A growing effort to preserve mobile home parks as affordable housing was praised by local leaders at a recent public forum co-hosted by the Aspen Jewish Congregation, Snowmass Chapel and Mountain Voices Project at the Aspen Chapel as an example of public-private, cross-sector collaboration that could help solve wider housing challenges.
“At its core, our housing challenge is about whether the people that make this community run can afford to live in … the Roaring Fork and Colorado River valleys,” said April Long, executive director of the West Mountain Regional Housing Coalition. “The cost of housing has become increasingly disconnected from what local income earners earn. … Our locals are competing with global and national wealth.”
According to a recent housing-needs assessment cited by Long and several other speakers at the Aug. 3 forum, the price of housing has noticeably increased from Aspen to Parachute over the past decade. As of 2024, median sale prices for single-family homes ranged from $7.3 million in Aspen and about $1.6 million in the mid-valley (Basalt and Carbondale) to nearly $800,000 in Glenwood Springs and roughly $500,000 in the Colorado River Valley.
“The challenge is crossing municipal and county boundaries — this is no longer just Aspen and Pitkin County’s problem, it's being pushed farther down valley,” Long said. “A person may live in Rifle, work in Aspen, go to their doctor's appointments in Glenwood Springs, and they might have children attending school in Carbondale — so this is absolutely a regional problem that requires a regional solution.”
The assessment also looked at projected housing needs, accounting for new units already being built or those “in the development pipeline.”
Overall, it found the region would need nearly 7,200 more housing units over the next 10 years — 2,500 in Pitkin County and 4,600 in Garfield County — to “catch up with current housing gaps and keep up with future housing needed due to economic growth.”
Although Long believes that building more workforce housing will be necessary, she said that preserving existing affordable housing such as mobile home parks is also a critical part of forming a cohesive regional strategy.
“We understand that new housing construction is necessary,” Long said. “But once housing is lost to the market, it's almost impossible for us to recover that.”
Converting mobile home parks to deed-restricted, resident-owned communities is a model that has taken shape locally through a collaborative effort involving regional organizations, nonprofit lenders, local governments, businesses and private donors — along with the park residents.
Many of these stakeholders participated in the Aug. 3 forum, where they laid out the recent successes of this collaborative model for preserving affordable housing as well as potential solutions to the challenges that remain for mobile home parks and the wider community.
The mobile home park model
Mobile home residents typically own their homes but rent the land underneath from a private landlord — an arrangement that can leave them vulnerable to displacement due to rent hikes or redevelopment as more corporate investors buy and sell these properties.
Over the past year, three mobile home parks that were listed for sale from Basalt to Glenwood Springs have avoided that fate, transitioning instead to deed-restricted, resident ownership.
Under this ownership structure, residents collectively purchase and govern the park, usually through a not-for-profit cooperative that raises funds and takes out additional loans to buy the land. Residents’ monthly fees then go toward paying the loans back, similar to a mortgage.
In the case of the Aspen-Basalt and Mountain Valley mobile home parks that transitioned to resident-ownership last year, the housing coalition, the Aspen Community Foundation and Boulder-based nonprofit Thistle Community Housing worked with community leaders at both parks to raise significant funds and secure affordable loans to buy the parks for a combined $42 million.
A majority of the funds raised came from Roaring Fork Valley governments in exchange for deed-restricting the two properties, which are home to roughly 500 residents and 139 units.
Private donors and businesses also made significant contributions — with Atlantic Aviation one of the first to commit funding. The company operates a large network of fixed-base operators (FBOs) across North America, including the private airports in Aspen and Rifle.
“We needed to build some momentum, and we wanted to make an impact in the valley in housing,” said Jonathan Jones, senior general manager of the Atlantic Aviation operation in Aspen.
After seeing Atlantic Aviation contribute $1.1 million, other major companies such as Aspen Skiing Co.’s parent corporation, Aspen One, and individual philanthropists began chipping in.
Jones hopes more local businesses will continue to follow suit as mobile home parks continue to go up for sale from Aspen to Parachute.
“That's the private part of helping get the snowball rolling down the hill,” Jones said. “This community came together to do something very special, and I'm here to tell you we can do it again and again and again, and we can make a difference.”
Another mobile home park, Cavern Springs, is now in the final stages of the same process, with residents currently under contract to buy the property for $23 million and a closing deadline fast approaching.
A resident-led cooperative formed by the 98 households at the park — located between Carbondale and Glenwood Springs — has raised just over $11 million and is still hoping to raise another $1.8 million before closing on the purchase in October.
Organizations such as the housing coalition, Thistle and the Aspen Community Foundation are once again stepping up to help residents fundraise and secure the rest through loan financing. Community leaders with Mountain Voices Project have also played a major supporting role.
Although Atlantic Aviation and Aspen One have not yet committed funds this time around, other local businesses and private donors have joined governments from Aspen to Glenwood Springs in contributing funds to the park.
Several local residents spoke during the Aug. 3 forum about the impact that the communitywide effort to save Cavern Springs could have on their lives.
Miguel Delgado’s family came to the Roaring Fork Valley from northern Mexico more than two decades ago, and he said they’ve built a successful life here.
“We started living in tents, then trailers and cabins, and eventually opened our own mechanic business here — my parents became home and business owners,” Delgado said. “Cavern Springs is one of the few affordable places to live for workers in this valley, including my parents.”
Delgado hopes becoming a resident-owned community will mean that his family and his neighbors’ families will have more secure housing for the long term.
“Owning this park together isn't just about a deed,” Delgado said. “It's almost 100 families who will learn how to deliberate, compromise and make their own decisions as a collective — what is more of an American dream than that?”
Strengthening the model
This is the second time in the past five years that Cavern Springs residents tried to rally community support to buy their park — and it has taken a huge effort and millions of dollars to get this far.
“Saving Cavern Springs has taken a year out of 100 families' lives, a regional coalition, a legal complaint and a fundraising campaign that is still not finished,” said Katherine Coe, a project organizer with Mountain Voices Project. “There are more parks in these valleys, and they are not all going to get this [same support] — we cannot run this play, park by park, forever.”
Local residents, organizations and governments agree that a more cohesive regional strategy to preserve these parks as affordable housing is necessary.
Some of these strategies were shared by Mountain Voices Project at the Aug. 3 forum, including an effort to strengthen state laws passed in recent years that are aimed at protecting parks and giving residents a greater opportunity to purchase the land under their homes.
One idea that the regional coalition proposes is to ask state lawmakers to extend the time that residents have to raise enough money and secure affordable loans to buy their parks.
Most mobile home parks in Colorado currently get 120 days for residents to submit an offer to buy their park from the date the seller receives a competing bid. If the residents’ offer is accepted, they get another 60 days to inspect the property and close on the purchase.
“Before any of that, a park has to show up organized with a cooperative, a board and a resident vote,” Coe said. “Residents need more time to build that.”
Coe and others working to support mobile home parks also want state lawmakers to provide more flexible application timelines for parks that are under tight deadlines to apply for state housing funds.
When it comes to new legislation, they’re also hopeful that the Democratic candidate for governor, Phil Weiser, would support an annual lot-rent cap for parks that are not resident-owned.
“In Colorado, that requires a change in state law,” Coe said.
Another idea Coe proposed on behalf of coalition members at the Aug. 3 forum is to create a regional housing fund that would provide low-interest loans.
“What we're exploring is a community-led and governed financing vehicle with a lower interest rate and a higher ceiling, one that can move capital into community-led housing projects like these,” Coe said. “Building it will take investment from every sector represented in this room.”
Mountain Voices Project would also like to see local governments increase their use of deed restrictions and land-use policies such as zoning to preserve parks as affordable housing and protect them from redevelopment.
“We want ordinances that lock mobile home park zoning in place, so a park can't simply be bought and redeveloped into higher return housing,” Coe said.
Coe and other community leaders at the recent forum agreed that these kinds of proactive strategies and cross-sector collaboration aren’t just a useful roadmap to protect mobile home parks, but can be applied to other housing initiatives across the region.
The housing initiatives ripe for this kind of cross-sector collaboration that were brought up by speakers and attendees at the forum ranged from communitywide efforts to pass local lodging taxes and mill levies to support workforce housing, public-private housing developments, and greater regional coordination to deed-restrict more free-market homes.
Some, including former Roaring Fork Habitat for Humanity Director Scott Gilbert also called for a regular regional convening on affordable housing.
“There's a lot of people who do want to help — they love helping and don't know how,” Gilbert said.
In Long’s final remarks, she also encouraged more people to get involved in local housing programs and to show up to city council meetings in support of affordable housing efforts.
“Every time there's an affordable housing proposal at a council table, there is a line out the door in opposition — it's really difficult to ensure that we can have more affordable housing if there's opposition to every solution that's put on the table,” Long said. “So, [we need to be] thinking about that constructively and creatively, and talking to our neighbors about how to find ways to support affordable housing rather than being in opposition to it.”
