Yes, Pagosa Springs has changed somewhat, during my nearly 30 years living here.
Several new churches have sprouted up, for example. Mainly Christian churches, some of which teach salvation through grace, and some of which teach salvation through good works and an effort to love your neighbor.
Most of the older commercial building located throughout downtown have received facelifts over those three decades. A few still look pretty much like they did in 1993: the Pagosa Bar… Happy Trails… the Metropolitan Hotel building (although the Liberty Theatre, downstairs, in in the middle of its own facelift.) Some of the homes downtown have also freshened up their exteriors, or been torn down.
Other changes? Our local governments have become rather fabulously funded through various taxes, compared to 30 years ago. The Archuleta County government, for example, received about $1.4 million from sales tax collections in 1996. This year, the County expects to receive about $7 million.
That’s a 500% increase, fueled in part by inflation, in part by population growth, and in part by the arrival of Walmart and other businesses.
I don’t have historical data for County property tax collections, that far back, but in 2004, the County collected about $2.8 million in property taxes. This year will look more like $6.3 million. An increase of about 225% — very little of which is due to inflation, population growth, or the arrival of Walmart. It’s been mainly due to skyrocketing real estate prices. A common phenomenon, in many American communities.
A host of problems — some new, some old and familiar — have been battering our little town recently. Selfish entitlement, for one. An old and familiar problem — as old and familiar as the human species, I suppose.
But the ‘opposite’ of selfish entitlement also exists here in Pagosa Springs. How shall we label it? Community spirit? Altruism? Magnanimity? Unselfish non-entitlement? Brotherly love?
I had the privilege of sitting down with Lori Hendricksen and Paul Lehmann last week. Mr. Lehmann is the board president for Archuleta County Habitat for Humanity; Ms. Hendricksen is the organization’s executive director.
For nearly 30 years, Habitat for Humanity has been constructing single family homes in Archuleta County — usually, one home each year — for families who might otherwise continue to struggle to find housing here in Pagosa. Each home is made possible by dozens of local and out-of-town volunteers… and by ‘sweat equity’ coming from each future homeowner… and by a US Department of Agriculture loan program aimed at facilitating homes in rural communities.
Habitat had planned to build Home Number 28 last year, but the COVID pandemic made it too risky for volunteers, and staff, and the aspiring family, to work as a crew in close proximity. It’s possible Home 28 will be built this summer, if the traveling crews of Habitat volunteers — a national group of RV owners known as “Care-A-Vanners” — are allowed by Habitat International to engage in projects this summer.
(The Habitat International website shows the Care-a-Vanner sign-ups for “Pagosa Springs 2021” as “full”. Fingers crossed.)
Ms. Hendricksen summarized our local Habitat situation — a situation that’s not entirely pleasant.
“We are accepting applications for the 2022 build, and we’re hoping that we’re actually going to be able to build two homes in 2022. But as you’ve probably heard, construction costs are just going crazy. And we’re trying to deal with coordinating our USDA construction loan with deliveries and purchases with local contractors.
“It’s a logistical opportunity to learn.” she laughed.
“I don’t know how long prices will continue to go up, of if they will level off. Prices never come back down, right?
“So that just makes it more and more difficult to build affordable housing — and maybe lumber and stick-built houses are not our future — to try and get more affordable inventory onto the market. Because as you know, the people that make the community run aren’t currently able to live here. I don’t want us to turn into Aspen or Vail, where our workforce — the families, with the kids in school — they can’t live close to where they work.”
Mr. Lehmann would like to see Habitat expand beyond single family homes and start building multi-family units, but one of the missing puzzle pieces is affordable vacant land in places where multi-family projects are allowed. Vacant property is particularly high-priced within the Town limits.
“The only reason we’re able to build this year, within the Town of Pagosa, is because the family already owns the lot. So she said, ‘Yes, I own the lot; I will bring that to the table.’ So that’s why we’re trying to build on it for her, this summer.”
Ms. Hendricksen:
“She obtained the lot years ago, — a small lot, for an very reasonable price — but she was getting to the point where she didn’t believe she would ever be able to build a house because of the cost of building, especially these last couple of years.
“So it’s interesting. This year we’re dealing with a family that has always dreamed and told themselves, ‘We’re going to have a house of our own someday.’
“The family that we worked with in 2019 — a wonderful family, too — but they never dreamed that they would ever have a house.
“That’s something we find with Habitat; every family is different. And when they realize that they can really own their own home, and it allows them to know their rent is never going to go up, that they’re not going to have to move, that they’ve got some stability for their kids… it makes such a difference in their lives.
“Trying to get that across to people within the community… that, you know, our families work hard for these homes. They have to qualify for a mortgage; they have to put in sweat equity; they have to take home buyer education… the work that they have to do is as much, if not more, than someone who has a higher income.
“And these families are working; they’ve got dependable income… I think people sometimes have the impression that these are families that Habitat just figures out how to give a home to.
“That is not the case,” she laughs.
Read Part Ten…