HOUSING

for tiny home standards, including allowing people to reside in them long term, said state Rep. Cathy Kipp, a Democrat from Fort Collins.

e result will be more viable housing options for Coloradans priced out of the traditional housing market, Kipp said.

“We have such a housing a ordability crisis,” said Kipp, who cosponsored House Bill 1242 during the 2022 legislative session. “We are giving people another option to where to live.” e bill directed the state Division of Housing to draft rules, including a standard for permanent residency of tiny homes, that took e ect July 1. e new law calls for standards to connect tiny homes to utilities, including water, sewer, natural gas and electricity.

In Larimer County, o cials will treat tiny homes like other structures that had not been permitted for fulltime occupancy, but set a path for prospective owners toward getting a building permit, said Eric Fried, the county’s chief building o cial.

Building permits allowing permanent residency will be granted if an applicant complies with zoning, setbacks, ood plain and other land use code rules, gets certi ed by a Colorado professional engineer, master electrician and master plumber, and otherwise follows rules for bedroom emergency escape and rescue openings, sanitation, ventilation and wild re hazards, Fried said.

Local governments will establish their own rules for tiny homes, he said.

“I assume some local governments will adopt similar rules, some may prohibit non-state approved tiny homes entirely, and others may be more lenient than us. It will be up to each authority having jurisdiction,” Fried said in an email.

Some cities and towns in Colorado have already made tiny home living “legal,” including El Paso and Park

“We’re hoping that some of these lessons, of what works for making sure that SNAP has the best impact it can, will be taken up in the Farm Bill,” Rose explained. “To ensure SNAP can feed people as best it can and is accessible to people.”

Hunger Free Colorado works with community partners across the state to get more people who qualify for food assistance enrolled. But after pre-pandemic SNAP work reporting requirements were reinstated, at least half a million Americans are expected to lose food assistance, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. An additional 750,000 are at risk after the debtceiling negotiations raised the age cap for reporting requirements to counties, Durango, Leadville, Lyons and Woodland Park, Laubach said. He said in a news release that he backed the state legislation because it will make tiny home living a “more viable option.

“ e legislation will protect consumers by setting standards for tiny home building and manufacturing in Colorado,” Laubach said. “ e legislation will also provide a path for counties to recognize tiny homes as permanent dwellings and open up nancing opportunities.”

Longmont’s Veterans Community Project depends on donations and sweat equity from 90 community partners. Many volunteers show up in the mornings to put nishing touches on the tiny home village, which is set to accept residents by the end of the year, Seybold said.

Many of the people who will be housed in the village now are living in cars, shelters or are sleeping on couches in a friend’s house, Seybold said. “ ey really are living in fairly tenuous situations. ere is not a lot of stability, which hurts them when they are trying to get on their feet, get permanent homes or jobs.” e village rests on 2 acres west of the Boulder County Fairgrounds and includes community spaces such as a re pit for veterans to gather around. e group also recently opened a 3,000-square-foot community center, where veterans will be able to see case managers to work on problems with health, employment, nancial stability and social isolation, Seybold said. e tiny home village is being developed alongside attached duplexes for Habitat for Humanity and 110 single-family homes and 149 townhomes as part of the 66-acre Mountain Brooks subdivision. e neighborhood is located south of Rogers Road and west of Hover Street. e venture between the city of Longmont, Veterans Community and HMS e majority of SNAP participants are children and people with disabilities, and Rose pointed out most people who can work, do. She added having to ll out paperwork documenting at least 20 hours of work or training activities per week does nothing to help people nd or maintain employment, it just makes the program more costly to administer.

Most will stay up to a year before they strike out on their own, she said. ey will have case managers working with them once they leave.

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“Taking away someone’s food does not make it easier to hold down a job, or go to that job interview,” Rose contended. “It just creates more red tape for people to access the basic resources that they need.”

In 2017, SNAP added more than $700 million to local Colorado economies, with an overall economic the builder of the subdivision — is the rst in the country to integrate the tiny homes with a high-end developer of single family homes. “A lot of those homes will go for $500,000 to $1 million,” Seybold said. “But that is something we want. To let our veterans be part of an overall community.”

Last year, the Longmont City Council voted unanimously to waive about $189,582 in development fees for the tiny home village. It was an easy decision, Waters, the Longmont councilman, said, since the work impact of $1.25 billion, but the state loses more than $230 million each year in grocery sales by not having all eligible residents enrolled. Rose noted back in 2019, just 59% of Coloradans eligible for SNAP got assistance.

“With the 2021 numbers, we’ve jumped up to 73%,” Rose acknowledged. “ at is a great improvement. But there are still 27% of our lowest-income Coloradans not accessing the program, so there is still a lot of room for us to continue this growth.” e Public News Service story via e Associated Press’ Storyshare, of which Colorado Community Media is a member. done there to get veterans back into society is likely to bring bene ts in the future. is story is from e Colorado Sun, a journalist-owned news outlet based in Denver and covering the state. For more, and to support e Colorado Sun, visit coloradosun.com. e Colorado Sun is a partner in the Colorado News Conservancy, owner of Colorado Community Media.

“I think it was a small investment that is going to reap bene ts later on,” Waters said.