Denver looks to study social housing model
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
Denver may explore whether it can create an affordable housing model popularized in Europe that provides homes for people across the socioeconomic spectrum.
Driving the news: First-term city councilmember Shontel Lewis has requested $250,000 in Mayor Mike Johnston's budget for a study exploring the feasibility of what's called social housing.
- It's one of 28 proposed funding changes council members recently requested.
Why it matters: Lewis believes the idea could help create a long-term solution to the city's housing crisis by creating more homes and curbing involuntary displacement.
By the numbers: Denver's housing inventory is short by nearly 70,000 units while homelessness is rising.
Zoom in: Social housing is different from traditional public housing because it allows people across all income levels to cohabitate in the same building.
- It means the city's lowest income residents, someone making less than $26,070 a year or, 30% of the area median income in Denver, can live next door to a person making three times that amount.
- It would limit how much people pay for rent, which could range from 30% to 35% of a tenant's household income, Lewis' spokesperson, Vince Chandler, tells us.
The intrigue: Another key element to social housing would be to avoid what Lewis calls "concentrating poverty," something she says traditional affordable housing often does.
- It can lead to an environment with higher crime rates — though studies show this isn't always the case — and a higher concentration of places like fast food restaurants and liquor stores.
Context: Austria's capital, Vienna, is often lauded for its social housing program, which has existed for nearly a century, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
- Its city government owns and manages 220,000 housing units, or roughly 25% of its housing stock, HUD reports.
- Having the city own the housing is something Denver's feasibility study would explore, according to Chandler.
Zoom out: Seattle voters this year approved creating a public development authority, while one local lawmaker in Los Angeles proposed a similar program earlier this year.
Between the lines: Lewis' request was made in the context of improving the city's response to climate change, something she said helped gain the support from her colleagues to formally make the recommendation.
- Funding for the study could come from the general or the climate protection fund, which obtains money from local sales and use tax, according to a proposal document.