Low income Coloradans face severe affordable housing shortage
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There are only 26 affordable housing units in Colorado for every 100 low-income households, according to a new report listing Colorado as the sixth least-affordable state in the nation.
The report links the lack of affordable housing to decades of underinvestment at both the federal and state level.
Kinsey Hasstedt, state and local policy director for Enterprise Community Partners in Colorado, said rents and mortgages have become too high for many essential workers.
© iStock - Jeff Manes
"We've seen for a long time wages not keep up with the cost of living here," Hasstedt pointed out. "I think this is particularly true for folks who are working in lower-wage jobs, often having to work multiple jobs."
Eight in 10 Coloradans who work in low-paying jobs -- in education, health care and the service industry -- spend more than half their income just to stay housed. Private developers have constructed plenty of homes for top earners and investors. There are currently 22,000 vacant housing units in metro Denver alone, more than five empty homes for every Coloradan experiencing homelessness.
The Trump administration has fired federal workers and frozen housing assistance funds as it works to remake government and reduce waste. Hasstedt noted ending HUD's Green and Resilient Retrofit Program would put existing affordable housing stock at risk of being turned into market-rate homes.
"If we lose funds like that federal program, that are able to help preserve buildings and their affordability, then the addition of any new affordable development is really just going to be kind of adding to a bucket that's leaking out of the bottom," Hasstedt argued.
Colorado lawmakers are considering measures aiming to streamline homeless support infrastructure and keep people from losing their housing, including domestic violence survivors.
Hasstedt emphasized it is important to be strategic when investing limited public resources.
"We really need to be targeting and prioritizing those funds to the households and the people of Colorado who need them most," Hasstedt contended. "What we have seen in recent years is an interest from lawmakers in directing those funds into serving higher-income households."
