Residents look to raise money to save mobile home park in Westwood
It's hard enough to afford or rent one home in Denver, let alone an entire mobile home park.
But the residents of a mobile home park in Westwood are trying to raise $11.5 million to buy the land their homes sit on.
If they can't pull it off in the next three months, they can risk losing their homes.
The owner wants to sell the property because he has plans for retirement, but for people that live here this is their home and the fear of losing this space is real.
The community at the Capital Mobile Park home in Westwood is composed of 95% Latinx, immigrant families, disabled people, veterans, and elderly folks.
One of those residents fighting for their home is Armando Anguiano.
"This is my retirement home for my wife and I," Anguiano said.
For 23 years, Anguiano has called his unit, home. It is where him and his wife raised their kids and his grandchildren now visit.
"It makes me really sad the situation that we are in, but God-willing, we will stay here and we will keep fighting to stay here," said Anguiano.
The residents of all 76 homes in the lot are also working to keep their homes on the mobile home park's land.
For months now, they've been working with nonprofits and organizations such as Resident Owned Communities, to purchase it. But after they backed out due to a building code issue, residents are back to the drawing board.
Andrea Chiriboga-Flor, with 9to5 Colorado, is the project director for the legal program and has been helping lead this effort.
"They cut their contract in February and so we have been basically trying to figure out who can be an interim owner or who can also just help in general to give loans or grants in order to raise that funding," Chiriboga-Flor said.
Last month, residents received a notice for the opportunity to purchase the land.
Now, they have until August 17 to organize at least 51% of residents to agree to purchase the park and make an offer to the landlord.
"We don't have to have all the funding raised by then, but we are trying to secure at least a few loans so that we can show that to the landlord that we are really interested and that we have made some progress," Chiriboga-Flor said.
If residents are able to show they have secured some funding by August 17, the landlord will be required to give residents another 120 days to come up with the rest of the financing.
It's funding residents like, Armando, who are hoping to secure soon, so they don't have to leave their home.
Residents held a community meeting with a potential interim owner Thursday evening and voted on whether they would like to pursue this opportunity with this organization.
In the next couple of weeks the organization will decide if they can take this on.
In 2022, Colorado lawmakers passed a bill that requires someone selling a mobile home park to provide advance notice to residents and give the homeowners an opportunity to make an offer to buy the park.
