Fighting the Odds

for six months. I was getting hired for full-time work and getting part-time hours.”

On top of that, Hojeboom said, she su ered from post-traumatic stress disorder and was on medication, making it di cult to work, not to mention driving to work.

But she did. She did it while struggling with numerous other health issues — from a blockage in her small intestine to insomnia. rough multiple visits to the hospital and bouts of extreme pain, she held onto various jobs.

After losing her home she went looking for a new place to live. But the $1,400 per month rents she could nd were out of her price range.

“ ere’s nothing to live on,” she said, a reference to how little money she would have left after paying rent.

“It’s ridiculous. I wasn’t the only one in this situation.”

She felt she had no other option.

“I couldn’t a ord living anywhere except my car,” she said. “I saw no end. I couldn’t a ord rent.”

Hojeboom found herself living on the streets.

“ ere was one industrial street in ornton, LeRoy Drive,” she said.

“One of the parks had a ush toilet. I was never harassed. But when I got to Northglenn, the police told me I couldn’t stay on the streets overnight. I stayed employed through this.”

She even worked in airport security. Hojeboom also had a job as a con- struction site agger, one that paid employees by the day. While she was recuperating from illness, she carried a cardboard sign to solicit money.

“I was fortunate,” she said. “It was Christmas and people were generous. I made $200. I froze my ass o , but I did what I had to do.” e partnership between Adams County, the city and the Denver Rescue Mission opened a temporary, 25-bed program inside the former Northglenn Recreation Center.

Eventually, Hojeboom got into the City of Northglenn’s temporary winter housing program, which ran from December 2021 and ended in August.

Northglenn’s program has since ended, but more programs are coming. Voters in November approved a ballot measure earmarking tax revenue for a ordable housing, and Gov. Jared Polis made the issue a point of emphasis in his ongoing agenda. ose who took advantage of the program met with case managers once a month.

“I slept on the gym oor on a mat for the last six months,” she told Colorado Community Media last year. “We were given breakfast, a sack lunch, a shower and a warm place to stay.”

Finding a permanent place wasn’t easy.

“I responded to ve ads,” she said. “Only one was legitimate. e rest were scams. I thought, ‘I’m not going to give you information if that’s the way you roll.’” e one legitimate ad turned into her new home near Chat eld Dam. It’s the rst time she’s had roommates. e city of Northglenn paid her deposit and gave her $200 more than what was necessary to secure the unit.

It’s quite a turnaround. She’d owned her own home at one point.

“I am not a loser,” Hojeboom said. “I’ve had success in my life. My career just took some bad twists. Breaking my elbow? at sucks. Not collecting disability? at sucks.”

“Being homeless sucks. I went to a food pantry, but I had no refrigeration,” she added. “I had a cooler, but I couldn’t keep food. My eating habits were not ideal.”

“It’s been a trip.”

She landed a job as a medical transport driver for a rm associated with the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center.

“My personality is perseverance, but I’m worried for people who don’t have it together,” she said. “What do landlords expect? ey are pricing everyone out of the market. Interest rates are going up, which will make it harder to nd homes.”

She drives a Jeep Wagoneer for her job.

“I never wanted to wave a cardboard sign,” Hojeboom added. “I’m resilient. I’m a diehard. I smile through the face of adversity. People like my spirit. I was an inspiration to a lot of people.” other e orts. As Proposition 123 ramps up, eventually about $300 million a year will be spent around the state on such e orts.

Polis’ o ce also highlighted how millions of dollars in federal economic recovery funds were spent amid the response to the coronavirus pandemic. In the last year, the state invested roughly $830 million into housing, including roughly $400 million based on funds from the federal American Rescue Plan Act in programs passed by state lawmakers, including:

• A ordable-housing spending detailed in House Bill 22-1304, which provides grants to local governments and nonpro ts toward investments in a ordable housing and housing-related matters.

• A loan program under Senate Bill 22-159 to make investments in a ordable housing.

• e loan and grant program under Senate Bill 22-160 to provide assistance and nancing to mobile home owners seeking to organize and purchase their mobile home ing it “can build a home in roughly 18 working days, compared to close to a year for traditionally built homes.”

Alone, 5,000 new homes over several years won’t make a huge dent, but the state is also armed with other new initiatives.

Proposition 123 requires state ofcials to set money aside for more a ordable housing and related programs. e money could go toward grants and loans to local governments and nonpro ts to acquire land for a ordable housing developments.

Funds could also go to help develop multifamily rentals, including apartments, and programs that help rst-time homebuyers, among

• e expansion of the “middle income access program” of the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority under Senate Bill 22-146. e authority, a state entity, invests in a ordable housing.

• e “Infrastructure and Strong Communities” program, also under House Bill 22-1304, to provide grants to enable local governments to invest in infrastructure projects that support a ordable housing. ose investments build upon an additional $460 million in emergency rental assistance, $180 million in homeowner assistance and $7 million in vouchers that Colorado also invested using federal funds, the governor’s office told CCM.

Polis portrayed housing as integral to the fabric of Colorado, placing it in the larger context of climate, economic and water policy.

“Building smart, efficient housing statewide, especially in urban communities and job centers, won’t just reduce costs, it will save energy, conserve our water, and protect the lands and wildlife that are so important to our Colorado way of life,” Polis said.

Beyond spending, zoning is an important tool that officials — from the governor to city leaders — are looking at tweaking in hopes of alleviating the rising cost of housing and its effects on communities.

State role in the mix

It’s a conversation that is older than many Coloradans. Making the case for new policies today, Polis harked back to changes from five decades ago.

“The last time Colorado made major land-use changes was in 1974 — before I, and most of you, were born,” Polis said. “We were a different state then.”

The governor’s office didn’t specify to CCM more about those changes, but at least two pieces of legislation arose that year that affected how local governments regulate how land is used.

Polis seemed to tease at the possibility of state intervention in how local communities govern housing.

“Since issues like transportation, water, energy, and more inherently cross jurisdictional boundaries, it becomes a statewide problem that truly impacts all of us,” Polis said.

He spoke of the need for more flexible zoning to allow more housing and “streamlined regulations that cut through red tape.” He touched on expedited approval processes for projects like modular housing, sustainable development and more building in transit-oriented communities.

The governor and his office also didn’t specify what changes to zoning policy he would support or oppose. Polis has not said that he wants the state to require zoning changes in cities. Instead, the governor spoke about the state leaning in on an existing policy.

“We want to lean in to allowing local governments to use tools like inclusionary zoning to help create the right mix for their community, and I think that local input in design is very important,” Polis said in a Jan. 17 news conference, following his address.

So-called “inclusionary” housing policies typically ask property developers to set aside a percentage of units in new developments for affordable housing, although developers are given different options to fulfill those requirements, The Colorado Sun has reported.

The landscape of local governments’ power to affect housing affordability in Colorado saw a big change recently. In 2021, Polis signed state House Bill 21-1117, allowing cities to impose affordable housing requirements on new or redeveloped projects, so long as developers or property owners have alternatives.

For example, they could trade those for affordable units built elsewhere, pay a fee into an affordable housing fund, or any number of other options, the Sun reported.

It’s unclear whether Polis would support anything further than the existing allowance for cities to use inclusionary zoning.

As of late January, the governor was focused on gathering input to work with state lawmakers and develop a proposal on land-use policy. As of press deadline, no bill had been introduced.

‘Can’t expect to lose money’

Polis noted the wide gap that has opened between housing prices and people’s income over the last several decades, putting homeownership out of reach for many families.

More government spending on housing is part of the solution to affordability, experts told CCM, including Yonah Freemark, senior research associate at the nonprofit Urban Institute, based in Washington, D.C.

“Assuming that we can rely entirely on the private market to address the affordable housing need is, I think, unrealistic and unlikely to address the needs of the people who have the lowest incomes,”

Freemark said.

Ron Throupe, associate professor of real estate at the Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver, said “it’s inevitable” that government must provide the needed funding to bolster the supply side of the housing market.

“We do things (on) the supply side, but it’s not enough,” Throupe said. “And you can’t expect a developer to build something and lose money.”

Spending from higher levels of government could benefit in particular the suburbs, which are struggling with housing affordability but have less political appetite to tackle the problem themselves, Freemark said.

“Ultimately, the most exclusionary places, which are often suburbs, have no incentive to invest in affordable housing” because “they don’t see affordable housing as (needed) by their residents,” Freemark said.

That said, creating housing affordability for key workers like teachers, police and firefighters is an important part of the puzzle for communities, Throupe said.

“You lose your teachers, and then you lose the quality of your schools, and it hurts the area. Same with police and fire,” Throupe said.

In the larger business community, housing plays a crucial role too, Polis said.

“Coloradans have to be able to afford to live in our communities where they can earn a good living, and companies need to be able to

SEE STRESSES, P23

Trust, which serves Denver, Boulder, Aurora, Longmont and Fort Collins, has created 700 a ordable homes and served around 2,000 residents in its rst ve years of operating.

Rodney Milton, a board member for the Elevation Community Land Trust and executive director of the Urban Land Institute, said another bene t to having shared land is it helps to prevent displacement and keeps communities intact.

“ e problem with reaping full equity is you can leave and the next person who buys the house could a ord to buy it at a higher price and you lose the a ordability,” Milton said. “( e land trust) locks in a ordability, but it also locks in community dynamics.”

Habitat’s plan to purchase more land in its ve-county service area is evidence that the organization believes in the land trust model for successfully housing more people, La erty said.

“We don’t anticipate land getting any less expensive, even if the market cools,” she said. “We have an urgency and a problem today that we’re trying to meet, as well as a long-term problem that we anticipate, so we’re trying to solve for both today and tomorrow.”

La erty said one of the biggest challenges to expanding programs to serve more lower-income households and add moderate-income households is money. Last year, her organization