What's Wrong with a Trailer Park?

From my desk, I have a bird's eye view of all that is wrong with housing in Boulder County.  I live in Lyons and from my hillside perch I have an expansive vista of the town which stretches below me and to the northeast.  Looking up, I see the opposite hillside which is crowded with a tight row of 5000 square foot homes, built so close together it looks like neighbors could shake hands without leaving their living rooms.  Directly below me I see the confluence area, a low lying neighborhood of mostly older homes where the North St. Vrain and the South St Vrain rivers converge.  Not surprisingly, this was the area most devastated by the historic flooding in 2013.

Here's what we lost and here's what we need
Photo by Amanda Cronin

The story's a predictable and heartbreaking one.  The parts of town most affected by the flooding were the neighborhoods with the largest "affordable" housing stock.  These were the older, smaller and cheaper houses in town.  Lyons lost two trailer parks in the flood that housed over seventy families all told.  Sadly, these are the people who can't afford to come back.  Solutions to the ensuing housing crisis have been controversial.  A measure to turn public park land into a low income residential neighborhood split the town and was ultimately rejected by voters.  Many Lyons residents had concerns about the complexity and scale of the project, not to mention that the subsidized rent figures touted in the plan were still ridiculously expensive.  Most troubling, there was no guarantee that the people who lost their homes in the flood would be the ones returning.  Adding salt to these wounds was the fact that residents who owned and lost their mobile homes in the flood would now have to come back as renters.  

Maybe it’s time to back off of big solutions to big problems.  With stagnant wages and a shortage of affordable housing options, maybe it’s time, instead, to recast the American dream of home ownership.  Maybe the advent of the DIY Tiny House ethos can de-stigmatize living on a smaller scale.  One look at the housing market in Boulder County and suddenly "mobile home" doesn't seem like such a dirty word after all.  Mobile homes, or "manufactured housing" have long been a fixture of the American landscape. With the typical size of a mobile home ranging between 1000 and 2000 square feet, they offer enough room for a family. Tiny houses, on the other hand, are well, tinier. Most Tiny houses are under 300 square feet and are built on wheeled trailers making them way more mobile than any mobile home. People are more mobile than ever; why shouldn’t their houses be as well?  

Real Estate prices in Lyons have shut out all low income and quite a few middle income families to boot.  Housing prices determine where we live, whom we live with, where we work and how far we drive to get there.  Unfortunately, this is not unique to our area.  The lack of affordable housing is a major issue in many parts of the country, forcing municipalities to grapple with how they can make sure their most vulnerable residents aren’t priced clear out of town.  

How much does increased urbanization, population growth and lack of buildable land factor into the housing crisis? What about the social and environmental repercussions of a lack of affordable housing?  How will our towns and cities change when only the wealthy can afford to live there?  Moreover, how can our housing choices reflect the environmental imperatives of our time?  If we need to produce less waste and use less energy, how can we adapt our homes to fit this picture?  How do we address issues of urban sprawl?  I’m left with a lot of questions.  -A lot of questions and a row of 5000 square foot houses staring at me from the opposite hillside.  Something’s got to give.  Maybe small will be the new big.