Attorney General Phil Weiser announced Wednesday that three community colleges in southern Colorado will share a $5 million grant intended to help the region with affordable housing and trade education.

As part of its office of Community Engagement and a new Colorado Partnership for Education and Rural Revitalization (COPERR), Lamar Community College in Lamar, Otero Community College in La Junta and Trinidad State Junior College in Trinidad will share up to $5 million to “address labor shortages and increase the availability of viable and affordable housing in Otero, Prowers, Las Animas, Crowley, Kiowa, Bent, and Baca counties,” according to a statement from the attorney general’s office Wednesday. 

The program’s funding comes from a 2012 multi-state settlement on “questionable mortgage loan servicing and foreclosure practices” in the aftermath of the Great Recession, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Colorado is one of 49 states and the federal government sharing a $25 billion settlement funded by the nation’s five largest mortgage servicers: Ally Financial, Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo. Colorado received as its share $50,170,188, with more than $18 million to be spent on affordable housing programs. 

The grant addresses one of the more pressing problems in southern and southeastern Colorado: lack of affordable housing and asbestos in many of the homes. 

According to Weiser’s statement, “a large number of these houses were constructed before 1939, with many of them containing asbestos, which is expensive to remediate. Because the cost to remediate, repair, or renovate the houses often exceeds their resale value, many commercial homebuilders will not develop in the area and potentially viable housing instead becomes a nuisance.” 

Take, for example, Crowley County. It’s home to two prisons, one state facility and a private prison, combined employing hundreds of people. Yet according to Crowley County commissioners, most of the employees don’t live in the county due to the aging homes, many which have asbestos. That’s meant that local businesses don’t see the same advantages in sales and taxes afforded other area communities that are home to state or private prisons.

“During my visits to Southeastern Colorado, leaders and residents have consistently raised the issue of the housing shortage in that region. Through a process of bringing together leaders from local government and the community colleges, we were able to build a partnership that will address workforce and housing shortages and contribute to the revitalization of those communities,” Weiser said in the statement. “Rural communities are a vital part of Colorado’s cultural and economic fabric, and I am proud to support programs that will provide opportunities for students while addressing this important housing need.”

The statement noted that representatives of Lamar, La Junta and Trinidad “have participated in stakeholder meetings since March 2020 and have developed a working inventory of properties within their communities that need to be remediated.”

On the trade side, the grants will cover stipends for students who participate in construction trades education. That includes hands-on work experience for those enrolled in construction trades programs. The statement said that the three community colleges are working with local governments, in conjunction with state and federal government entities, to ensure proper disposal of waste materials from the remodeled homes. Once the community college students complete the remediation of a property, the college “will sell it back to the community and reinvest the proceeds” into COPERR.

Annessa Stagner Stulp, dean of academic services at Lamar, told Colorado Politics that the grant will allow students to expand beyond the hands-on lab experiences currently available in the college’s existing construction trades program. “It allows our education program to assist the community” and build upon the relationship between the college and the community, she said. The enhancement to the trades program “will get students out in the field more often,” said Lisa Schlotterhausan, Lamar’s vice president of academic and student services. 

“The COPERR program will no doubt have a positive impact in revitalizing our rural communities,” said Joe Garcia, president of the Colorado Community Colleges System. “I appreciate the program’s focus on and concern for Southeast Colorado, which is too often overlooked.”

OJC President Tim Alvarez said in the statement that the program “will be a game-changer for Southeast Colorado. Quality affordable housing and addressing our region’s shortage of trades professionals are two major components to revitalizing our rural communities.”