Venezuelan migrants search for a home in Colorado's high country
As hundreds of thousands of migrants from Venezuela escape hyperinflation within their own country, some of them have taken to the mountain towns of the Roaring Fork Valley in Colorado as their sanctuary.
The small town of Carbondale is currently working with a group of approximately 80 migrants who are there looking for work. Most are sleeping in cars in the cold until they are able to find better options for shelter.
A nonprofit, 3rd Street Center, has been kind enough to offer them the gym to stay in at night, but that is not a permanent solution, nor is it a comfortable one without bathrooms, showers, or a kitchen.
Asdrubal Aborado and Wilson Jose Remerez Cadabajo have similar stories. Both came from Venezuela looking for a better life for themselves and their families. Both have can-do attitudes and are willing to take on any kind of work in order to help provide for their families. Both know the kind of burden that many people seeking shelter can have on a community and do not take that lightly. When asked how can people help them, they had the same answer.
"With work," the pair said, sitting on the back of a U-Haul truck.
A local Carbondale resident was kind enough to hire them to help them move in exchange for cash.
"We don't want to be a charge to this community, to be a burden," one said.
"We don't want to be an obligation to these people, an extra responsibility, all we need is a job. With a job we have everything," said another.
Aborado said within his group, he has workers with all kinds of different experience.
"Among us there are carpenters, plumbers, painters, remodelers, they can do anything," he said. "I have colleges who are civil engineers, car mechanics, industrial engineer with us, we just need a job."
This isn't just about their own survival, it's also about their families who are still back in their home country. Things have gotten so rough it's hard to feed people on a job's standard pay there.
"A standard salary for Venezuela would be equivalent to $10 a month," Aborado said "If I buy a sack of flour, you don't buy cheese, if you buy cheese, you don't buy the meat."
Part of the reason they are in Carbondale in the first place is they ran out of days at the Denver shelters. People in the group heard there might be work for people like them near Aspen, so they pooled their money and purchased cars, and drove up. Those cars are now operating as their homes, where they keep everything they own. If they are no longer able to stay in the gym at night, they will have to sleep in the cars, which has been a miserable experience so far.
"The first time we saw snow we were in Denver and it hit hard, we spent all day and night with the car running," Cadabajo said. "In God's name it will be solved when the snow comes, hopefully we find a job and have a place to stay."
Carbondale's Mayor Ben Bohmfalk said while they don't even have a homeless shelter to help populations like this, they are a community of immigrants themselves. While they're not even sure how they are going to handle this many people, they are going to try, and hope to receive help from neighboring county governments and the state, although so far they are alone in this effort to support them. Bohmfalk said they are hopeful they can find solutions for these folks, but would be simply overwhelmed if more folks looking for help showed up at their door.
