Families struggle to find affordable housing following asbestos hazard
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- Many families are now scrambling to find a home after being evacuated from their southeast Colorado Springs apartments because of asbestos.
"Trying to find a new apartment that was two bedrooms, two baths with reasonable rent has been tricky," said Elizabeth Roan, a tenant who had to vacate.
Tenants like Roan were paying about $1,200 for rent for a 2 bedroom apartment, without utilities.
With Colorado Springs apartment vacancy rates at only 2% in 2017, and hundreds of tenants now on the hunt, she knows she was lucky to find a place.
"They apparently provided some lists with sister properties, but even those didn't have a lot of availability and I know when I was making phone calls there wasn't a lot," she said. "My neighbor up there, he's going to be couch surfing until something comes available to him."
Residents were offered $200 per each permanent occupant for meals, clothing and toiletries, as well as a hotel room for each family until semi-permanent or permanent homes were found.
"Our lease was about to be up anyway so we were going to figure out what we wanted to do from there," Connor Myers said, another tenant. "We're making that decision a little quicker than expected."
They were also given a list of properties they could potentially look into, but all of those are owned by the same company -- Slipstream Properties.
- Thrive At The Incline/Shannon Glen Apartments: 260 N Murray
- Thrive at Slopeside Apartments: 2818 Airport
- Gardens at Hidden Creek: 1117 Verde Dr D
- Thrive at Rockledge: 1030 Chelton
- Thrive at Park's Edge Apartments: 720 Chapman
- Thrive at Elevation: 2713 Arlington
- Thrive at The Pointe/Southpointe Apartments: 3815 Lakehurst
According to numbers from the last quarter, there were about 3,000 vacant units available in Colorado Springs, making an already competitive market even worse with now hundreds of these evicted tenants looking for their next place.
