Racial Inequities: 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 ough it is guidance, the plan lays out a foundation of Wheat Ridge’s priorities, and a few actionable steps the city could begin taking now. ese actionable recommendations in the plan are limited, but some are stated such as creating the Wheat Ridge A ordable Housing Fund — which the council approved on Jan. 9 — and hiring a housing sta member.

A higher priority actionable plan is to revise zoning for mixed-use districts and inclusionary housing. e idea is that current mixed-use districts — which the report states were intended to be where “neighborhood-serving ground oor retail and commercial uses would coexist with residential uses — have “mostly produced market-rate housing