"They are treated like chattel."
Yes, they most certainly are. Think about that angle of the current conversations on "deed-restricted" land use codes, "affordable" housing and "employee housing" from the construction, development, government and surrounding neighborhoods end.
"Anonymous" tips, indeed. Who benefits the most if those housing units go empty?
Great question.
Andrw Travers:
"The Regional Homeless Coalition, which focuses on homelessness from Aspen to Parachute, addressed the issue briefly Monday at its biannual meeting. Members discussed whether the housing authority may be contributing to homelessness in the Aspen area.
Aspen- and Pitkin County-based members of the group will meet again next week, in the hopes of formulating specific proposals for changes in the housing authority rules.
“I think we can articulate what our concerns are and productively move them forward to APCHA and the city and the county,” said Nan Sundeen, Pitkin County’s director of health and human services.
The Aspen City Council and Pitkin County commissioners oversee the housing rules, which are then administered by APCHA.
In February, the housing authority served Truscott resident Susan Johnson with an eviction notice for not being employed, and later upheld the eviction. In the second case, against Heidi Mines, who owns an APCHA home on East Hopkins Avenue, the board opted last month to grant a four-month eviction delay to give her time to find a job.
Both cases arose from anonymous tips to APCHA, which enforces compliance with housing rules through complaints. To qualify for local government affordable housing, residents must work a minimum of 29 hours per week in Pitkin County.
“That’s probably why people choose to break them, because the rules are broken,” said Vince Savage, director of the Aspen Homeless Shelter.
Savage expressed frustration with the housing rules and their narrow focus on housing employees.
“Is it a community for rich people and people willing to work 29 hours a week to serve them? Or is this a place that people can come to live?” Savage asked the group.
He compared the housing system to a college campus, where one can’t keep housing without staying in school, and characterized it as an exploitative 21st century feudalism.
“They’re treated like chattel,” Savage said of APCHA tenants......"
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