Despite violations against mobile park, policies exploiting residents remain

In a follow-up to a CBS News Colorado community investigation first published in July 2023, advocates claim practices at a mobile home park in the Centennial State have continued to exploit the families with lower incomes who have lived there for more than a year, despite a state agency citing the park’s owner with several violations. 
The park in question is the Foxridge Farm Mobile Home Park on Colfax, just east of the E-470 and I-70 interchange in Arapahoe County. 
In 2023, CBS News Colorado’s Kati Weis spoke with several concerned residents at the park about a host of complaints they had – some people so upset, that they staged a protest at the park. 
Following that reporting, Colorado’s Mobile Home Oversight Program began investigating those concerns, and earlier this year, issued several violations against the owner of the park – a company called Ascentia. 
But residents like Ana Baez say little has changed.
“It really is very difficult,” Baez said in an interview with CBS News Colorado translated from Spanish. “Even though we are living in a mobile home park, we deserve to live with dignity.”
Most residents across Colorado living in parks like Foxridge Farm own their mobile home, but lease the land it sits on.
While maintenance and park upkeep has improved since last year, Baez says the real problems remain: parking policies she claims are aggressive and discriminate against the park’s lower-income families – policies that she said eliminated free street parking, charged monthly fees for extra parking spaces, and charged additional fees for visitor parking.
“We as Latinos are used to having family reunions, but this past year I couldn’t have the reunion with my children that we have every year because there was no parking for them to come and see us,” Baez said. 
Documents obtained by CBS News Colorado allege the state determined Ascentia violated Colorado laws by implementing those parking policies, and required Ascentia to reinstate free parking on at least one side of the street.
Yolanda Cosío enjoyed living at the park for 11 years with her husband and three children, who are now young adults, but she says the parking issues became too much of a burden this year, finally forcing her family to move in May. 
“It was very stressful,” Cosío said in an interview with CBS News Colorado translated from Spanish. “My children work, my youngest son goes to school, and we also work, and it was very, very necessary to have the five cars… we went to the office to ask for an extra permit, and they told us that there weren’t any left, but that they would put us on a waitlist for one. We spent months on hold, and they never resolved anything for us.”
The state’s Mobile Home Oversight Program is a newer office, created in 2019 to institute better accountability and enforcement, and protect people like Cosío and Baez. 
“There’s hope, but a very hesitant pause from people,” says advocate Kwasi Dennis with 9 to 5 Colorado, a nonprofit organization that has been working with the residents at Foxridge Farm. 
Dennis says the state program’s design is working in this case, and residents are seeing action faster than they would have before, when their only recourse was filing a lawsuit.
“It hasn’t been swift justice by any means, but we do still expect to have these rules upheld for the benefit of residents,” Dennis said. 
Because Ascentia has appealed the state’s violation decisions, the matter will still have to go to court. A hearing is scheduled for next week before a Colorado administrative law judge.
Meanwhile, Baez continues to wait. 
“We are waiting for the owners of the park to realize that they are introducing unfair rules,” Baez said. “When someone buys a house here, it is very difficult to move it, so we have to fight for our rights.”
Ascentia’s president, Marko Vukovich, issued the following written statement in full:
“We requested an administrative hearing before an administrative law judge (“ALJ”) to contest the Notice of Violations issued by DOLA and pursued by the Colorado Attorney General.  Having indicated our willingness last August to cure four of the six allegations regarding guest and overflow parking amenities, the attorney general has finally dismissed those claims.  The two issues remaining for hearing concern the state’s demand that we are not allowed to charge residents for use of the newly created overflow parking lots, and their claim that the decades-old prohibition on street parking be declared unreasonable.  We view these demands are an unconstitutional abuse of the State’s power, and more importantly are not in the best interest of the community. “As we discussed last year, each residence in Foxridge Farm has between 2 and 4 designated parking spaces on their homesite which is included in their lease.  For residents who need additional parking we have created 3 overflow parking lots that cost over $350k to construct, where residents can lease a space for $35 per month.  Ultimately, our goal is to enforce the no street parking rules for the betterment of the community as it relates to safety, trash service, emergency access, snow plowing, street maintenance, and general curb appeal.  No street parking is an existing rule that has been in place since we purchased the community in 1980, and our goal is to enforce this rule for the betterment of the community.  While we understand not all residents want the no-street parking rule to be enforced, we believe the vast majority of residents appreciate its implementation.”