Housing Study

Purpose

A group of San Luis Valley organizations, businesses, and leaders have come together to work on a solution for the lack of housing and the current high housing costs versus the low wages of our area. The San Luis Valley (Valley) is made up of six counties including Alamosa, Conejos, Costilla, Mineral, Rio Grande, and Saguache. Each county, and community within, has a different aspect of life depending on its locations therefore we cannot treat them all the same.

This group found an inequity of past studies, smaller communities with less funds often did not have studies completed, and came together to remedy this issue by working together to fund a study in areas often forgotten. For the 1st time a housing market study and action plan will be completed for the entire Valley to assess the current housing stock and housing needs. A deeper dive will take place in 14 small communities that either have never had a study or who’s studies are over 10 years old to help determine the greatest location of future housing to meet the needs.

These communities include by county: Towns separated by “/” have been combined due to size, location, and population makeup

Alamosa: Hooper/Mosca

Conejos: Antonito and La Jara

Costilla: San Luis and Fort Garland/Blanca

Mineral: Creede

Rio Grande: Del Norte and South Fork

Saguache: Crestone and Saguache Moffat and Center

The cost to complete the entire study, in four phases, is $272,000. This cost includes $65k for the county study, $35,000 for a valley action plan, and up to $10k for community outreach. The cohort has also approved the expenses of $32,000 for add on tasks like tracking homelessness needs, looking into mobile home parks, tracking seasonal labor housing issues, and further analytics. The deep dive into the 14 communities selected will cost $120,000 and is currently the only portion of the study not fully funded.

The City of Alamosa, the hub of the Valley, will perform a deeper dive into the city through their own study which will complement the valley-wide study, therefore, our cohort is working closely with the city's team. The City of Monte Vista is not being included at this time due to the vast number of affordable housing units and a recent study being completed. The cohort worked to bring the data to those communities we felt had would have the greatest impact and need for more housing.

Donations and foundation grants have been received bringing in $90k from the Colorado Health Foundation, $50k from CHFA, $10k, from SLV Health and $13,623 so far from jurisdictions included in the study. Because of strong partnerships in housing with the City of Alamosa and the SLV Housing Coalition, $10,000 of The Colorado Health Foundation grant was issued to the city as the cohort's contribution to their study, thus giving us access to the report. Outreach is happening currently to every county and every community selected to help us obtain a DOLA matching funds grant with the Town of Center as the jurisdictional agent. If awarded this grant will provide $60,000 of the $120,000 community cost if every community involved donates a minimum of $500. The cohort did not want to make this study a burden and set a maximum donation of $3,000 for these towns and counties. The remaining funds are being raised through community outreach and requests to local and state foundations for financial assistance.

Employer Survey

In order to get multiple perspectives we are starting our process with an employer survey. This survey will ask employers/businesses how housing affects their businesses and employees. The goal of this survey is to have at least one business from every industry with 40% of the jobs around the valley sharing their stories. This survey will be live from September 21st to November 5th 2020 at the link below:

http://sgiz.mobi/s3/Alamosa-and-San-Luis-Valley-Employer-Survey