Hayden Secures $2.5M Loan to Save Pinyon Pines Mobile Home Park

“The peace of mind in knowing that we won’t ever be forced out of our own home is everything.”

Julia Roskam didn’t just say those words; she lived them, standing in the driveway of her mobile home while the rest of Pinyon Pines held its breath. For more than a year, the 63-home park on Hayden’s edge was a place of suspended animation, where residents watched the "For Sale" sign like hawks, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Now, the Town of Hayden has secured a $2.5 million philanthropic loan from the Yampa Valley Community Foundation, a decisive move that buys stability for a community representing roughly 7% of the town’s population.

It’s a stark contrast to the uncertainty of 2025, when an unsolicited offer valued at around $8 million threatened to upend the quiet rhythm of life in the park. Locals knew the drill. Across Colorado, mobile home parks have been reshaped by outside investors who buy the land, not the homes, and then jack up the lot rent. Here, the average was about $600 a month. Outside buyers could easily push that closer to $1,000 or more, a steep climb for retirees, service workers, and families living on fixed incomes who had already invested in their houses but not necessarily the land beneath them.

The pressure was immediate. Under Colorado law, residents had a 120-day window to organize, and they moved with a urgency that felt less like civic duty and more like survival. They formed a cooperative, gathered signatures, and tried to compete with the deep pockets of outside investors. But they hit a wall. The park sits in a 100-year floodplain, and the infrastructure — aging roads, water lines, sewer systems — needed millions in upgrades. The town estimated between $2.5 million and $3.5 million just to bring the utilities up to code, a sum too high for a resident-led purchase to handle alone.

So, the town stepped in. The newly created Hayden Municipal Housing Authority became the vehicle, taking over the purchase rights from the resident cooperative and securing the financing needed to close the deal. It’s a public-private partnership that keeps the housing affordable, ensuring that the people who live here can stay here.

“No one should have to face housing insecurity, especially when you own your own home,” Roskam said, noting that the support from the town and the various lenders was the only way the purchase could happen. For her and her husband, it means staying in Routt County, raising their family in the same valley they’ve called home, without the looming threat of a rent hike forcing them out.

This isn’t just about one park. It’s about the broader fight for housing security on the Western Slope, a struggle that just gained momentum when the Colorado legislature passed several bills aimed at increasing protections for mobile home park residents, legislation led in part by local lawmakers. The Pinyon Pines deal is a tangible result of that political will, a specific victory that keeps a slice of the community intact.

The loan is part of a broader package assembled by the YVCF’s Housing Accelerator Fund, designed to maintain affordability long after the initial purchase is complete. You can feel the relief in the streets of Hayden, where the uncertainty that hung over the park like a summer storm has finally broken. The roads are still there, the water still runs, and the homes are still theirs.