The Crestville Mobile Home Park, near Federal Boulevard and West 56th Avenue, is filled with abandoned homes and at times, neighbors say, animals and vagrants. Colorado Auto Recovery, the towing company contracted by Berkeley Village, received 23 consumer complaints between July 2020 and June 30, 2021, according to Public Utilities Commission records. Thistle has a deep understanding of the ROC initiative. Mobile Home Park Organizing Guidebook - Colorado Law Those requirements mandate that owners give notice to homeowners when they intend to sell the park, when the park is listed for sale and after the landlord intends to make a final acceptance of an offer. An attorney can help you determine what information in this Guidebook applies specifically to your situation and what information does not. Froelich and others scrambled to set up more seats to accommodate a crowd that topped 60 residents from the handful of mobile-home parks in her district. MHPOP@state.co.us (preferred); Toll Free: 1-833-924-1147; or Fax: 720-927-2630 Join the Program's email list Additional Resources Those instances of harm are not due to a lack of professional competence among manufactured housing community owners and managers. The rules are so arbitrary, she said. Cars will often be towed in the middle of the night, making it even harder for owners to object, said Cesiah Guadarrama, associate state director for 9to5 Colorado, an economic justice organization, and a Berkeley Village resident. It feels like playing a game of chicken when you have a big truck and the other person has a Volkswagen, Peirce said. Seattle-based attorney Ishbel Dickens, who helped organize Boulder homeowners groups, notes that fear of losing their home sends many residents retreating into silence. Since 2004 Thistle has owned Mapleton Mobile Home Park, a 135-site residential community on 14.5 . The good faith clause, they also contend, is vague, giving park owners too much leeway in rejecting homeowner offers without reason. All rights reserved. Below is a partial list of Mobile Home Parks in Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois and New Mexico currently or previously managed by Sierra Corporate Management (SCM), and owned by a Kort & Scott (K&S) company. Tanner hosted community dinners and desserts in the yard for all 38 units in the park to discuss their options. If a house doesnt meet rules, well do it for them. But since then it has struggled like many areas to address parks role in providing affordable housing. The Colorado Sun is a journalist-owned, award-winning news outlet based in Denver that strives to cover all of Colorado so that our state our community can better understand itself. The Clinic does not provide legal advice and guidance. Firestone, CO 80504 All Age Community Featured In two cases, regulators found the company to be not in compliance with the law, with $235.45 returned to customers. Water quality in Colorado mobile home parks a problem for decades The Colorado Sun presents a collaboration with more than a dozen Colorado news organizations who sent journalists across the state to focus on the evolving landscape for mobile homes, the states largest source of unsubsidized affordable housing. It also collects a registration fee from the parks. There is just no place for people to go because there is no competition.. I could send a thousand postcards into a neighborhood, and they wouldnt generate one person, she said of her previous experience trying to bring out constituents. There are versions of the Guidebook in English and in Spanish. In Steamboat Springs, developers had designs on the attractive real estate where a mobile home park sat, but once residents moved and the recession hit, the land remained vacant for years. Its crisis that brings people together, she said. Months later, theyre still waiting. The graphs below show the distribution of the 432 affected mobile home parks across the 30-day dry time day period. But now the park has a rule that outlaws street parking after 8 p.m., with the justification that the roadways need to be clear for fire lanes. Colorado Democrats consider 'rent stabilization' for mobile home parks. 11 Mobile Home Parks near Colorado City, CO Quick Search Homes Parks Dealers Floor Plans Filter Sort Sorted by Best Match No Image Found 1 Green Horn 8050 Highway 78 West, Colorado City, CO 81019 0 Homes For Sale 0 Homes For Rent No Image Found Showcase Community 11 Country Side Estates 2222 E 8th Street, Pueblo, CO 81001 And they dont have the money to do that.. Being hit with a towing bill may mean you cant make rent that month or cant make some other bill.. Colorado law meant to help mobile home owners buy their own parks isn't Hurricane Harvey, Mobile Home Parks, and Flood Risk Im optimistic, but were not there yet. Ultimately, she traded a small cabin her Vietnam veteran husband left her when he died so Id always have a roof over my head for roof repairs on her trailer. In Steamboat Springs, developers had designs on the attractive real estate where a mobile home park sat, but once residents moved and the recession hit, the land remained vacant for years. A week for two is often the difference in committing to financing or not.. This is the primary way that our working households attain the American dream of home ownership.. So the next note taped to Karla Lyons door demanded she fix the awning. Creates a database of mobile-home parks with five or more homeowners, plus their locations and ownership information. Drop us a note at tips@coloradosun.com. She would move if she could afford it. At Elevado Estates Mobile Home Park in Arvada, kids tumble off the bus after school with musical instruments and backpacks, and return to flimsy metal homes like the one Lucy. To see more, visit Boise State Public Radio News. In addition, landlords are required to negotiate in good faith with homeowners who submit offers to buy their parks. They drove around the park with their yellow lights flashing, telling people what they wanted them to do, Peirce said. Among the final straws: the park denied her request to let her sister from Germany stay with her for one month anything longer than a two-week visit was against park rules. Those residents include many of Colorados working poor and immigrants who are undocumented. This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions. Theres not a groundswell across the political spectrum. And in the last decade, the number of mobile home units in Routt County has been reduced nearly by half. I would have expected at least a handful by now.. Thats 100% accurate.. In Telluride, the last nearby mobile home park in unincorporated San Miguel County closed in the early 1990s. The Utah-based Kingsley Management Corp., for example, has seven parks along Colorados Front Range. Welcome to the Mobile Home Park Organizing Guidebook. There is at least somewhat of a sense that these residents are less financially able and can be bullied. When Rolfe buys a park, he typically enacts new rules about upkeep and safety. Nearly 10% of the nations housing stock is manufactured homes, which numbered about 8.5 million in 2018, the institute reported. Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite "One thing that's been happening over the last couple of years is that corporate entities are buying up these parks . State investigates unfair practices at mobile home park 04:25 A Colorado state agency confirms to CBS News Colorado it is investigating complaints of unfair and exploitative practices at a mobile . Nationwide, an estimated 20 million Americans live in mobile home parks. We want Westside to come out of the dark place where we were., Meanwhile, Fanchi senses a renewed interest in affordable housing. One of her constituents who watched the meeting with interest, 75-year-old Charlene Moore, offers an instructive account that underscores the importance of a balance of power and perhaps cause for optimism over the dispute-resolution program when it comes to homeowner-park manager conflicts. Still, many mobile home parks Dickens calls them gated communities for low-income families have a sense of shared experience that fosters the kind of tight-knit neighborhoods that, under the right circumstances, can be moved to action. It was here that Seattle attorney Ishbel Dickens, former executive director of the National Manufactured Home Owners Association, responded to a request for proposals to help local mobile-home parks. If residents didnt comply in a timely manner, the new rules allowed for management to perform improvements on residents property and send them the bill. KUER is listener-supported public radio. Shes had so many notices posted on her door, shes lost track. Search mobile home parks and find nearby communities with manufactured homes for sale or rent. They might not realize what an eviction does to their rental history, and that its a very quick slip to homelessness.. Because of trash people like you.. There are some pretty specific requirements in the law, but whether the owner follows those is an entirely different matter, said Ann Norton, an attorney representing Golden Hills residents. In just three communities Lyons, Evans and Milliken -- researchers tracked the destruction of 273 mobile homes, most of which were not rebuilt or replaced because parks failed to reopen. Same with a second offer in August. More deals could soon be in the pipeline. Born in the post-World War II era, when quick, cheap housing was in demand among returning veterans, mobile homes endured and hit a peak in the early 1970s, according to U.S. Census data, before beginning a gradual decline in new home sales. They dont warn you, they just tow.. Western Hills Mobile Home Park. ), AND: The news blindsided the small community tucked in a valley just off Colorado 93, nearly hidden from the highway but with a panoramic view to the Flatirons. The roads have to be clear so fire trucks can access the homes in case of an emergency. Mobile home parks - Department of Public Health & Environment Housing advocates say theyve gotten complaints from residents across the state, including the San Luis Valley, Western Slope and Eastern Plains, detailing issues with lack of notice on sales or opaque negotiations with owners. Wolf Law Building | 401 UCB "With over 20% of Americans trying to live on $20,000 per year or less, the demand for mobile homes has never been higher and the big winners are the owners of the mobile home parks in which . Now it contains all the documents she has accrued as the community scrapped to keep their housing affordable. Froelich brought Rep. Edie Hooton, the Boulder Democrat who sponsored the bill, and Cesiah Guadarrama Trejo, from the nonprofit 9to5 Colorado, to walk the residents through the primary features of the bill some of which already are in effect, while some will kick in by May 2020: Does this kind of in-depth journalism matter to you? Black and brown families have been excluded from access to homeownership for generations and thats why we have the racial wealth gap, she adds. Communities of mobile homes, also known as manufactured homes, are unique beasts in that residents normally own the physical homes they live in, but they dont actually own the land on which their homes sit. With our tightening of housing here in Denver, these are important conversations to have.. I want to make sure park owners or managers arent getting kickbacks for these tows, Hooton said. After convincing skeptical residents, they eventually formed a co-op. In the last few months, 299 manufactured homes listed on our site have been sold in a Colorado community. Pitkin County has since bought or helped preserve four more mobile home parks in the upper Roaring Fork Valley for affordable housing. Sponsors based House Bill 1309 on similar legislation passed four years ago in Washington state that also gave parties recourse for resolution outside of the courts. A Utah-based mobile home park operator must repay metro-Denver-area residents nearly $150,000 in wrongly withheld security deposits, arbitrary fees and improperly charged attorneys fees as the result of a settlement reached with the Colorado attorney general's office last week. Its very difficult to move or sell in some cases almost impossible because of the condition of the unit. The residents put in an offer that they know matched or exceeded the terms in the owners notice, she said, since sellers are supposed to disclose all material terms for what they consider an acceptable offer. . There are plenty of opportunities for park owners to have complaints. Not far from Greeley, the Hill-N-Park community provided a low-cost option where you could invest in a mobile home and actually own the land beneath it. Others reported charges of more than $300 even if the car sat at the lot for mere minutes. As part of the application, the coalition needed to give specific, verifiable examples of the harm that resulted from the actions of park owners and manager. Washingtons interpretation of this is, with the enforcement in place, the law is being followed by everyone, Hooton says. This chart shows that the majority of mobile home parks which experienced flooding by August 27, 2017, (308 of 432, or 71 percent) returned to a "dry state" three days later (by August 30). As a news piece, this article cites verifiable, third-party sources which have all been thoroughly fact-checked and deemed credible by the Newsroom in accordance with the Civil Constitution. Kimberly Hills Manufactured Home Community, Friendly Village of the Rockies Manufactured Home Community. Residents say they were given no opportunity to match terms given by the other buyer, alleging the parks owners broke the new law by negotiating in bad faith. It took away the most important thing in the world to me, she says. That scenario has played out at other mobile home parks in the Mountain West around Ketchum, Idaho, and Salt Lake City, Utah, for example. Peter Reinert, senior vice president and general counsel for the new company, Strive Communities Management LLC, calls the Sans Souci push-back a rather unique response that he hasnt seen at other properties, where that same list of rules and regulations has been imposed. DORA found that, despite the obvious harm to homeowners, regulating park owners and managers wasnt likely to fix the problem. Karla, who works as a waitress, and her husband, who is disabled, still are paying it off several months later. Corporate and institutional investors, attracted by potentially hefty profits from a near-captive clientele, underscore what has always been an unusual housing proposition. All Age Community As state lawmakers look to protect mobile home residents - Denverite Its a flat-out tow.. We are the ultimate manufactured home and modular home resource. The resident could use the savings of not paying rent for two months to move to a new place. More than 100,000 people live in more than 900 parks across Colorado. (In fact, mobile homes built before 1976 face legal hurdles to moving; since then, the industry has referred to them as "manufactured" homes.) 44 Get a FREE Email Alert Featured Prairie Greens 7781 Mountain View Drive Frederick, CO 80530 All Age Community Featured Antelope Ridge 4001 Gray Fox Heights Colorado Springs, CO 80922 All Age Community Featured Smith Creek Crossing 551 Summit Trail Granby, CO 80446 All Age Community Featured Sun Outdoors Rocky Mountains 1051 Summit Trail More by Jennifer Brown, Got a story tip? Rent control for Colorado mobile homes is doomed by Jared Polis veto And with housing costs rising rapidly across the Mountain West, where would they find another affordable spot to live? More by Kevin Simpson, Jen is a co-founder and reporter at The Sun, where she writes about mental health, child welfare and social justice issues.