The Good Deeds Housing program is now a year old. 

After accepting applications in August 2024, the program, which is run by the West Mountain Regional Housing Coalition, confirmed another $1 million contribution from Aspen in July. 

This is the second contribution from Aspen alone, but the program has also received significant sums of money from Pitkin County, Snowmass, Carbondale, and more since its inception.

With all the contributions, Good Deeds Housing has been able to help house 31 individuals, homeowners, and families, as well as a few roommates, with 12 home purchases.

As of the publication of this article, there are four homes under contract that could house an additional 10 people. 

Tempest Manthei was the first of those individuals whom the program was able to assist in a home purchase. After time living and working in Glenwood Springs, Manthei was faced with the need to move 40 or more minutes away from town in order to continue housing herself and her two young children, whom she hoped to keep in Glenwood Springs schools.

“The things that I qualified for were in Parachute,” she said. “My kids go to school in Glenwood Springs; I work here. The idea of commuting that far was hectic for me. As you know, the rental situation was just as bad, if not worse.”

A clinic nurse supervisor at Valley View Hospital, she has lived in the Roaring Fork Valley since 2008. She went to nursing school at Colorado Mountain College and out of nursing school worked in hospice and home care in Glenwood Springs before transitioning to Valley View in 2016. 

Manthei’s realtor ultimately told her about the Good Deeds program, which was brand new at the time. As a continued locally-employed individual, Manthei qualified for significant financial assistance in the purchase of a home in the Roaring Fork Valley, if she, and all prospective buyers with Good Deeds, was willing to place deed restrictions on the home.

The deed restriction caps the home’s value appreciation at 3% per year based on the original price that the buyer pays. This means that the current value is “bought down” 30% because the Good Deeds program pays for 30% of the home. The future value of the home is then locked at an appreciation price calculated against the 70% of the home that the buyer actually paid. 

To illustrate this, a buyer would pay $700,000 for a hypothetical $1 million dollar home. If they chose to sell it five years later, it could only be sold for $805,000, a 3% yearly increase on the $700,000 buyer paid price. 

If that same home was not deed restricted and appreciated between 10% and 20%, as the West Mountain Regional Housing Coalition confirmed was a normal appreciation rate in the last five years, it could be sold for between $1.6 and $2.4 million. 

Homes considered for the Good Deeds program cannot be over certain price ranges in different parts of the valley. In Pitkin County, for example, the Good Deeds program will help the purchase of a home of up to $1.5 million at the upper end. In Glenwood Springs, that price is $800,000.

“There’s absolutely no way I would have been able to afford any home in Glenwood Springs,” Manthei said. “This program was the only reason I was able to afford to live in Glenwood.” 

She closed on her home in September 2024.