It is “kind of depressing,” Armando Leiva admits, to go several days without seeing his children.
But it happens.
The father of two young girls, Isabella, 8, and Hazel, 5, works two jobs to pay his family’s bills. He spends 40 hours each week preparing pickup orders at Walmart making $17 per hour, and another 25 hours loading delivery trucks for UPS, where he makes $21 per hour.
“I feel like all I do is just work and work and don’t get to spend that much time with the kids,” he said. “But I gotta do what I gotta do to live here.”
His long, unconventional work hours mean that it can be challenging to see his daughters, the youngest of whom started preschool this year. Armando’s wife, Heidi Leiva, was a stay-at-home mom until mid-November, when she started a certificate program and picked up part-time remote work.
Across the country, people like the Leivas are struggling to make ends meet.
But in mountain towns, quarters are much closer. And people like Armando Leiva, who deliver packages to Main Avenue businesses or repair ritzy mountain bikes, move to Durango for the same reasons as the high-wage earners who own expansive first or second homes here.
“I want my kids to grow up in Durango,” he said.
When he and his wife first fled California and its high housing prices, they landed in Farmington. But that wasn’t a place the couple wanted to raise their children.
“We get what we pay for – a better life for our kids,” Heidi said.
And pay, they do.
One way or another, people make it work in Durango. They share rooms, they work so much that they don’t enjoy the area’s offerings, or they are exceedingly creative in how they leverage the resources available in the town.
The Durango Herald spoke with some of these people, learned about their financial situation, and then asked: Why do they make it work?
“It’s not a place I would ever want to be if I didn’t have money saved,” said Sean Cannon.
The 26-year-old has lived in Durango for two years. Like many enterprising young people considering a career in social work or counseling, Cannon moved to Durango to work as a guide at Open Sky Wilderness Therapy, one of the town’s larger employers.
The pay was decent – $2,200 per month at the start, and more as he rose up the ranks. The work can be rather grueling, as guides spend two weeks in the field working nonstop.
But Cannon was getting something out of it.
“I got here and I found a community of people that I love – and I still feel that way,” he said.
Unlike some guides at the company, Cannon chose not to share a room. His peers will often split rent with someone working complementary shifts, such that the room is occupied full-time but each person has it only for two weeks.
“I never shared a room because I valued that, I wanted my own space and I wanted to never have to be worried about the dynamics there,” he said.
It was a luxury he could afford, to the tune of $600 per month for a room in a duplex with a housemate, thanks to a lucrative period during the COVID-19 lockdown when Cannon saved money by living with family and babysitting.
Of course, not every guide decides they can, or want to indulge in the luxury of their own bedroom.
Beth Henshaw and her partner Ian O’Brien (the trail runner who drowned near Hesperus Mountain in June) both worked two-week shifts at Open Sky and initially had a room-share. But they would get off shift and go on adventures that involved extended periods away from their home.
“It was like the most frustrating thing ever to pay rent because we were never there,” Henshaw said.
And although some Durango landlords accept the room-sharing system, hers did not.
“Our landlord really got angry about the room-sharing thing,” she said. “You had a three-bedroom house, so there’s six people living in it, but there’s only really ever three people there and (they) just didn’t really get it.”
Ultimately, the couple decided that it would be more aligned with their lifestyles to purchase a van. For the 18 months, they lived in Durango out of a van and spent $400 to $500 each month on food, gas and insurance, bumming showers from friends when needed.
“I guess why we stayed was just community,” Henshaw said. “The reason we used Durango as home base was because our friends are there and we still wanted to participate in open mic nights and meet people for bike rides.”
Cannon is no longer working. He’s a full-time graduate student getting his masters in social work and found that even half-time work was incompatible with his schedule.
“It’s been the most expensive four months of my life,” he said.
He paid for school out of pocket last semester – $4,300 at a subsidized rate – but he will need a loan (adding to $30,000 of existing student loan debt) next semester. He needed new tires for his car ($1,000), and some emergency dental work ($2,000), for which he has no health insurance.
Cannon was able to pay off a monthly credit card bill of $4,000 in “unavoidable expenses” because of a small nest egg he saved up during the pandemic. “I’m fortunate,” said.
“I think I already understood a fair bit of how you stay poor and don’t grow, but yeah …” Cannon trailed off. “Can you imagine having kids and trying to survive?”
The Leivas don’t have to imagine.
The family’s income is less than 50% of Area Median Income for a family of four in La Plata County. The median income for a family of four in the county is $103,900.
Between Armando Leiva’s two jobs, the family has a gross annual income of around $50,000. Walmart frequently cuts hours, Leiva said, and he often does not end up working the 40 hours for which he is scheduled.
That gives the family $4,166 each month before taxes. They pay $1,483 for their three-bedroom apartment, utilities included, in a complex specifically dedicated for low-income residents. The median rent for a similar apartment would otherwise cost at least an additional $1,000 per month.
That leaves the family $2,683 to pay for gas, car insurance ($180), preschool ($205), groceries ($1,000) and, when they can afford it, leisure.
But leisure spending, such as going out for a meal, is a rare occurrence.
“We try not to,” Heidi Leiva said. “We barely just started taking lunch dates, the two of us, now that our kids are in school because we hadn’t had a date since like 2016.”
By the end of each month, the family typically does not have anything to save away, and has made no dent in the combined $90,000 in student loan debt hanging over them.
“We live check-to-check for sure,” she said.
Living check-to-check, many Durango residents find ways to cut corners, expense-wise.
Alec Mayes, a Durango resident of 6½ years, is the drummer in the band Desert Child. His income fluctuates wildly, he says, as the band has grown in popularity and he has started dedicating more time to music.
His other job, editing chemical safety data in preparation for the substances’ transportation, is one he came across “via the loving hand of nepotism.”
His father works for the company, and Mayes had been able to work fluctuating hours there remotely since he graduated from college.
“That’s the piece that’s allowed me to otherwise be flexible or explore,” he said.
Mayes has been steadily saving a few thousand dollars each year, thanks in part to his lean lifestyle.
He drives “fully depreciated heaps” as vehicles – he has two, both with over 300,000 miles. His apartment is a few miles outside town, and Mayes doesn’t do a lot of frivolous spending, he said.
The Durango Community Recreation Center is an enormous asset, Mayes and several other people pointed out.
In that vein, the Leivas lean into Durango’s free resources as well. They go to events such as the balloon glow and brought their children to the tree lighting in Buckley Park, rather than spending money on other potentially costly outings.
Heidi Leiva participated in Manna’s produce share program, takes advantage of the La Plata Family Centers Coalition toy drive and took her children to the Durango Cafe au Play.
“I’m pretty resourceful at finding stuff like that,” she said.
Still, the family says they give up a lot.
“We’d love to travel,” Heidi said.
She hasn’t seen her siblings in California since they moved three years ago.
Her husband has not returned to Managua, Nicaragua, where he was born and still has family, since he left 24 years ago.
However, they say Durango will be an enduring home.
If money were no object, Mayes said he would buy a home.
A therapist and former Open Sky guide said that although she feels fulfilled by Durango in so many ways, owning a home here is an unlikely reality.
Heidi Leiva described homeownership as “the ultimate struggle.”
People should be able to afford to live where they work, she said, although that is not always the case. She browses Zillow occasionally, scoping out potential options.
Now that she has begun part-time remote work, is going back to school and her husband is aiming for a higher-paying job, Leiva is hopeful about their future.
“Durango is definitely forever,” she said. “I don’t want to go to Cortez, I don’t want to go to Bayfield, I want to stay right here in Durango.”
rschafir@durangoherald.com
