Price to pay

By NATHAN DEAL

Nathan.Deal@gjsentinel.com

Many Grand Valley employers share a similar struggle when it comes to employee retention: affordable housing.

In 2024, the median home price in Mesa County was $400,000. By the end of the year, there were more active residential listings of at least $750,000 (96) than listings below $300,000 (85).

This issue was discussed by a panel on Thursday at the Housing and Building Association (HBA) Housing Summit at Colorado Mesa University.

Moderated by Fixture Studios Head of Business Development Karrie Kuklish, the panel included Community Hospital Chief Human Resources Officer Amy Jordan, CoorsTek Plant Manager Andrew Golike, Colorado Housing and Finance Authority (CHFA) Senior Business Development Specialist Pam Francil, Grand Junction Economic Partnership (GJEP) Director Curtis Englehart, and Mesa County Valley School District 51 Board of Education President Andrea Haitz. Each panelist was asked how housing costs had impacted employees. Golike went first, mentioning that a materials engineer CoorsTek hired from Salt Lake City had struggled to find housing.

“Attracting employees in the last few years has been pretty difficult, especially if they moved from out of the area to Grand Junction finding that available housing,” Golike said. “It’s affected employees of all income levels across the board.”

Haitz said that District 51 hasn’t seen as much impact from housing costs.

“In ‘23-24, we did exit interviews with staff that was leaving the district and out of 184 responses, only three indicated they were leaving because of housing affordability. In the same year of hiring, we had 300 open positions and we only had two people turn down positions because of housing affordability,” Haitz said. “What I will tell you is the district and the board, along with our teachers, have worked really hard to get our base pay up and I think that’s really helped. We also partner with the Housing Authority to help with down payment assistance programs.”

Englehart detailed some ways the community stands to be impacted by rising housing costs.

“I’ve worked with a business (owner) who claimed — and I believe him — that he hired 101 and lost 100 employees.... If we don’t have workforce development, we don’t have economic development, so they really do go hand-in-hand,” the GJEP director said. “Look at the university here. We have the largest freshman class in the history of CMU, but if we don’t have affordable housing for these soon-tobe graduates, they seek workforce opportunity in another community.”

Jordan said that Community Hospital employees have been significantly impacted by not just affordability but also adequately sized housing, especially since many hires come from outside the area.

“We hire over 400 employees a year, and out of that 400, about 60-100 relocate to the area,” Jordan said. “The housing challenge really came to the forefront in 2021. We hired a director of our cardiac cath lab and he relocated with family of five from the east coast. They came out, they lived in a camper for a few weeks, they thought that was a short-term solution. Six months later, they were still living in a camper.”

CAN EMPLOYERS HELP WITH HOUSING?

Kuklish asked how employers and organizations can assist prospective homeowners. Francil said that CHFA offers grants such as a first-step program for first-time homeowners, a first-generation loan, a home access program for those with disabilities, and SMART (State’s Mission for Assistance in Recruiting and Training) grants.

Jordan detailed how Community Hospital partnered with a local builder to master lease seven houses, which are used to transition 25-28 employees into the community a year before the hospital offers a relocation assistance program.

“For us, the gap is not just short-term apartments or condos but that three-to-four-bedroom

See PRICE, page 4A ➤

Amy Jordan with Community Hospital, middle right, answers questions during a panel discussing how business are finding housing for their current and prospective employees during the annual HBA Housing Summit 2025 in Colorado Mesa University’s University Center Ballroom on Feb. 6, 2025. Speakers in the panel, from left, Andrew Golike, Plant Manager of CoorsTek; Andrea Haitz, realtor and President of the District 51 Board of Education; Curtis Englehart, Executive Director of the Grand Junction Economic Partnership; Amy Jordan, Chief Human Resource Officer at Community Hospital; and Pam Francil, Business Development Specialist in the Home Finance Division of the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority.

Photos by LARRY ROBINSON / The Daily Sentinel

Andrew Golike with CoorsTek, left, answers questions during a panel discussing how business are finding housing for their current and prospective employees during the annual HBA Housing Summit 2025 in Colorado Mesa University’s University Center Ballroom on Thursday. Rising housing costs continue to impact employers and employees.

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with a fenced yard where people can come with a family and pets. We furnished them and we can use them to transition employees into the community because we know it’s really important from a retention perspective.... for them to not just buy housing but the right housing,” Jordan said. “We want to give them three to six months to live in the community, to get to know it, to understand what meets the needs of their families the best, then they can buy permanent housing or secure permanent rental housing in a location that makes the most sense for them and their family.”

Englehart said that GJEP offers referrals to businesses and their employees.

“We were able to help a business that relocated here with a relocation incentive,” he said. “We wanted them to also bring their workforce with them here, so we created this reimbursement incentive for them, but we try to keep it broad where they can use some of those funds.... to help incentivize their employees with maybe the first month’s or last month’s rent or some of the moving costs that would affect some of those employees.”

Golike said that, through a Catholic Outreach database that tracks housing available for renting, CoorsTek began working with landlords and advancing money to employees for rent. He added that, with employees’ permission, the company shares with its workers those are looking for roommates, resulting in about 20 employees who found temporary living situations.

He also spoke about an engineer who lived in a camper outside of the business during the early months of their employment.

“You have to pull on every lever you can or you won’t make it,” Golike said.

WHAT PROGRAMS

COULD HELP

Kuklish asked which current or potential programs could alleviate the housing cost issue for local employees.

Golike responded that a CoorsTek facility in Japan was facing a similar issue with employees struggling to find affordable housing and that the company provided housing that employees pay into through “a savings program for down payments”, compensating employees for short-term living arrangements.

A down payment assistance program — which is offered by CHFA — was the common answer among panelists, with Haitz saying it could help teachers and other D51 staff become homeowners.

Jordan said that Community Hospital is looking at ways to help employees “be creative in financing” and to lower their interest rates through partnerships with financial institutions. She called down payment assistance “very helpful.”