Greetings from Estes Park!
Estes Valley Workforce Downpayment Assistance Program celebrates first recipients!The newly formed Estes Valley Workforce Downpayment Assistance Program is proud to announce that its first recipients have closed on a home! Local employees Carissa Streib and Josh McGill have successfully purchased their first home here in town.
Josh is employed with The Portfolio Group, a local design and construction firm owned by Steve and Betty Nickel who commented, “We’re thrilled that Josh was able to buy a home. Now, all of Porfolio’s full-time crew own homes and live in the Estes Valley. That means a lot of their income stays right here in the local economy.” Josh remembers looking at his new home while he was working on the house next door about five years ago. “I wondered if I would ever be able to afford a home like that...and I ended up buying it! Without the Workforce Downpayment Assistance Program, it would not have been possible for us.”
Carissa is employed by her familyʼs businesses: Simply Christmas and Mocha Angeloʼs. Her father, Kurt Streib remarked, “The down payment assistance program is a great help in keeping the young people who grew up in Estes, in Estes. The community, both the social and the working, need to have these young people stay. The working community for solid year round employees, the social community to keep the town alive. Estes Park needs a mix of old and young; the assistance program helps to accomplish this.”
Rita Kurelja, head of the Estes Valley Housing Authority has been instrumental in setting up the program as well as local REALTORS Judy Anderson, Peggy Lynch and Lisa VonBargen, who happened to be the REALTOR assisting Josh and Carissa with the transaction. VonBargen said, “It is so gratifying to see this program in action after over a year of setting up the program and fundraising to get it off the ground, it really does make it all worthwhile!”
Josh and Carissa have been participating in the fundraisers to feed the Estes Valley Downpayment Assistance Program since their purchase. They bought Duck Race tickets and participated as a team with their employers in the recent Rock-N-Roll Bowling Tournament sponsored by the Estes Park Board of REALTORS. Carissa stated that, “this program has made a difference in our lives, and we are excited to help the program to be ready for the next recipients here in Estes Park!” 
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