LocalNews
‘Sí, se pudo!’ How a marginalized community organized against a corporate buyout by Kirbie Bennett & Jamie Wanzek
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n uncertain and suspenseful haze hung over Westside Mobile Home Park on Thurs., March 31. That day, residents were awaiting news on their second offer to purchase the park, located about a mile west of town on Highway 160. Alejandra Chavez has been a park resident for 20 years and is an overseer of the community co-op seeking to buy the land. Surrounded in her home by generations of neighbors and families that Westside has housed for decades, Chavez waited for news. Sitting beside Chavez, a resident named Maria spoke of finally feeling safe and secure when she arrived at Westside after enduring constant violence and displacement in Mexico. “I can walk late at night, and I know nothing will happen to me. I can walk long distances, and I know I’ll come back home.” Maria continued, “After I moved here, I not only made neighbors and friends but family. And after everything I’ve been through, I feel blessed to be here.” As a community of predominantly working-class immigrants, many in the park can relate to these sentiments. While residents recounted memorable moments living in the park, Chavez received a phone notification. “I have to answer this – I think we might have some good news,” she said. Stefka Fanchi, CEO of Elevated Land Trust, relayed the news over Zoom. “It has been a really tough week,” Fanchi told residents, “but I have an update. And that is that we are buying the Westside Mobile Home Park.” The suspense turned to celebration as the families erupted in tears of joy and relief. They would no longer have to endure another corporate landlord or the fear of increased rents or displacement. Though the contract is currently in due diligence, after months of mobilizing, the residents of Westside have taken a major leap in taking collective control of their mobile park. “You have to fight no matter what,” Chavez said as the joy overwhelmed her. “Whatever we want to do in the future, if we keep together, then we’re going to go a long way.” Through Elevation Land Trust, a Denverbased nonprofit working to preserve afford-
Westside Mobile Home Park residents celebrate with laughter and tears after discovering their second offer had been accepted. Meanwhile, other Westside residents raised their fists, chanting, “Sí, se pudo!” (“Yes, it was possible.”)/ Photo by Jamie Wanzek able housing in Colorado, Westside secured public and private funds to help buy the park. “This is really an investment in the real estate itself so that it becomes a piece of public infrastructure,” Fanchi said. “A onetime investment is something that is still going to be serving the community three generations from now.” Scroogin’ Days before Christmas, on Dec. 20, 2021, the residents of Westside Mobile Home Park first received news that the park’s owner, the New York-based IQ Mobile Home, intended to sell the park. Thanks to the Mobile Home Park Act, signed into law by Gov. Jared Polis in June 2020, residents of mobile home parks must be given a 90-day advance warning and the chance to make a counter
offer to buy the park. Residents acted quickly, forming a cooperative to buy the land. Westside drew inspiration from Animas View Mobile Home Park, where residents successfully purchased their park for $14 million in 2021. According to the Colorado Department of Local Affairs, these Durango parks are two of four parks in the state that have successfully bought their properties under the new act. At Westside, the owner began negotiations with Harmony Communities, a California-based corporation that owns 33 parks across the county, last fall before the 90-day notice. A deal with Harmony was disconcerting – in 2021, it purchased a mobile home park in Golden and within days raised lot rents by 50% without making any changes to the deteriorating infrastructure,
Things that are good for your mental health: 1. Reading the Telegraph 2. Going to therapy Anne Hosey, MA, LPC Juniper Tree Mental Health 970-422-3107
8 n April 14, 2022
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according to the community watchdog group Golden United. Ben Waddell, an associate professor of sociology at Fort Lewis College who has been advocating and reporting on Westside, acquired documents from IQ that revealed the two corporations were set to close April 29. Harmony Communities was also pursuing the Triangle Trailer Park adjacent to Westside on Highway 160, according to the Colorado Department of Local Affairs. Corporate Investment Craze Harmony Communities and IQ Mobile’s efforts in Durango are part of a more significant trend in the West of real estate investors purchasing mobile home parks. The trend is problematic in that oftentimes it threatens an area’s dwindling affordable housing supply.
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