A big step toward accomplishing a major neighborhood project is to get to better know the people involved. That was one of the ideas behind a community cleanup day and after party at the Three Mile Mobile Home Park just outside of Glenwood Springs on Sunday, June 25.
In late April, the new Roaring Fork Community Development Corporation (RFCDC) — a division of the Carbondale-based social justice nonprofit organization MANAUS — closed on its purchase of the 20-space mobile home park located on Three Mile Creek near the Glenwood Park and Park West neighborhoods.
While the RFCDC is the intermediary landlord, the end goal is for the residents themselves to eventually take ownership of the park and preserve it for their long-term housing.
“In our community meetings, we began talking about a way to introduce the board of directors, and maybe having some sort of celebration,” said Brianda Cervantes of Glenwood Springs, a former Roaring Fork School District community liaison who was hired as property manager and community organizer at the mobile home park.
It was the residents who suggested having a community cleanup as a way to gather and get to know each other, and their new partners in the effort to become a resident-owned mobile home park.
“Everyone is so excited to see the park changing in a better way,” Cervantes said, adding that building community is important if the project is to be successful. “This is just one of the examples of everybody coming together for the same purpose, and to help see this park flourish.”
The RFCDC was formed for the purpose of working with residents and the owners of area mobile home parks to purchase the properties.
As with most commercial mobile home parks, the houses are owned by those who live in them, but the residents pay rent for the spaces. The resident-ownership model puts the land into the hands of the homeowners themselves, and secures their housing into the future.
In the case of Three Mile Mobile Home Park, the RFCDC purchased the park from its longtime owners, the Krueger family of Eagle County, for $2.4 million.
“Securing this purchase was an immense lift, and if not for considerate sellers, the Krueger family, whose parents owned and operated Three Mile Park for 30 years, and the passionate and flexible lending team at Impact Development Fund, it would not have happened,” Sydney Schalit, Executive Director of RFCDC and MANAUS, said in a news release at the time of closing.
Following the purchase, the group contracted with Common Good Management, a company designed to provide management services to community-owned mobile home parks in Colorado.
On Sunday, RFCDC staff and board members joined residents in sprucing up the place, clearing brush and filling a 30-yard trash container with some of the clutter that has collected around people’s homes over the years.
“This is a really good idea, because by doing this the park is looking better,” Elizabeth Vega, a nine-year resident of the park along with her husband, Monico Murillo, said in Spanish with some translation help from Cervantes. “By doing this, I get to know some of the neighbors that I didn’t know before. We’re building relationships and making it a better place to live.”
Felix Jimenez has been the semi-official park maintenance supervisor for most of the 35 years he’s lived at the Three Mile Park. He recalled bringing in a small trailer or two in past years to help residents clean up around their homes, but nothing quite to the scale of Sunday’s cleanup.
“Everybody knows each other, but we’re all working and busy so getting together is difficult,” Jimenez said. “It’s nice to have a reason and to get everybody to come out and talk to each other.” That’s especially important if the residents are to come together to put together a purchase plan, he added.
“Not everybody has completely wrapped their mind around this, and the gravity of what we’ve done here,” Jimenez said. “If people feel a little more glued together, we can work to make this happen.”
Manaus/RFCDC board member Art Williams of Carbondale also joined in the cleanup effort along with other board members.
“When I joined the board in September, I had no idea how this was going to shape up, but it’s awesome to be on this side of it,” he said. “It’s been fascinating to be in a room with a lot of open-mindedness, so we’re hopeful this is going to become a reality for them.”
Following the cleanup effort, residents gathered at the Vega/Murillo home for a catered meal from Carbondale’s La Placita Carniceria y Taqueria, along with some homemade tamales and other treats provided by the residents.
Residents and volunteers with the Roaring Fork Community Development Corporation organized a cleanup day at the 3 Mile Mobile Home Park outside Glenwood Springs on Sunday, June 25, filling a 30 yard dumpster. Photo by John Stroud