Facing a staffing “crisis” due to a lack of affordable housing in Northwest Colorado, 14th Judicial District Attorney Matt Karzen and county commissioners are re-evaluating how to recruit and retain young prosecutors in Routt and Moffat counties.

An early June letter from Karzen to Routt, Moffat and Grand County commissioners states that Karzen’s office is in a “crisis situation.”

According to the letter, the DA’s office was operating with six attorneys to cover the district, with four positions open. The letter further states that the attorneys currently working for the district are spread thin.

During an Aug. 25 Routt County commissioners’ work session, Karzen said that since the June letter, a new full-time attorney in Grand County would start with his office on Sept. 1. Another attorney also has accepted a position but is not scheduled to start until February.

Karzen’s letter points to the Northwest Colorado housing crisis as the culprit for the lack of staffing, noting that “multiple” potential hires declined an offer because they could not find affordable housing.

“… Priorities are suffering because all six of us are doing all we can to simply manage the cases we have appropriately — a task which requires every one of us to consistently put in 50-plus-hour weeks at minimum, just on case management,” the letter states. “I can assure you the current situation is not sustainable, so I am writing to notify you of a solution I intend to pursue.”

The letter offers a solution to the hiring issue through the proposed leasing of “one or two modest but comfortable apartments” using funding previously allocated for salaries, avoiding an overall budget increase. The Routt, Moffat and Grand boards of county commissioners are responsible for allocating funding to the DA’s office.

“We can’t chase housing costs with salary dollars,” said Karzen during the Aug. 25 work session. “There’s just not enough.”

“Most entry-level attorneys we might attract are going to be single and young, and thus not necessarily prioritizing owning a full single-family home, so this type of ‘one stop shopping’ for shorter-term housing is exactly what they need,” the letter continues.

During the meeting, Karzen told commissioners the 5th Judicial District, which includes Eagle, Summit, Lake and Clear Creek counties, implemented a similar solution to staffing and housing difficulties and saw success.

Karzen noted that the housing crisis could be viewed as rooted in Routt County, particularly in Steamboat Springs, but argued that many young professionals prefer living closer to places with plenty of social opportunities.

“No housing is cheap, but it’s a unique individual that wants that quiet lifestyle that you can have in Moffat County,” said Karzen during the commissioners meeting. “In my experience, most young people — late 20s, coming out of law school — want more of a social scene like (Steamboat Springs), or Fraser, Winter Park or Granby.”

While navigating housing issues, the DA’s office still persists in recruitment. Karzen added that by March, the office could be fully staffed, but noted that Moffat County is the most desperate for staffing.

Routt County Commissioner Tim Redmond mentioned the 8th Street Townhomes in Craig — an affordable housing project with 20 two- and three-bedroom units reserved for local workers — as a potential option for the DA’s office, noting that the property is “having trouble getting people interested.”

Karzen said he would be “wide open” to the prospect of the DA’s office owning a piece of property dedicated to housing attorneys as a part of its compensation package, but said purchasing property in Hayden may be more logical for young attorneys wanting access to Steamboat.

With only six attorneys, Karzen said the caseloads across the three counties in the district have remained relatively the same in the last year, except for an increase in traffic cases due to increased enforcement. 

“I cannot overstate that we are now in a crisis situation with attorney staffing due to housing costs, and that is a problem we need to get solved,” Karzen’s letter states. “We are already forced to make difficult triage decisions on some of the high volume of low-level status offenses coming into one of our county offices, and if the situation is not improved soon, we will face drastic and more difficult choices in terms of the prosecution services we have the capacity to provide, and that is not a place the communities of the 14th Judicial District want to be.”

Moving forward, a potential funding solution could be voted on during an Oct. 7 joint meeting between the Routt, Moffat and Grand county commissioners.