THE BOTTOM RAIL

by: Verbal Shredwright

It's New Year's Resolution time.. you know… NEW YEAR... NEW YOU time. So, how about a new approach too? It's no secret that housing has been a huge challenge facing almost every mountain resort community for as long as one can remember. And, in spite of both good ideas and good intentions the challenges facing the middle-class who make our resort communities work for everyone year-round continue to get worse year after year. From exploding down payments and interest rates to deed restrictions, income limitations and housing lotteries there are no shortage of hurdles and pitfalls.

One idea involves accessing select tracks of federal land in western states like Colorado where large portions are national forest, etc. This offers a potential opportunity to create some affordable housing. Still, the idea also has detractors who want to protect the land from development even if it happend to be adjacent to resorts and communities who desperately need the housing. Even then this has its limitations. If the objective is to address the enormous missing middle-class housing gap. Typically, government benefit programs have income limitations where middle-class earners simply do not qualify for help.

This leaves many of the essential workerforce like teachers, nurses and other middle-class managers without appropriate housing. There should be a distinction between affordable housing and appropriate housing... and it should not be that difficult to identify compromises in communities that care about the quality of services for residents and visitors year-round. Where the problem is and remains is with those who fail to see residents and a year-round community, but instead only see a seasonal destination or corporate revenue center. Although resort companies only care about maximizing their profits...  communities like Aspen, Breckenridge, Telluride and more existed before the resorts sharing their names.

Recent data from endhomeless.org exposed the disturbing truth. Between 2007–2018, the number of individuals with patterns of chronic homelessness had declined by 27%. However, between 2019 and 2023, this trend reversed, and the number of individuals experiencing chronic homelessness has increased beyond the 2007 levels. Regardless of politics this is simple supply and demand economics. If you have increased demand for housing the cost of housing goes up. If the government builds housing it typically has low income requirements that disqualify this option for the missing middle-class earners.

While local politicians believe they're doing a good job the facts clearly reveal the opposite, and not just in the mountains but nationwide. The latest state-to-state migration flow statistics continue to show Colorado is no longer one of the top destinations in the nation. The most recent data from the U.S. Census demonstrates that in the early 2020s, Colorado is gaining more people through international migration than domestic migration. The state is gaining only a fraction of the domestic migration it used to. Missing are solutions for middle-class professonals resort communities rely on and need to retain.

SOURCES: 

State of Homelessness: 2024 Edition - endhomelessness.org

Chronically Homeless - National Alliance to End Homelessness

2023 Colorado Domestic Migration Data