Voices

Struggling to support herself and her two daughters, Luz Galicia moved from her large house to a manufactured home. A year and a half later the park's landlord decided to sell the property, displacing 100 families. Luz now works to educate and empower park residents.

In 2005 a trailer slated for the dump was transported to Mapleton Mobile Home Park in Boulder and renovated there. Built by more than 50 CU Boulder students, the Trailer Wrap project held lessons for future project-based learning, including a CEDaR-led manufactured home renovation planned for this summer or fall, depending on the state of the pandemic.

After witnessing two neighbors become homeless when Vista Village's landlord refused to let the elderly women sell their manufactured homes, Matt Jensen became active in his community. Jensen has been a member of the Vista Village Community Association's board of directors for five years, including three of those years as president.

Isabel Sanchez is a grassroots community organizer and an urban farmer who has transformed Mapleton Mobile Home Park in Boulder to a community that follows sustainable principles and practices. Mapleton's rules and regulations now allow families to raise chickens, rabbits and bees, and today there are more than 45 organic gardens in the park.

Peggy Kuhn became an activist after two of her neighbors were threatened with eviction. The two Sans Souci Mobile Home Park residents were given four days to clean their decks, paint the exterior of their homes and to install grass in their yards. "This behavior seemed like senior abuse," said Kuhn, who organized neighborhood volunteers to help get the work done. Later Kuhn started an HOA and then became active in CoCOMHO, a statewide organization that helps mobile home residents understand their rights.

After a corporate owner purchased Sans Souci Mobile Home Park in unincorporated Boulder County and initiated a 12 percent annual lot rental per year, Michael Peirce became an activist. Now a project manager for the Colorado Coalition of Manufactured Home Owners (CoCoMHO), he talks about how CEDaR has helped the fledgling organization become organized, and how CoCoMHO's efforts helped to pass several bills that focus on the rights of Colorado's mobile home park residents.

When Dave Weil moved into Mapleton Mobile Home Park in the late 1990s, the 1963 manufactured home he purchased was in such poor condition it wasn't livable, he says. Weil, 61, immediately rolled up his sleeves and began upgrading the single-wide, 10 by 50 foot unit. More than 20 years later he's getting design help with his newest renovation, which will make his home more energy efficient, thanks to CEDaR.

In the middle of March 2020, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis issued a stay-at-home order to slow the pandemic, and like many small business owners, Dave Weil was caught in the middle. Weil shut down his thriving massage therapy business; by the following July he was still only seeing a few clients each week.