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TRENDS Podcast: Mobile Home Residents Face Water Quality and Infrastructure Issues
The TRENDS podcast is a collaboration between the Community Foundation of Boulder County and KGNU. It dives deep into the community’s most pressing issues and explores the changes happening throughout Boulder County through the experiences of community members, especially those often rendered invisible by commercial media, to shed light on community challenges, solutions, and pathways forward for the county and the country.
https://objects-us-east-1.dream.io/kgnu-news/2019/10/10-3-19_TrendsPodcastEpisode1MobileHomeInfrastructure.mp3
“I feel like Boulder has a lot of protected areas, you know, and I feel like Boulder protects a lot of land, you know, I know a lot of open spaces, parks, so I feel like protecting someone’s home would be a great thing, you know?” — Adrian Duran.
In Boulder, the median home price has more than doubled during the past 15 years, and is almost one million dollars.
The rest of the county has seen sharp housing increases too. Longmont which has traditionally offered the cheapest housing in the county now sees the median price of a single family home at more than four hundred thousand dollars, nearly twice what it was 15 years ago.
Things aren’t much better for renters. Census data shows that more than half of renters in Boulder County spend more than a third of their income on housing costs. And there is one group that is at the intersection of home ownership and home renting. Those that are living in mobile home communities.
Mobile homes, or manufactured homes, are one of the last affordable housing options. There are 4 manufactured home communities in the city of Boulder and about 25 overall in the county and they are home to thousands of families. Analee Perez moved to the park when she was 2 years old. Her mother, Soledad, still lives there.
“It’s really nice. It’s really calm. It’s a great, we have a yard to play in.”
Orchard Grove is one of the four parks within Boulder City Limits. Analee had a happy childhood here. It is a strong community with neighbors helping neighbors and people looking out for each other. But residents have faced challenges.
“If Boulder has standards for water and sewer infrastructure for you know, just compensation in the event of a water leak, none of that will apply to parks that are not within Boulder. So there they’re left to be more vulnerable.” — Shay Castle.
“In the last few years, there’s been a lot of changes. Um, unpleasant changes. There’s been changes between, um, owners of the mobile home park and, um, landlords and a lot of instability. Um, the biggest problem that I can recall having in the last 29 years of living here is, when we had our water shut off, um, in February, so it was two weeks without water.”
The Orchard Grove park is privately owned by a Michigan-based company called Riverstone Communities. So, when the 1960s-era infrastructure failed earlier this year and the residents were left without water for days, Analee reached out to city officials.
“We were thinking, Oh, maybe, you know, a few hours. And then those few hours came 24 and then those 24 became longer and longer. And there’s plumbers working and digging up yards and it’s like we’re trying to locate the problem. And then, you know, then we went to, you know, w I guess the first hours is like, Hey, do you have water? No, I don’t have water. Do you? Oh, that’s weird. Oh, okay. And you know, once we knew we were having an issue with a water, um, I don’t know if anybody else did this, but I called the Boulder, the city of Boulder health department because we had been without water for more than 12 hours.”
Soledad,
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By TRENDS Archives - KGNU Community Radio
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The TRENDS podcast is a collaboration between the Community Foundation of Boulder County and KGNU. It dives deep into the community’s most pressing issues and explores the changes happening throughout Boulder County through the experiences of community members, especially those often rendered invisible by commercial media, to shed light on community challenges, solutions, and pathways forward for the county and the country.
https://objects-us-east-1.dream.io/kgnu-news/2019/10/10-3-19_TrendsPodcastEpisode1MobileHomeInfrastructure.mp3
“I feel like Boulder has a lot of protected areas, you know, and I feel like Boulder protects a lot of land, you know, I know a lot of open spaces, parks, so I feel like protecting someone’s home would be a great thing, you know?” — Adrian Duran.
In Boulder, the median home price has more than doubled during the past 15 years, and is almost one million dollars.
The rest of the county has seen sharp housing increases too. Longmont which has traditionally offered the cheapest housing in the county now sees the median price of a single family home at more than four hundred thousand dollars, nearly twice what it was 15 years ago.
Things aren’t much better for renters. Census data shows that more than half of renters in Boulder County spend more than a third of their income on housing costs. And there is one group that is at the intersection of home ownership and home renting. Those that are living in mobile home communities.
Mobile homes, or manufactured homes, are one of the last affordable housing options. There are 4 manufactured home communities in the city of Boulder and about 25 overall in the county and they are home to thousands of families. Analee Perez moved to the park when she was 2 years old. Her mother, Soledad, still lives there.
“It’s really nice. It’s really calm. It’s a great, we have a yard to play in.”
Orchard Grove is one of the four parks within Boulder City Limits. Analee had a happy childhood here. It is a strong community with neighbors helping neighbors and people looking out for each other. But residents have faced challenges.
“If Boulder has standards for water and sewer infrastructure for you know, just compensation in the event of a water leak, none of that will apply to parks that are not within Boulder. So there they’re left to be more vulnerable.” — Shay Castle.
“In the last few years, there’s been a lot of changes. Um, unpleasant changes. There’s been changes between, um, owners of the mobile home park and, um, landlords and a lot of instability. Um, the biggest problem that I can recall having in the last 29 years of living here is, when we had our water shut off, um, in February, so it was two weeks without water.”
The Orchard Grove park is privately owned by a Michigan-based company called Riverstone Communities. So, when the 1960s-era infrastructure failed earlier this year and the residents were left without water for days, Analee reached out to city officials.
“We were thinking, Oh, maybe, you know, a few hours. And then those few hours came 24 and then those 24 became longer and longer. And there’s plumbers working and digging up yards and it’s like we’re trying to locate the problem. And then, you know, then we went to, you know, w I guess the first hours is like, Hey, do you have water? No, I don’t have water. Do you? Oh, that’s weird. Oh, okay. And you know, once we knew we were having an issue with a water, um, I don’t know if anybody else did this, but I called the Boulder, the city of Boulder health department because we had been without water for more than 12 hours.”
Soledad,