Leaning against spare tires or sitting in lawn chairs inside the maintenance garage at the Milner Mobile Home Park, homeowners listened intently Tuesday evening to a proposal to become a resident-owned neighborhood to stabilize their housing future.

The homeowners — including retirees, construction workers, home cleaners, a school bus driver, a bookkeeper, a nurse and a music teacher — listened to a presentation from the Yampa Valley Housing Authority that could help the owners manage the logistics to buy the park. The asking price by the owner is $8 million. That price is more than double the $3.8 million that the 10-acre park sold for in 2021, according to Nicole Nanio, park manager and resident.

In a letter dated July 24, MHS Parks, which owns the Milner Mobile Home Park and is based in San Antonio, provided a notice of intent to list the park for sale. According to state regulations through Colorado’s Mobile Home Park Oversight Program, the letter kicked off a 120-day deadline for the homeowners to offer to buy the park.

Brent Smith, the representative for MHS Parks, did not return phone or email messages.

“It’s a very uncertain time for us right now,” said Misty Carter, a homeowner who helped organize the meeting. “We can learn together as a community and get through this as a community.”

The meeting was attended by more than 50 people, and several residents voiced concern that if the investor-owner sells the park at $8 million to another for-profit entity, their lot rents could increase dramatically, making rent unaffordable for many of the residents with fixed or tight incomes and who also may be paying off a home mortgage.

After the park sold in 2021, lot rents increased from $500 when there was an on-site owner to $735 after the purchase and then to $925 on Aug. 1, Nanio said.

Jason Peasley, executive director of the Yampa Valley Housing Authority, told the homeowners Tuesday that although the park is outside housing authority boundaries, the nonprofit has stepped up to help the owners with advice, research and possible grants.

“The target scenario that we are working toward would be bringing in grants to buy down the price to the point where you don’t have to increase lot rents,” Peasley said.

By Wednesday, 36 of the 40 homeowners had committed to moving forward with an official request for assistance from nonprofit Thistle Community Housing to try to become a resident-owned community, Carter said. Based in Boulder, Thistle is part of ROC USA, which offers financing at lower interest rates and advises park leadership committees for at least 10 years for a fee of up to 3.5% of the purchase cost, Thistle Director Tim Townsend said. ROC has helped nine parks in Colorado become resident-owned including ones in Durango, Leadville and Boulder.

Some Milner residents have reached out to the park owner hoping for a lower asking price to sell the park to the existing 40 owners, and Colorado regulations require the owner to consider a resident-led offer in good faith.

Peasley warned about the need to move forward quickly because once the property officially goes on the market, if an outside offer of $8 million or more is submitted, then park owners would have to match that offer.

The current $925 lot rent rate at Milner ranks near the middle of mobile home lot rents in Routt County, which range as low as $450 including water, sewer, trash pickup and snow removal for some lots in parks owned by the housing authority. On the higher end of lot rents, Dream Island charges up to $1,175 and West Acres up to $1,375.

The housing authority has helped out mobile home parks in recent years when the nonprofit purchased the 27-unit Whitehaven mobile home park in west Steamboat Springs in 2022. That purchase was assisted through contributions from two anonymous donors and favorable loans and kept lot rental rates steady at $685, Peasley said.

The housing authority is working to upgrade an aging water and sewer system at Whitehaven and then will query residents to see if they also want to become a resident-owned community, Peasley noted.

The Milner homeowners know they have a lot of work ahead including creating a cooperative with a board of directors. Peasley said he is assisting with research and due diligence to determine the health of park infrastructure such as water and gas lines to inform the process and offer price.

Park resident and meeting organizer Keilty Briggs said the sale notice has been stressful for residents, and she is feeling “anxious but positive.”

“I’m doing my deep breathing every day,” Briggs said. “It’s what you are thinking about when you go to bed every night and what you think about when you wake up.”