{"id":38764,"date":"2022-08-23T14:03:37","date_gmt":"2022-08-23T20:03:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-voters-to-decide-affordable-housing-funding-measure-in-november\/"},"modified":"2022-08-23T20:03:37","modified_gmt":"2022-08-23T20:03:37","slug":"colorado-voters-to-decide-affordable-housing-funding-measure-in-november","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-voters-to-decide-affordable-housing-funding-measure-in-november\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado voters to decide affordable housing funding measure in November"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Four-
Four- and six-unit townhome-style buildings make up Mosaica, a new Colorado Springs housing development geared to families making slightly too much to qualify for traditional affordable housing. Developers hope to move residents in sometime this summer. (Dan Boyce\/CPR News)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A proposal to increase the state\u2019s funding for affordable housing will appear on statewide ballots this November after supporters collected more than 200,000 signatures.<\/p>\n

The \u201cMake Colorado Affordable\u201d proposal would require the state to spend a certain amount \u2013 almost $270 million in its first full year \u2013 on affordable housing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think this is the first time housing has ever been on the ballot statewide in Colorado,\u201d said Mike Johnston, CEO and president of Gary Community Ventures, the philanthropy that is one of the measure\u2019s main backers.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cAnd we know it\u2019s a critical moment for us to make sure that teachers and nurses and firefighters have places to live in our communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

The measure would not directly raise taxes. Instead, it sets aside a tenth of a percent of the income taxes the state is already collecting. However, it would have the effect of reducing TABOR refunds by the same amount, too \u2013 meaning it will have a cost to taxpayers in some years.<\/p>\n

\u201cInitiative 108 is a bad idea. There\u2019s nothing \u2018affordable\u2019 about taking $300 million of our TABOR tax refunds for this flawed housing measure,\u201d tweeted Michael Fields, president of the conservative Advance Colorado Institute.<\/p>\n

Johnston estimated the measure could pay for 10,000 affordable housing units per year. That\u2019s compared with a deficit of more than 100,000 homes for the state\u2019s lowest income people \u2013 and an overall market shortage of more than 300,000 homes.<\/p>\n

The measure will only go into effect if it\u2019s approved by a majority of voters in the 2022 election. If so, it would create a statewide affordable housing fund for purposes including:<\/p>\n

Land banking. Governments and nonprofit developers would get loans to buy land for future projects. The loans are forgiven if affordable housing projects are started within a decade.Grants and financing for low- and middle-income multifamily housing, and gap financing for projects that qualify for affordable housing tax credits.Programs for people experiencing homelessness.Debt financing for modular and factory-based housing builders.<\/div>\n

It would be nearly a sixfold increase in the state\u2019s dedicated affordable housing funds, which are currently about $50 million per year, Johnston said. The state is also in the middle of spending about $400 million of federal funding on housing across the state, but Johnston said that wouldn\u2019t be enough.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t build an affordable housing supply with one-time funds,\u201d he said. \u201cThey have to be long term. They have to be stable and they have to be significant.\u201d<\/p>\n

The program would be focused on families making 60% or less of an area\u2019s median income, with some flexibility. It also includes incentives for governments to reduce the bureaucratic red tape that can slow down affordable projects.<\/p>\n

The measure has reported more than $2.8 million in fundraising from groups including Gary Community Ventures, Habitat for Humanity of Metro Denver and the National Association of Realtors.<\/p>\n

To read more stories from Colorado Public Radio, visit www.cpr.org<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Initiative would not raise taxes, but it could draw from TABOR refunds<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38765,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[791,120,266,28,453,1621],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-38764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-ballot-initiatives","tag-colorado","tag-election","tag-headlines","tag-housing-and-urban-planning","tag-voting"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38764"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=38764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}