The Aspen/Pitkin County Housing Authority regulates deed-restricted home sales in several communitites, including Burlingame, where Steven and Ashley Miller have lived for 10 years.
Steven works in operations at Aspen Country Day School, and Ashley is a physical therapist. It meant everything to them when they first won the APCHA lottery for a two-bedroom condominium in 2014.
“If we had just had to figure out the rental game and bounced around as costs went up and things changed, I think it would have pushed us out,” Steven Miller said.
According to the authority, APCHA operates the oldest and largest workforce housing program for mountain resort towns in North America, managing thousands of deed-restricted rental and ownership units designed to be affordable for employees.
The Millers now have two children. Luckily, they were able to upgrade to a three-bedroom condominium in Burlingame Phase I in 2021.
The complex was built in 2007, and when they moved in, they found a lot of problems.
“(There were) two fully broken windows that could not be repaired, two more windows with issues, … (a) cracked sink, broken toilets, broken tile in both bathrooms, broken seals, countertops that were unglued off the wall, warped vanities, just a lot of different things.”
Steven and his wife have found creative ways to fund repairs, receiving grants from the Colorado Office for Resource Efficiency.
But when preparing to remodel their bathroom by himself, Steven ran into issues that required professional maintenance.
“I found a fair amount of water damage and mold across the subfloor and in the cabinetry and in the base of all the drywall,” Miller said.
The Miller family is dedicated to getting their place into good condition, for themselves and their kids, but not all APCHA homeowners feel like repairs and other upgrades are worth an investment.
Most APCHA homeowners can only resell their units for its sale price, plus 3% for every year they’ve owned it (or the consumer price index, whichever is less), which is well below what they could receive for selling these places on the free market, where renovations can more than pay for themselves.
On Aug. 1, 2024, Zillow showed home prices for three-bedroom condos in Pitkin County listed for well over $1 million, most were priced to sell for over $4 million.
In an interview with Aspen Public Radio, Matthew Gillen, the executive director of APCHA, said deed-restricted homeowners don’t have as much of an incentive to repair or upgrade their properties since they might not get their money back upon reselling their home.
“People who are making less money by definition don't have as much money to put into the maintenance of their unit,” Gillen said.
Gillen is trying to find opportunities to address maintenance issues in APCHA units that have been overlooked.
“We need to look at these homes and make sure they are viable for future generations, and that's finding tools for people to improve them,” Gillen said.
For certain approved health and safety upgrades, like getting rid of mold, APCHA homeowners can add the price of improvements onto the future sale of their home. Some capital improvements can be included, too, but only up to 10% of the purchase price.
Gillen helped develop APCHA's essential repairs program in 2023 to address the critical maintenance issues. The program offers APCHA homeowners up to $10,000 in matching funds for important household repairs.
Fifty-two homeowners have received these grants for an average of roughly $7,600. The Millers received $8,052 toward their $11,504 bathroom repair.
Program Limitations
While most applicants to the essential repairs program were granted funding, some repairs are not covered by the new program, including requests to install granite countertops and other maintenance deemed aesthetic.
Repairs to building structures were not covered either.
“So we weren't looking at the overall structure and integrity of the entire building,” Gillen said. “That's the HOA responsibility. … It was repairs inside the four walls of somebody's apartment or condo.”
The program is also structured as a refund. Owners have to pay for repairs themselves and wait for a check to come in the mail, which can be difficult for homeowners who don’t have the savings to cover big repairs, some well over $10,000.
“That was stressful,” Miller said. “I think floating a sizable amount of spending for a number of months as a project goes … that's hard.”
According to Forbes, 28% of Americans have less than $1,000 in savings. Gillen said APCHA helps where it can, but the program isn’t designed to set up homeowners for life.
“APCHA is giving you a nest,” Gillen said. “It's not giving you a nest egg. … It can be difficult for people to maintain the units. We do hope that they will.”
The Miller’s condo is looking better, but there’s still work to do, including renovating their second bathroom, which has similar issues. However, with one big project behind them, things are looking up.
“Our place is obviously significantly better and more livable than it was when we moved in,” Miller said. “We've got kids. It feels (like) a place we want to be, instead of a place where you're questioning the state of things or the health and safety of your unit.”
Gillen said APCHA has spent almost all of the $400,000 of initial seed money from the city of Aspen and Pitkin County, and his staff will soon ask both governments for a second round of funding to keep the program going.
