An edition of the Littleton Independent
WEEK OF JANUARY 30, 2025
VOLUME 24 | ISSUE 9
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Residents buy mobile home park in Littleton Meadowood Village purchase will help lock in affordable housing for decades to come BY NINA JOSS NJOSS@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
“Dogtor” Peppi listens intently to Dr. Susan Ryan at Rose Medical Center ER in September.
Advocates for the presence of dogs in hospitals see the animals as one thing that can help. That includes Peppi’s handler, Susan Ryan, an emergency medicine physician at Rose. Ryan said years working as an emergency room doctor left her with symptoms of PTSD. “I just was messed up and I knew it,” said Ryan, who isolated more at home and didn’t want to engage with friends. “I shoved it all in. I think we all do.” She said doctors and other providers can be good at hiding their struggles, because they have to compartmentalize. “How else can I go from a patient who had a cardiac arrest, deal with the family members telling them that, and go to a room where another person is mad that they’ve had to wait 45 minutes for their ear pain? And I have to flip that switch.” To cope with her symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder, Ryan started doing therapy with horses. But she couldn’t have a horse in her backyard, so
After almost a year of paperwork, grant applications and meetings, the residents of a mobile home park in Littleton are now the proud owners of the land beneath their homes. In purchasing the park, the residents of Meadowood Village have gained control of the property and have locked in affordable housing for at least 30 years, based on the terms of their loan agreements. Last spring, the residents received notice of a corporation’s intent to buy the park, which is located on the west side of Santa Fe Drive, just north of Breckenridge Brewery. Since then, the residents, who are mostly over the age of 55, have worked together to achieve ownership of their mobile home park. Because a Colorado law offers mobile home park residents 120 days after notice of a potential sale to make their own offer, the residents of Meadowood Village worked to become a cooperative. They made an offer on the park, secured financing, conducted inspections and, on Jan. 10, officially became the owners of the land beneath their homes. “It’s ours now,” Meadowood Cooperative President Sandy Cook said. “That’s the important part. That’s what our goal has been for the last year, is to make the park ours.” When notice of the corporate intent to purchase came in, Cook and her neighbors were concerned that the potential new corporate owners would have raised rents on the land beneath their homes. They feared this would lead to the displacement of many residents who relied on their mobile homes as a form of affordable housing in an expensive market. With housing that’s affordable hard to come by throughout the metro area, including Littleton, mobile homes are often a catch-all for those who otherwise have few alternatives to be homeowners. Also known as manufactured homes, these structures are often considered the largest source of unsubsidized housing that is affordable in the nation.
SEE DOGS, P14
SEE MEADOWOOD, P8
PHOTO BY LONDON LYLE, SPECIAL TO COLORADO COMMUNITY MEDIA
Dogs at hospitals help ease staff and patient stress BY JOHN DALEY CPR NEWS
Outside HCA HealthONE Rose medical center, the snow is flying. Inside, on the third floor, there’s a flurry of activity within the labor and delivery unit. “There’s a lot of action up here. It can be very stressful at times,” said Kristina Fraser, an OB-GYN in blue scrubs. Nurses wheel a very pregnant mom past. “We’re going to bring a baby into this world safely,” Fraser said, “and off we go.” She said she feels ready in part due to a calming moment she had just a few minutes earlier with some canine colleagues. A pair of dogs, tails wagging, had come by a nearby nursing station, causing about a dozen medical professionals to melt into a collective puddle of affection. A yellow Lab named Peppi showered Fraser in nuzzles and kisses. “I don’t know if a human baby smells as good as that puppy breath!” Fraser had said as her colleagues laughed. The dogs aren’t visitors. They work
here, too, specifically for the benefit of the staff. “I feel like that dog just walks on and everybody takes a big deep breath and gets down on the ground and has a few moments of just decompressing,” Fraser said. “It’s great. It’s amazing.” Hospital staffers who work with the dogs say there is virtually no bite risk with the carefully trained Labradors, the preferred breed for this work. The dogs are kept away from allergic patients and washed regularly to prevent germs from spreading, and people must wash their hands before and after petting them. Doctors and nurses are facing a growing mental health crisis driven by their experiences at work. They and other health care colleagues face high rates of depression, anxiety, stress, suicidal ideation, and burnout. Nearly half of health workers reported often feeling burned out in 2022, an increase from 2018, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And the percentage of health care workers who reported harassment at work more than doubled over that four-year period.
VOICES: 10 | LIFE: 12 | CALENDAR: 15
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