law brings hope to Colorado’s mobile-home residents
On a late-August Sunday afternoon, state Rep. Meg Froelich readied the meeting room at the Sheridan Library for a town hall with constituents. There was one item on the agenda: a recently enacted law designed to give mobile-home owners more protections and a way to handle disputes with the managers and park owners who control […]
Posted inColoradans, Growth, News
Parked: Mobile homes are Colorado’s affordable housing crutch. But they’re disappearing as land becomes more precious
In the Aurora mobile-home park where she lived for 16 years, eviction notices kept coming to Petra Bennett’s door — for unauthorized guests, lack of insurance, late rent. They were bogus threats to make the single mother leave. And eventually, she did. In Federal Heights, Karla Lyons’ waitressing wages are eaten up by a constant […]
Posted inColoradans, Growth, News
Parked: Ouray woman watches a mobile-home investment evaporate with her mother’s death
For many Coloradans, the purchase of a single- or double-wide trailer represents their variation on the American dream of home ownership and a slice of financial equity, even in the midst of an affordable housing crisis. But in Ouray, Lillian McMurrin’s experience stands as a cautionary tale of how the relationship between mobile-home park resident […]
Posted inColoradans, Growth, News
Parked: Routt County manufactured homes by the numbers
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS — Routt County’s manufactured home supply has been almost reduced by half in just the last decade. Routt County Assessor Gary Peterson noted there were roughly 1,300 total manufactured homes in the county when he began his tenure in 2010. Today, there are only about 800. Two manufactured home parks no longer exist […]
Posted inColoradans, Growth, Health, News, Politics and Government
Parked: Delta mobile-home resident poisoned by carbon monoxide; rental company denies anything is wrong
Editor’s note: The subject of the story has asked her real name be withheld out of fear for her safety due to a previous violent relationship. When Joanna first moved into her new home, it seemed like a step in the right direction. She had just gotten out of jail and had spent some time […]
Posted inColoradans, Growth, Health, News, Politics and Government
Parked: Aurora considers how to preserve mobile-home parks after park’s closure
More than a year ago, Aurora was blazing trails in how to handle the battle between mobile home park owners and helpless renters. Now, Aurora lawmakers, like so many across the state, are struggling again with whether and how to preserve the dwindling stock of affordable housing. When Aurora City Council members approved a 10-month […]
Posted inColoradans, Growth, News, Politics and Government
Parked: One of the wealthiest counties in Colorado owns four mobile-home parks, an effort to hold on to affordable housing
While the existence of five mobile-home parks in Colorado’s wealthiest county might come as a surprise to some, they are actually an integral part of Pitkin County’s affordable housing system. In fact, the city of Aspen first took steps in the early 1980s to preserve a mobile-home park in the middle of town that still […]
Posted inColoradans, Growth, News
Parked: Fort Collins considers reforms to preserve 30 mobile home parks and improve conditions
Fort Collins leaders are taking advantage of a reshuffled city council lineup to dust off proposed mobile home park reforms that have long failed to gain traction. The policies taking shape could help preserve over 30 mobile home parks in the city and surrounding areas and improve conditions for thousands of residents — some of […]
Posted inColoradans, Growth, News
Parked: Eagle County mobile-home parks become immigrants’ home away from home
AVON — The Aspens Mobile Home Village sits on a wedge of land tucked between eastbound I-70 and the Eagle River in the mountains near Vail. The park is easy to miss in the blur of freeway speeds — trees, a fence, trailers flashing past before the blue sign for Exit 167 zooms into view, […]