On the side of a highway leading to some of the world’s most coveted hillsides, an affordable form of housing emerges in a snow-covered parking lot.
Here in cars, trucks and vans, behind foggy windshields and zipped in sleeping bags, those who serve the vacationers who come to enjoy the snow tried to fall asleep on a recent night — two ski instructors, two snow plow drivers, a ski lift operator, an ice fishing guide, a dog sledding guide, the employee of a skirt resort whose job includes scanning ski passes, two ER nurses who treat their injuries, a cashier at a drugstore, multiple servers at local restaurants, and Kristine Litchfield, who earns $24 an hour at a ski shop, a boot for people.
At 6 a.m., the 62-year-old woke up under multiple blankets on a bunk bed built behind a Ford T250 van. This is negative 8 degrees. She joked, “No cold at all.”
That night, Ms. Lichfield and over twenty things to sleep in the vehicle – the claim to enjoy the right to sleep in the cold subzero in the snowball-looking landscape – was a local pay stub.
As homeless people reach their highest levels on record, such parking lots have been opened from coast to coast, providing shelter for those who no longer have a house to sleep but still have cars.
But the backlash from neighbors is often fierce, in order to avoid more rules imposed by municipalities on the Parkers. The lot to the town of Frisco is a 30-minute commute to Vail, a 14-minute drive to Breckenridge, and a powder (US ski team train) that reaches Copper Mountain seems to be the only one in the country who needs to sleep to prove they are part of the local economy.
In the public imagination, homeless people look like men sleeping on subway grate or women staring at tents from under highway overpass. However, according to the annual census, in cities where there is no shelter, many people (sometimes even most) do not live in shelters, not in the streets.
In Los Angeles County, for example, two-thirds of people live in vehicles. In San Mateo County, which includes part of the Silicon Valley, it is even 71%.
Ms. Litchfield said in the front seat of her van: “Unless you make millions of dollars, the dream of owning a home is dead.”
Her transfer at the ski shop started at 7:30 a.m. at the nearby strip mall. Customers are already lined up in hopes of impressing some of the world’s most coveted runs. The holidaymaker waited behind the cordon like he was on the airport line, then stepped onto a small platform towering above Ms. Litchfield, his feet and raised the start-up size.
Ms. Lichfield spent another part of her seven-hour shift redone the display of the North Jacket, then sold the client’s manual assistant and a pair of goggles to another before returning to the land.
Although she earns more than Colorado’s minimum wage of $14.81 per hour, the $2,874 she earns a month isn’t enough to afford the windshield between herself and the majestic snow. According to Zillow, the studio here rents rent for $2,500 a month – meaning Ms. Litchfield will have to spend 87% of her income on rent, and hardly paying for her other needs.
With the median sales price hovering around $1 million, home ownership is even more out of reach.
“We can’t afford to buy a house, so people start thinking, okay,” she said. “Why do I have to pay a lot of debt to myself?”this It’s the American dream. Live in a van. Live in your car. ” she said.
Affordable housing activists are working with employers to push parking lots, such as those in which Ms. Litchfield lives. Local business owners worked hard to hire and stay in Summit County, where Frisco is located, and was once named the sixth richest county in the United States.
The waitress will live in three and four people in the apartment, at the ski resort, J-1 visa holder, designed for guests from abroad, sharing bunk beds.
Andrew Aerenson, a former board member of the Frisco Town Council, believes that parking lots require little to create affordable housing for the city, “We sat around and had constant conversations about workforce housing, retired lawyers, a retired lawyer and a ski instructor at Breckenridge estimated that the company’s cost was even a unit of tools, and the company’s tools were a good choice. Available.
“It’s no trouble for me,” he said of the parking lot. Workers pay $75 a month for rent, which is the fee, which cancels the fees, including portable restrooms. “We want these people here.”
It has been around for nearly six years, and its location ranges from churches to docks to libraries.
Although its model has been replicated elsewhere, other communities have not been welcomed, and similar plans have failed after the homeowners’ withdrawal.
One opened in 2022 in a River Forest town in Colorado and the other planned to open in 2024 at a hiking destination after neighbors oppose two similar lots In Arizona, closed. Both batches require employment certificates.
“Imagine talking to your grandma about what you want to do and every little fear you suddenly have to solve,” said Salty Riggs, who helped create a lot in the Rafting Town in the Salida River in Colorado. She said the vehicle was approved in 2022 and operated for two years before quietly closing, and Parks began to feel unpopular after the rules list became so heavy.
In Sedona, after the city council approved the zoning change in spring 2024, it would allow homeless workers to park in public places, anger residents, organize a referendum to close it a few months before stopping there.
To survive in Frisco, organizers from a group called Unsheltersed from Summit stomped gently and tried to make sure they were integrated into the landscape.
Its discretion is outlined in the PowerPoint presentation, where elected leaders or local Rotary members are required, organizers whip if necessary. The first few slides show a drug addict crashing on the sidewalk, an abandoned van that was boarded a window. The subsequent slide shows one of Frisco’s neat and neat lots. One of the areas used can also serve as a parking lot for public vehicles in the town, so it is difficult for visitors who occur throughout the lot to distinguish which cars live and which are not.
On the side is a portable toilet. A new, colored bin has a combination lock. Parkers can only give code after approval.
Another slide noted that organizers most wanted to encounter-the parking lot at noon was empty because its residents were working.
guitarist Paul Minjares, 41, is organizing an “open house” with community members. “Basically, it shows that it’s not a row,” he said.
He earns extra money by serving as an intake coordinator, whose responsibilities include managing batches and reviewing applicants. He first went over the phone and then went through a long interview process in person, looking for a red flag that the person was not working. Applicants may provide payroll or employment letter.
Mr Minjares has lived in this time for three years, and like some other car residents, he said that not having to pay rent is a newly discovered freedom that allows him to save while he is able to live in amazing alpine beauties. The nearby entertainment center offers Parkers a shower, as well as multiple pools, a hot tub and steam room.
He met Ms. Litchfield two years ago when he interviewed Ms. Litchfield, he later provided an email from the ski shop to indicate her start date.
Ms. Litchfield blew the hot air into the van before she fell asleep. A piece of Velcro straddles the ceiling of the van, allowing her to hang curtains and capture heat in the back. She said, “I heated the van and I told you the cloth I picked up? So, it’s on your head.
She put on blurry socks and layers of clothing. Once I climbed onto the bunk, I would close the curtains. So now you have all the hot air rising up at the back of the bunk and my sweat and my feather duvet and a fuzzy pillowcase all over my body, I was cold in the middle and then say my three mornings, I woke up at these three moments and then I woke up. I just got up, let go of the cloth, and heated it up.
Electric blanket
Next to her, Mr. Mijares was also ready to go to bed. He used a hook on the back of the Rav4 to pump hot air from the diesel engine, through the air duct, into a window of his car, wide enough to allow the pipe to pass through. Inside is toast.
But as the snow fell, he realized that a woman in a pickup truck was struggling.
Target’s 45-year-old cashier ended up entering her Toyota Tacoma after her building was sold, with rent doubled. Now, Maegan Depriest climbs into the bed of a truck covered in camping shells, with fiberglass skin being the only obstacle that separates her from the wind outside. A small propane heater can warm herself up, but she dares not fall asleep – will she become a victim of carbon monoxide poisoning?
To keep her overnight, Mr. Minjares borrowed an electric blanket, which she plugged into a power strip powered by a rechargeable battery. “It helps a lot,” she explained. “Like I said, it’s not easy.”
The next morning, she woke up to her goal and made $22 an hour.
