Habitat for Humanity Vail Valley reflects on 30 years of housing Eagle County families
Habitat is planning to put more than 50 families in homes over the next five years
Chris Dillmann/Vail Daily
Habitat for Humanity Vail Valley is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year.
As housing challenges grow in Eagle County, the organization is reflecting on the work it has taken to provide permanent housing for 146 families while planning to put more than 50 families in homes over the next five years.
John Castillo and his wife, Maya, moved into their Habitat for Humanity home in Fox Hollow in Edwards 12 years ago. When they applied for a Habitat home, the family lived in Lake Creek Village and had moved around several times to find an affordable rental space.
“It was always a struggle to be like, ‘Where are we going to live next?’ ‘What place could we find for rent (that is) cheaper?’ ‘We’ll never be a homeowner,'” John Castillo said. “To go full circle and be like, ‘We own land here, and a place of our own in Eagle County.’ That’s been a beautiful thing, is being able to say, ‘I’ve raised my kids, and now we have choices.'”
The Castillos have five children. Through having stable housing, “my kids can follow any dreams they want, now,” Castillo said. “Productive citizens are being born into these Habitat homes. You see people in positions of government, bankers, doctors, lawyers, all these things that are a possibility now. It’s the bigger picture. And that’s what I love about Habitat. They give you that fighting chance to say, ‘Hey, you could do so much more.’ It’s them capturing potential they don’t even know about.”
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The Castillos have also been able to follow their dreams: While they worked various jobs before moving into their Habitat home, Maya and John now own and operate their own catering business, as well as being active in their church community and continuing to contribute to Habitat.
“Before, it was like, ‘I have to be at this job, then get off, go see my family for 15 minutes, then go to the next job,'” Castillo said. “I can choose what I need to do now.”
Finding an affordable home poses challenges across income levels
Finding an affordable home in Eagle County can be nearly impossible.
Habitat has tracked the dwindling number of homes sold in Eagle County for under $500,000 for years. Last year, that number reached an all-time low: 25 homes.
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Many individuals and families are trapped in cycles of expensive rental units with high turnover.
“Rental is great, but people want to own a home,” said Elyse Howard, Habitat for Humanity Vail Valley’s vice president of community affairs and philanthropy. “If people don’t have the opportunity to buy a home, at some point they might leave our community, and what we’re focused on is how do we retain community and retain that critical workforce.”
The workforce Habitat serves has morphed as housing costs have increased at a faster pace than salaries.
“What we have been noticing over the years is the people that are applying for Habitat, and the people that Habitat can serve, that demographic has really been changing,” Howard said. “The illustration of that is the Adam’s Way project in Eagle, where we have a lot of teachers, a couple behavioral health counselors that work in the schools.”
“Your perception would be, ‘People who are doing those types of jobs could, perhaps, buy a home without assistance.’ And what we know in this community is that it’s just not possible,” Howard said.
Habitat traditionally serves people earning up to 80% of the area’s median income.
“What we’re seeing is the need (for housing) is growing on all ends of the income spectrum,” Howard said. “Now we’re getting more people that are making more money than would traditionally qualify for Habitat, and they have no option to buy a home.”
Following the pandemic real estate boom, Habitat has seen the number of applications skyrocket.
“A couple years ago, we were getting maybe 10 applications for each home that we built. This year, we have 210 applications,” Howard said. “That is the most we’ve ever had. We continue to see that number rise, and we continue to see where those people fall on the income spectrum break out of the old convention.”
Habitat builds a community
Phil Paolilli has volunteered with a group of other retired men working on Habitat for Humanity build sites since 2008.
“I don’t think of it as volunteering. It’s just what I do on Wednesday,” Paolilli said.
Paolilli, who does not have a formal background in construction — “I built a couple houses that I lived in, but that was back when you did that,” he said — got involved with Habitat when his neighbor invited him to work on a home one day.
The work was fun and rewarding, and he kept coming back, forming a tight-knit group of friends with others who showed up every week. “You’re proud of the work you did, and then the other part of it is, you did it for someone else,” Paolilli said.
Paolilli hopes others will also take an interest in similar work; Eagle County’s seasonally transient workforce makes it difficult to find long-term volunteers, he said. “There’s a huge need for affordable housing in this valley, no question,” Paolilli said. “We could use twice as many volunteers as we get.”
A few years after his family moved into their home, John Castillo was asked to serve on Habitat’s family advocate board, to help choose families who would receive Habitat homes. “That’s where my heart was really taken by Habitat and what they do, because then, I was advocating for families that need homes,” he said.
Over the last 12 years, the Castillos have become an informal part of Habitat’s system, helping answer questions about the homeownership process for prospective applicants. “When they asked us to partner, to me it was a lifetime commitment,” Castillo said.
Habitat’s staff have also made what seem like lifelong commitments to the work they do. The core leadership team — Howard, President and CEO John Welaj, Director of Human Resources Kalie Palmer and Vice President of Operations Emily Peyton — have all been around for decades.
“I would have never expected when I took this job — I was employee number three — that 20 years later I would still be here working alongside these awesome people,” Howard said. “From the staff perspective, it feels like part of how we have gotten so much accomplished, is because of the dedication and sheer will and determination of our team.”
Relationships with families like the Castillos “keep you going,” Howard said.
Getting to 200 homes by 2029
Since its founding in 1995, Habitat for Humanity has provided homes for 146 families in Eagle County. The organization has announced plans to reach 200 homes by 2029.
“200 feels like a really big goal,” Howard said. “There’s a huge need in this community, and it feels like when we put a big goal out there, the community rises to the occasion.”
When she started in 2005, “we were building two to three homes per year, and it was really hard,” Howard said. “Some things have gotten easier, and other things harder, but to see all the lives that are impacted and the people that we can help either stay in this community or start to build a life here, it just feels like we’re going to get to 200 because that’s what we need to do for the vibrancy of our community.”
To keep up with the growing need for housing, Habitat is using innovative techniques to provide more homes. Last year, Habitat piloted its first modular homes, which are built in pieces offsite and assembled on their foundations. Moving forward, Habitat will offer three ways for families to access homes: Modular building, traditional stick-built built, and through 0% mortgage loans on other developments.
This year alone, Habitat is aiming to reach 30 home starts to celebrate the organization’s 30th anniversary. Twenty of the homes will be in the Timber Ridge development in Vail which is under construction by Triumph Development. Those homes will be financed through Habitat’s 0% mortgage loan. The remaining 10 homes will be in Gypsum.
Habitat invested about $38 million in first 146 homes. It will probably take another $38 million to build the rest of the homes. Timber Ridge’s 20 homes alone will cost $8 million, Howard said.
Habitat maximized the amount of American Rescue Plan Act (COVID relief) funding it received, using $5.5 million to build 40 homes. Going forward, the organization expects to receive “far less” in grant dollars from the incoming presidential administration, according to Howard.
“It is really going to take an increase of individual donors to make this happen,” Howard said.
“This organization has always survived on the generosity of the community, and that’s what we’re going to look to and know that people throughout the community do understand how important it is to have teachers and firefighters and bank tellers and restaurant workers,” Howard said. “We need all of those people to make this community go.”
