Partial victory for Colorado mobile home park residents seeking to buy park

Residents who started a cooperative to purchase a mobile home park in Littleton have pieced together enough financing to buy the property, but that's only part of their mission.

"We still need to raise a million-and-a-half dollars to ensure that every single person in this park does not have to move," said the cooperative's operations manager Sandy Cook.

The 129 residents of the over-55 park are seeking to purchase the property after a Utah-based corporation offered to buy the property from its current owners for $18 million. It would have been a tidy profit for the owners, who purchased 18 acres in 2016 for $7.4 million, then split off several acres to sell separately. 

The Meadowood Mobile Home Park property is now a little under 13 acres with 92 units. The purchasing of mobile home parks has become a hot topic in Colorado where corporations have noted rising values and have come in, purchased properties and raised rents, forcing some out.

"Everyone has a right to be able to live in their homes. To be comfortable in their homes. To be safe in their homes and know that they have money left over to buy food," said Cook.

Colorado law allows residents to make their own bid for mobile home park property that is being sold. It enabled Meadowood's residents to vote to create a cooperative and seek funding. Most have come through low-interest loans which have been obtained with the help of local and state government assistance that Cook credits. But even at low interest rates, the park has a problem. The intention was to buy the property and maintain it so residents could stay. Mortgage payments on that kind of debt will mean rents paid for site rental by residents, who own their own mobile homes, could rise.

"It would break everybody's heart that is on this board of directors to lose anyone in this park," said Cook.

Residents like 77-year-old Tom Mikesell would be faced with hardship with higher rent. He subsists on Social Security alone and has worried about corporate ownership.

"We're right on the edge of either being out of the park or staying in the park and living a normal life after retirement," said Mikesell. If rents rise he'd be left with little after utilities and food.

"That would lead me with probably $100 left a month- if that," he explained.

The neighbors in the park help each other.

"I could call 20 different people in this park and they'd be there," said Gary Van Iwaarden, who suffers from COPD. He lies in a well-cared-for home with his wife, decorated with butterfly images on the outside. "Twenty different people in this park can call and I'd be there," he said.

The park's low rents allow people who might otherwise need government services for housing to be housed. The cooperative has sought help in defraying the cost of purchasing the park but has had little luck with grants outside of an $850,000 grant that consists of $100,000 in private funding and $750,000 through Arapahoe County. Cook credits local and state governments with helping them seek out the low-interest loans that have enabled their purchase offer. They hope to close in January. But like any property owner, more money down lowers the cost of the mortgage. If the mortgage is too high, the cooperative's plans to keep rents from rising could be in danger.

"We do not want to lose anyone at all in this park. And the only way we can do that is to raise another million-and-a-half," said Cook. There's been little money to be found among agencies and non-profits that work to create housing or prevent homelessness.

"Existing housing is being ignored. To the point that it is putting a lot of people out of their homes. And where do we end up when we're out of our homes?" asked Cook. The answer, she believes, is that those forced out would be in need of government services.

"We're not a burden on society, we're not a burden on the county, we're not a burden on anyone. We take care of ourselves and yes we do need help from time to time," she said. "You see housing authorities building new homes, building new apartment buildings, buying and doing that and refurbishing. And yet I believe they're ignoring the existing housing we have."

The cooperative is looking for help to put more down and reduce its debt. That could help them keep the people they help at times with assistance. They are also willing to share with other parks how they got to the point of planning to close on the property in January, beating out a corporation that sought to own the park.

"We need to be a model for every mobile home park here in Colorado. If we can do it, you can do it too," said Cook.