The issue is that the posh ski resort town, which is a 30-minute drive away from the high-end ski resort town of Aspen, there are zero homeless shelters. The city of Denver currently has roughly 2,600 migrants in shelters and around 200 on the streets.
Carbondale is described as a "small town with a big heart," known for its luxury ski chalet homes. The town itself is facing its own housing crisis, as reported by the Daily Mail, and so the Venezuelan migrants are sleeping in their cars. With the weather dropping as low as 10 degrees at night, the migrants are sleeping five or more to a car.
Even with the reported job opportunities, Zillow states that the cheapest property currently on the market is $720,000, with most houses valued at nearly $2 million. There are a few small homeless shelters in Aspen, but those are typically filled with long waitlists.
Edgar Hernandez spoke with 9News, stating that he and four other of his friends are living in the back of his Honda. He said, "In the car with my friends. There's five of us that sleep in this car, and another five who sleep in the other car."
He bought the car with his brother and said that it cost them several weeks' worth of salaries each, but having it allows them to travel from Denver to the mountains. He said they couldn't find work in the city and heard that the resort towns had plenty of jobs that paid well.
He said, "If you need me to clean a bathroom, I'll do it. If you want me to wash your car, tell me and Ill go wash it quickly. What we want is to work."
The city said that since the influx of migrants, they have raised its homeless population by 500 percent. Mayor Ben Bohmfalk said in a statement, "We don't want to become a destination for people. We can't take more people than we have now. We're really over what we can handle."
A week ago, the mayor asked the state for more than $200,000 to help house and feed the migrants. He said that he wants to help, but knows that his town simply does not have the resources to help all of these people. He added, "It's below 10 degrees at night most nights and it will be for the next few months. If people sleep outside in those conditions, they might not make it."
An emergency center reportedly opened up to house about 60 homeless people at a time inside of a building with extra space. The rest sleep outside in the parking lot and try to stay warm. Bohmfalk said, "We don't want people to see these stories and think, oh, Carbondale is the place to go. They're really welcoming. We are absolutely not equipped to take more people."
