Golden – All but one of the residents of the Big Tree Mobile Home Court have moved on, leaving behind trash and trailers cordoned off by a fence.
The people who lived at Big Tree are elderly, handicapped and working poor. All are low-income, which created a challenge for relocating when the owners notified them in March that they had to move by Sept. 1.
“I think we ended up doing a good job for the residents with the resources we had available,” said Golden planning director Steve Glueck.
Owners John and Jennie Reed plan to redevelop the 2.6-acre property at 2200 Jackson St., once home to 42 trailers, with 30 townhouses and to rechristen the site as Jackson Street Villas.
The road to redevelopment has not been smooth. The Golden City Council rejected the rezoning this past summer, but reversed its decision Sept. 29 after the Reeds agreed to preserve a caretaker’s cottage that was part of a historic tourist court.
“The construction is all up in the air at the moment,” John Reed said. “With all the delays in the process, we have to go back and redo the financing.”
Slowly, residents have moved their trailers or found apartments.
The 25 people who applied for assistance through a federal housing program received a $2,000 or $3,000 grant, depending on income.
The money has covered moving trailers and deposits and the first month’s rent on apartments.
The money won’t go far, “but at least this was helpful,” said Alan Finestein, director of the Jefferson County Housing Authority.
Golden officials received $62,000 in federal housing grant money that Jefferson County set aside to assist the Big Tree residents.
Now only one resident remains, caught in red tape as she tries to move to a nearby mobile home court.
“This has been the worst nightmare of my life,” said Renee Nicholson, a substitute school cafeteria worker who has lived at Big Tree for 26 years.
Three of her family’s four mobile homes have been moved.
Nicholson and her 16-year-old son are crammed into the fourth one – along with stacks of furniture and boxes – that sits behind Big Tree’s padlocked fence.
Nicholson said she has been trying to work out disputes with a new mobile home park, adding, “I have no clue when I can move in there.”
Staff writer Ann Schrader can be reached at 303-278-3217 or aschrader@denverpost.com.
