Archuleta County Housing Needs Assessment

In most housing conversations, affordability is treated as a low-income problem. In Archuleta County, the data told a different story. The median home price reached $1,043,500 — affordable only to households above 300% of area median income. Police officers earning $51,000 to $76,000 and registered nurses earning $74,000 to $100,000 were priced out of ownership. The squeeze hit hardest at 120 to 160% AMI: households earning $75,000 to $121,000 made up 39% of owner households but found only 13% of listings in their price range. Even the rental market offered little relief — only 16% of listings were affordable at 80% AMI.

This wasn’t a problem at the margins. It ran through the middle of the income spectrum.

Western Spaces conducted the housing needs assessment as part of a larger engagement with ECOnorthwest. The assessment covered both Pagosa Springs and unincorporated areas, documenting how the affordability gap had widened beyond the households that traditional programs are designed to serve. Those findings became the foundation for a multi-session working group that shaped the county’s housing action plan — connecting data to action, not just a report.