Teraissa McGovern has been living and working in Aspen for 20 years. She was grateful to win an APCHA ownership lottery allowing her to purchase a Category 4 unit, but she was disheartened to learn the home would need $10,000 in repairs to make it liveable.
Hank Doris moved to Aspen in 1981, and for much of his 40-plus years in the valley, he lived the ski-bum dream: Seasonal, nighttime jobs allowed him to hit the slopes all day through the winters and get away during offseasons.
Although he bounced around to various affordable free-market rentals — mostly in town and including dilapidated West End Victorians with intermittent hot water — “I didn’t even think about employee housing” for the first couple of decades, Doris said. “Housing was never a problem. Sure, the rent was always higher here, but it was not that big of a deal.”
Doris started feeling the housing squeeze around the mid-2000s, and in 2008, he secured his first rental under the Aspen-Pitkin County Housing Authority, which oversees policy, qualifications and sales for about 3,200 deed-restricted rental and ownership units in the upper Roaring Fork Valley. Meanwhile, he started bidding on APCHA ownership housing and settled into more-stable year-round employment, first as a driver for the Roaring Fork Transportation Authority and then with Aspen Luxury Limo since 2012. Then, he said, “things went crazy during COVID, rents doubled overnight.”
So, it was a huge relief when, after about 15 bids over several years, Doris and his wife, Vilma Torres, finally won the APCHA housing lottery in December 2022: a two-bedroom Fairway III townhome in Snowmass Village. There were 66 other bids.
“It’s a good place, right on the golf course — it’s got a yard and is dog-friendly,” said Doris, who added that the advantages of owning versus renting employee housing include security, some equity and, perhaps most important, community feel. “It’s all people that have lived here a long time, not just passing through. A lot of us work in the same industries in town. It’s like a middle-class neighborhood, which you don’t see much anymore.”
Doris’ story mirrors that of many longtime locals: They work multiple seasonal, resort-related jobs and bounce around whatever rental situations can be found while young, then start looking at ownership opportunities when ready to further settle down. But although securing affordable, stable housing has always been a challenge in Aspen, the past few years have seen increased pressure and strain, not only for employees but for employers looking to fill positions necessary for the local economy to run smoothly. With the housing crunch exacerbated by constantly rising real estate prices and the near disappearance of free-market options, affordable housing providers can’t seem to meet the ever-increasing demand.
But what exactly is the gap? And what type of housing is most in demand compared with what’s available? Finally, what does the demand pool — by and large, local workers employed in shops and restaurants, local nonprofits and businesses, and myriad resort services — look like? To understand this better, Aspen Journalism zeroed in on APCHA’s ownership lotteries — the process by which most units under the APCHA umbrella change hands — to try to give a more complete picture of supply and demand in one of the oldest and largest workforce housing systems in North America, and in one of the most expensive, restricted places to live on Earth.
APCHA Executive Director Matthew Gillen said that the lottery system has been determined to be the best way to do things for some time. “To some extent, picking winners and losers should be random. If we start social engineering it further … that’s a different system, a whole different way of doing things.”
Just the facts
More than 3,200 people live in 1,733 deed-restricted ownership units under APCHA’s umbrella, according to a 2021 count. (APCHA regulations also apply to 1,369 seasonal and full-time rentals that house many more.) APCHA owners and renters make up the bulk of the year-round population in the city of Aspen, where 70% of full-time-occupied housing units are deed-restricted, according to a recent report on workforce housing in ski country. The report also calculated that 956 additional affordable units are needed in the city to meet demand.
A review of 22 years of annual sales reports available on the APCHA website provides a glimpse of the multitudes aiming to get in. From 2002 through 2023, a total of 32,846 bids were made for 1,278 sales of local affordable housing units that went through an APCHA lottery where the number of bids was recorded, not including the 1,451 bids entered in the Burlingame III lotteries for 79 new units that took place last fall. APCHA sales typically operate on a lottery system: Those qualified by the local intergovernmental agency — primarily by income and work history — may bid on housing units that come up for sale. Lottery qualifications are further considered by the category of the for-sale units, which corresponds to bidders’ incomes, and the number of occupants to fill bedrooms.
It’s important to note that lotteries do not take place for many transactions involving units in the resident occupied category, where there are no income caps and asset restrictions are rescinded or relaxed. RO units make up about 30% of the APCHA ownership-unit inventory and over 100 of them were valued at $1 million or more in 2022.
In 2002-23, the period that was analyzed, the average number of bids per unit per year has fluctuated year over year, with spikes in certain years often tied to new inventory coming on line, and a dip in the average number of bids per lottery after the Great Recession. However, viewed another way, overall demand for APCHA housing has remained constant: From 2002 through 2023, a unit received an average of 26 bids. The average is the same for 2012-23. But demand rose not insignificantly in the last three complete years of data: In the pandemic-influenced years of 2021, 2022 and 2023, APCHA for-sale units received 32 bids on average, an increase of 23%. Those three years saw 4,044 bids in 127 lotteries.
Sales data shows that smaller, less-expensive units are generally most popular. In the 22-year time frame analyzed, one-bedroom units received the most bids — an annual average of 42 bids from 2002 through 2023 and 41 bids from 2021 through 2023. (However, one four-bedroom unit that changed hands in the latter, three-year time frame received 48 bids.) And although studios were the next most popular size from 2002 through 2023, with 28 bids on average, two-bedrooms became more desirable as time went on, receiving an average of 19 bids per lottery on average from 2002 to 2022, 22 bids from 2012 to 2022, and 31 bids from 2021 to 2023. Bidding on three-bedroom units stayed constant — averaging 18 to 19 bids per lottery — in the 20-year and 10-year periods, but that went up to 25 bids on average in the last three years.
Overall, since 2002, Category 2 and Category 3 units — the two most-subsidized, least-expensive units, for which the two lowest-income-tier workers qualify — have been the two most-demanded categories, with an average of 34 bids per lottery (there used to be a Category 1, but it no longer exists for sales units). Things changed over the past 10 years, with Category 3 units receiving the most bids — 35 on average from 2012 to 2023 and 40 on average from 2021 to 2023. In the last three-year period, even Category 4 units got more bids on average (33) than Category 2 units (29).
Demand, however, has historically contrasted with APCHA’s supply. APCHA’s current ownership inventory is weighted toward higher-category, more-expensive units. Category 4 has the highest number of units — 535 homes representing nearly 32% of the inventory — followed closely by RO (resident occupied), a category not subject to income limits that has 510 units representing 31% of the inventory. There are 276 Category 3 units and 193 Category 2 units, which, when put together, represent less than each of the two higher categories (29%).
Although one-bedroom units have always been the most popular — both in percentage of bids and average number — they’ve typically been less available than larger units. From 2012 to 2023, 217 two-bedroom units were sold via lottery, compared with 160 one-bedrooms and 132 three-bedrooms. From 2021 to 2023, two-bedroom units were again the most available, representing 56 of the 126 lotteries in those three years. One-bedroom units followed with 32 lotteries and prompted an average of 41 bids per lottery in that time frame.
APCHA’s 2023 annual report based on data from its internal HomeTrek system shows that demand for ownership housing is highest among those in the middle of the income scale. Of 428 approved sale-ownership applications in 2023, about one-third were for bidders in Category 3, which corresponds to those who make $104,130 for a one-person household or $234,315 for a four-person household, or 130% of the 2023 area median income. Bidders in Category 4 and Category 2 came next for approved applications: 125 and 99, respectively, or about 29% and 23% each.
In 2023, 3,267 bids were received in total including Burlingame III lotteries — an average of 40 bids per listing. The most popular unit sizes were one-bedrooms, which received the most bids — 1,233, or 37.7% of the total — among a nearly equal number of one-, two-, and three-bedroom listings. And Category 4 units edged out Category 3 units with 40% and 36%, respectively, of the total bids. By household size, 54% of the bids were cast by single people with no dependents.
Overall, an analysis of HomeTrek data by Aspen Journalism shows that for the 143 lotteries conducted from December 2021, when HomeTrek began tracking sales, through the end of 2023, APCHA received 3,934 bids, which includes the Burlingame III lotteries. It’s worth noting that one lottery may include more than one unit.
HomeTrek also captures information about lottery winners. The HomeTrek annual report shows that the average work history of lottery winners was 17 years in 2023. (The longer the work history, the better shot a bidder has, with one chance in lotteries entered for every four years of work history.) And of 101 lottery winners, 79 were not current homeowners and 63 were living in either rental or ownership APCHA deed-restricted housing with 31 in free-market units.
Teraissa McGovern said that she had previously compromised her earning potential to stay in an income-capped Aspen rental. But after accepting a job that paid more, she had little choice but to purchase a higher-income unit she won in a July 2023 lottery, despite what she described as multiple maintenance issues.
The human element
But finding and buying a home is not just about numbers. For the 450 or so active bidders in the system as of February 2024 — a big jump from about 250 active bidders before a surge driven by the Burlingame III lotteries — winning or not winning a unit can make or break their chances of continuing to live in the community.
Noga Vardy grew up in the Roaring Fork Valley. The third-grade teacher at Aspen Country Day School moved back from school and work in Denver in 2016 and has been bidding on APCHA housing for the past three years. (APCHA gives priority to those with at least four years of consecutive work history — with no credit for previous work periods — so many local workers don’t begin bidding until they hit the four-year mark.)
Vardy bids on every unit for which she qualifies. In her case, that includes studios and one-bedrooms in categories 2 and 3. (APCHA allows applicants to bid in their income-determined category and the category above it.) But because there’s so much demand for relatively few units, she said she’s “definitely a bit discouraged after all these years. The fact that it’s a lottery and so random, it’s all just luck-based.”
Vardy is currently renting a deed-restricted unit in Basalt after having lived in an APCHA-managed rental near her work for a couple of years. Although she’s thankful for those opportunities, she aspires to have her own home — a typical American dream.
“My desire is to be in Aspen long-term and to be able to own a place where I have more autonomy, where it’s an investment as opposed to paying rent,” she said.
So, she’ll continue to bid on APCHA housing — her only choice, because free market anywhere in the valley is not an option. But, she said, “could I stay here if I can’t own? I don’t know.”
Shana Kelley is another longtime local who is renting an APCHA-governed complex. She’s “super happy” with her apartment at Aspen’s Hunter Longhouse, where she has lived for 20 years, and is currently “working my dream job” in retail management in Aspen. Qualified for Category 3, she has been bidding on ownership units for the past four years — only since she has been financially and mentally prepared — and it can be an emotional roller coaster. “I’ve come in dead last,” said Kelley, who, thanks to her lengthy work history, gets more chances than those with less working time. “One year, I put my name in 30 times, and fourth is the best place I got.”
Despite having a few complaints, though, “being negative will not get more housing up,” she said. “I’m not stressed about it. I believe that things happen for a reason, and what comes to me will come to me.”
Like Vardy, she’ll continue to bid on housing, but she is being selective and patient. She remains optimistic.
“I love this town, and it’s amazing,” she says. “I know it’s going to work out.”
Skippy Mesirow holds the record for the most bids in housing lotteries between December 2021 and December 2023. His 46 bids during that time are 11 more than the next most frequent bidder but are much lower than the roughly 70-plus bids he estimates that he and his girlfriend, Jamie Butemeyer, have put in, combined, from 2019 to mid-2023.
Mesirow, a former member of Aspen City Council who manages a vacation rental company, has lived and worked in Aspen continuously since 2011 (and intermittently since 2004). Besides a couple of early stints in seasonal employee housing, he has always rented on the free market and aspired to buy free-market housing until those options all but evaporated during the pandemic. Although he’s grateful to have found “one of the last free-market unicorns in town,” he knows he can’t count on it in the long term.
Putting his policy hat on — his civic engagement also includes having served on APCHA’s board and the Next Generation Advisory Commission — Mesirow said real estate trends have long been pointing toward a dearth of affordable housing options in Pitkin County. More should have been done sooner, he said.
“It’s been a fairly linear trajectory,” he said of supply falling well short of demand. “COVID was not a cause but an accelerant, and we are in a predictable outcome.”
Mesirow said he believes that only a broad, collective and creative effort will resolve the housing issue, which he defines partially as transitioning from a one-generation housing system to a three-generation housing system.
“We were initially building for the worker. Then the worker had kids. Now he may be retired,” Mesirow said. “And we either have a community that dies or have housing for three generations. The goal has to be a functional town and a living, breathing community.”
Building more housing toward whatever number of units is determined to be needed is only part of the solution. “We have to move to a development-neutral system,” said Mesirow.
Right-sizing (the swapping of units with another APCHA owner when occupancy needs change, which APCHA is experimenting with), improving existing stock and implementing a vacancy tax on free-market homes are some of the ideas Mesirow has been pushing. And he urges everyone who sees housing as an issue to get involved. “Persistence is 80% of the job,” he said.
APCHA Executive Director Matthew Gillen and administrative specialist Karen Bromka chat at the APCHA office at Truscott Place in Aspen. Since 2002, housing seekers have submitted 32,846 bids for 1,278 affordable housing sales where the number of bids was recorded. An Aspen Journalism analysis found heightened supply-and-demand gaps for lower-income, one-bedroom units.
For their part, APCHA officials have anecdotally felt the uptick in demand, and although they agree that there’s a mismatch between supply and demand, they don’t see a better system.
“We feel people’s desperation,” APCHA Executive Director Matthew Gillen said.
The COVID-induced influx of people that reduced local workers’ free-market housing options definitely “put more pressure on the program,” said Andrew Miller, a business analyst with the housing authority. As for the mismatch in supply and demand for unit types, Gillen and Miller said APCHA’s rental inventory is more geared to lower categories, while sales units are weighted to the higher end. Also, APCHA is rarely the developer, so the sales inventory reflects how it has inherited properties over the years.
“We’re trying to develop ways to squeeze more out of the system,” said Gillen, who mentions right-sizing and a capital improvement program as examples of current efforts to improve the long-term sustainability of APCHA housing.
Gillen does not see any major overhaul of APCHA in the near future, nor does he believe its supply can ever really meet demand. The lottery system — with its basic qualification criteria of work history, income-based categories and prioritization of filling bedrooms — has been determined to be the best way to do things for some time. “To some extent, picking winners and losers should be random,” said Gillen. “If we start social engineering it further — deciding that certain jobs are better or people born here get more chances, for example — that’s a different system, a whole different way of doing things.”
Housing has always been an issue in the Roaring Fork Valley, he added, “and it’s just getting worse. It’s a rough place to make a living, that’s all there is to it. And it’s a rough place to try to live for 20, 30 years or more.”
Sometimes, winning APCHA housing doesn’t resolve all issues. In fact, it creates new ones.
The ‘golden handcuffs’
Teraissa McGovern has 20 years of work experience in Pitkin County and serves her community in other ways, including as chair of the Aspen Planning and Zoning Commission. Currently a project manager for Madigan + Company, a local builder, she started bidding about seven years ago on every unit for which she qualified.
Like Doris and many others who have had long-term residency in Aspen, her early years in the city were spent in convenient, affordable free-market rentals, including a West End carriage house and apartment near Shadow Mountain, both owned by longtime locals.
For the past several years, McGovern had been living in a city-owned, APCHA-managed rental unit downtown. An upwardly mobile professional, she stayed in a lower-paying job for years in order to remain qualified for her Category 2 unit.
“I’ve been having to make career decisions based on losing my housing,” she said. “For the last 10 years, I’ve been in golden handcuffs.”
In April 2023, McGovern decided to follow her career path and took a new job knowing that it would make her overqualified for her rental unit. Then, in late July 2023, she won the lottery for a Category 4 studio at the Lone Pine complex in Aspen. She had long since stopped going to open houses, not believing she’d ever win, and at the time of the lottery, she was out of town taking care of her mother. She knew she had to take the studio, sight unseen, because she couldn’t take the chance of winning another lottery within the grace period APCHA allows overqualified renters who are actively bidding. So, she cut her trip short to meet the three-day deadline to put down her earnest money.
But when McGovern first stepped into the unit that she had committed to buy, “I burst out in tears.”
According to McGovern, there were multiple issues with the apartment, including electrical wiring that wasn’t up to code, missing cabinet and closet doors, and faulty plumbing. Also, it smelled like cat urine even though it was a no-pet unit. McGovern estimated that the apartment needed about $10,000 worth of improvements to make it livable; she would also spend about $3,000 in rent to live elsewhere while fixing up the place.
As someone with experience in construction and real estate and on various volunteer boards, McGovern says her beef is mainly with APCHA’s sales process. APCHA acts similarly to a real estate broker, representing both buyer and seller, guiding them through the various processes, and charging 2% of the sales price for its services. Unlike in free-market sales, APCHA briefly owns the unit before turning it over to the new buyer. For those reasons, McGovern said, APCHA should be more responsible for resolving issues that come up during inspection — and not leave it up to the buyer to work with the seller (as she said she was told to do), who is virtually guaranteed to get the maximum sales price regardless.
“It’s the Realtor’s job to facilitate all that, like making sure the items that are listed [on the inspection report] are complete before the closing,” she said. “But there’s no turnover check. APCHA just expects everyone to do the right thing. And people don’t always do the right thing — they do what’s in their own best interests.”
Gillen, APCHA’s director, declined to comment on McGovern’s specific situation. But he did point to parts of the APCHA regulations that speak to listings and sales of ownership units. This includes a professional inspection, paid for by APCHA, prior to advertising the unit for sale, which includes looking for life and safety and livability issues. The regulations also include minimum standards for units to be sold at the maximum sales price. But as McGovern noted, some of the standards — such as having surface marks and holes in walls repaired and having carpets professionally steam-cleaned within two days of closing — are only handled well after the sales price is set, and even after closing.
“The fundamental point to remember is that APCHA does not own the homes,” said Gillen. “The maintenance of the home is the responsibility of the owner — just like in the private sector. APCHA does not have funds, means or authority to make repairs or improvements on individual units.”
Gillen acknowledged that the APCHA-funded inspection may not uncover all issues, but that APCHA is willing to work with buyer and seller to find “a mutual agreeable price” if documented issues are brought forward. However, he admitted that APCHA units are almost always listed at the maximum sales price due to extremely high demand. “Given the extreme scarcity of affordable housing in Pitkin County,” he said, “there is likely pressure on the buyers to seize the opportunity.”
For her part, McGovern is “very grateful for the program and to be able to live and own a home in Aspen, but the compromise I’m making is pretty big.” She plans to start bidding again in hopes of getting a more suitable unit, but in the meantime, she will try to make her place work “because I’m a homebody who needs somewhere to renew my energy, and if I don’t have that, I won’t have the energy to give to my community.”
“I’ve given my soul to this town for 20 years,” she said. “There needs to be decent living options. There has to be some quality.”
