Black Coloradans often face barriers in homeownership

the applicants visited properties, landlords denied their applications. is happened over and over again.

BY NINA JOSS AND HALEY LENA NJOSS@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM; HLENA@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

A few years ago, Aurora Warms the Night, an Aurora-based nonpro t serving people who need housing, ran into a challenge when assisting its Black clients in applying for apartments. When

So the team decided to take a di erent approach, sending in White volunteers to check out the apartments rst.

“I would send one of our employees or people that were White to look at the apartment — to get the pricing, get everything, to make sure everything was available,” said Brian Arnold, who was executive director of the group at the time ve years ago. “After that, we did the application online and sent it in without them being able to see the person.”

Once the application got approved, the team at Aurora Warms the Night would let the real estate agents see the client was Black. Arnold said this process worked almost every time and became the organization’s own way of making a dent in the discrimination that people of color may face, but nd

On Jan. 11, the Englewood Public Library and portions of the Englewood Civic Center temporarily closed after test results found meth contamination.

Most recently, Littleton’s Bemis Public Library temporarily closed Jan. 18 after testing found elevated levels of meth contamination in several bathrooms.

Meth is a highly addictive stimulant drug that is commonly either ingested, smoked or injected, said Eric Hill, an emergency medicine physician and the EMS medical director for the Medical Center of Aurora.

However, experts say the risk that secondary meth contamination in public spaces poses to the public is fairly low.

“We don’t have any data to say that there’s a high public health risk from