Denver affordable housing advocate Jonathan Cappelli says Colorado did a lot for his cause this legislative session, but much more needs to be done.
The state soon will invest $650 million, mostly in federal American Rescue Plan Act dollars, for housing and homelessness. About two-thirds will go toward housing and the rest will fund homeless services campuses, like the one Aurora wants to build.
Cappelli said these one-time funds are like throwing a bucket of water on a blaze when a hose is needed. He made his remarks during a panel discussion last week sponsored by Colorado Coalition for the Homeless.
The Coalition is asking voters to approve Proposition 123. It would create a funding stream for affordable housing. is asking voters to approve Proposition 123.
At 24 active construction sites in Denver, 1,100 affordable homes currently are under construction, said Angie Nelson, assistant director of HOST. Two new non-congregant shelters in the form of hotels also have been purchased.
Cappelli, executive director of the Neighborhood Development Collaborative, remarked that several state investments this legislative session went to housing assistance for middle-income families. He said investors comb Denver neighborhoods buying up properties. Forty percent of families recently displaced from Denver Public Schools lost their home this way, Cappelli said.
The numbers tell a dire Denver housing story
Aubrey Wilde, advocacy program director for the Coalition, presented data on housing affordability in Colorado and Denver. She said statistics show:
· Only 29 affordable homes exist for every 100 people earning 30 percent or less of the area’s median income. That’s about $22,000 annually. For income earners at 80 percent, or about $54,000 per year, 94 units per 100 households exist.
· Homelessness in Colorado has risen 266 percent since 2007. The annual Point in Time count lists almost 10,000 people as homeless, but the real number could be as high as 54,000, officials say. Colorado Coalition for the Homeless by itself serves 25,000 unique individuals annually.
· Metro Denver home prices increased by $94 per day from 2011 to 2021.
· In Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, 13.3 percent of renters have past due balances.
· Median rent in Denver doubled between 2010 and 2022.
· Seventy-four percent of extremely low-income earners spend more than 50 percent of their wages on rent. Affordable rent for a person earning minimum wage and working full time is $653, a nearly impossible price point in Denver. This leaves families without money for food, health care, and other essentials.
· Colorado ranks eighth nationwide for the amount of money a person must earn to live in suitable housing. Full-time workers need to earn $29 per hour to afford a place. One in four renters can’t afford their rent.
Housing homeless cost effective but unpopular
Wilde said it’s less expensive to house the homeless than to leave them languishing on the street. Emergency room visits, police interaction and jail time costs taxpayers far more than permanent supportive housing, she said.
Cappelli said housing for those who need it most can be a tough sell. Neighborhoods erupt with “a cacophony of voices that are trying to squash it” when permanent supportive housing complexes get proposed. Cappelli said one Colorado survey showed 80 precent of people “believe there is a need for affordable housing, just not near them."
‘Instead of a wall it is a red line’
People of color have faced roadblocks to housing for decades, Cappelli noted. From the 1930s to the 1960s, community leaders drew red lines around certain neighborhoods on maps. Investment was not to penetrate those red lines. “Instead of a wall it is a red line where investments won’t happen and money won’t flow,” Cappelli said. “Humans have fought over land for all of existence.”
When the federal government began to build public housing, it segregated Black and white, Cappelli said.
Federal housing dollars prioritize home ownership
Federal housing programs are mostly aimed at the middle class via home ownership tax breaks and incentives. If the same amount of money funneled toward home buying programs went to rental vouchers, everyone would be housed, said Angie Nelson, Denver’s assistant director of the Department of Housing Stability.
Cappelli dismissed the “trickle-down theory” that if you “build, build, build” and increase your housing stock, units will trickle down for low-income earners, too. He said that philosophy is how Denver ended up with about 20,000 vacant luxury units. There likely are at least that many homeless people in Denver.
While the United States won’t let people starve, generously providing food stamps, housing is more of a lottery, Cappelli said.
Closing landlord loopholes
Nelson said in 2023 the state plans to close loopholes that keep landlords from accepting rental vouchers. Some landlords will price rent right outside the market rate to keep a unit out of reach for voucher holders, she said. HOST plans to look into ways to make federal housing vouchers go farther, such as allowing roommates.
Unlike shelters and other temporary homeless solutions often financed with federal dollars, “Nothing fits for everyone like a place of their own,” Nelson said. “We’re trying to do that.”
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