Ensuring that people can access adequate housing has long been a core concern for human service agencies and providers. Stable housing helps people stay healthy, remain connected to the community, and have peace of mind. With the advent of evidence-based approaches, such as Housing First, human service organizations have invested even more resources into this issue.

Yet lately, this topic has become even more urgent throughout Colorado. Increasing housing prices for both renting and buying creates more difficult hurdles. From the Great Plains to the Front Range and on through the Western Slope, communities are experiencing tougher and broader housing challenges. Some of our recent research has helped these communities understand housing challenges to prioritize ways to overcome them.

Challenges

In a recent survey, we found that the affordable housing situation has gotten worse in most of Colorado’s cities and towns over the past three years. A lack of affordable housing has steadily become a more common challenge for communities since 2012, when the economy began to recover after the Great Recession.

A shortage of accessible housing begets other human service issues. Indeed, most communities in Colorado have had a difficult time recruiting and retaining a workforce due to affordable housing challenges, and many communities have seen local worker commute times increase because of a lack of local affordable housing.

Almost all medium and large cities in Colorado have witnessed a rise in people experiencing homelessness over the past three years. Even though that increase is not entirely caused by a lack of affordable housing, an increase in homeless people does frequently affect local law enforcement and parks and recreation departments, demanding more resources. Homelessness effect on police and parks was true regardless of community size or region in the state.

Solutions

Our research has found that many communities are rising to meet the challenges of affordable housing. Most midsized to large communities either currently have a housing affordability plan or intend to create one soon; most also have a plan to address homelessness. However, other potential solutions, such as subsidizing workforce housing or creating a dedicated tax, are uncommon. Maybe these solutions, or other innovative ideas, can help communities address their challenges.

If your community is facing these issues, consider conducting a housing needs assessment. Needs assessments can range from simple analysis of existing demographic data to extensive engagements, including hearing from people who are most affected by housing. If you are interested in learning more about how a needs assessment could help you identify housing needs and gaps in your community, give us a call; we are happy to chat.