We’re the
Neighborhood Development Collaborative
A Coalition of 20 Metro-Denver Non-Profits Building Homes for Middle and Low Income Residents, Strengthening Neighborhoods with Community-Oriented Businesses, and Providing Innovative Human Services
A Coalition of 20 Metro-Denver Non-Profits Building Homes for Middle and Low Income Residents, Strengthening Neighborhoods with Community-Oriented Businesses, and Providing Innovative Human Services
Buying your own home is an important step in the continuum of housing. It stabilizes families, strengthens schools, and creates pathways to the middle class. However, the cost of for-sale housing across the Front Range is increasing at rates that drastically outpace income growth. NDC members work to ensure that every family has an equal opportunity to enter the housing market by providing homebuyer education and housing counseling; developing quality, below-market rate homes; and by offering offering home repair and rehabilitation programs for current owners.
The Denver-Metro region is currently one of the fastest-growing areas in America. Because people moving here tend to be mid-higher income, and because new construction has not quite kept pace with growth, rents are skyrocketing across the Front Range. NDC members work to create housing that is safe, secure, affordable, and reasonably close to job centers and/or transit so that people of all incomes can afford to work AND live in the region.
Decreasing affordability has pushed more people across the Front Range into homelessness, a trend that has been worsened by the Covid-19 pandemic. Adequate shelter provision is essential, but equally essential is the development of Permanently Supportive Housing. Stable housing has proved time and again to be the best and most economical way to lift people out of homelessness. NDC members provide housing opportunities for Metro-area neighbors who are exiting homelessness and offer wrap-around supportive services that provide a foundation for people to get back on their feet.
– Supportive Housing (30% AMI or below) –
– Affordable Rental (30-80% AMI) –
– Affordable Ownership (60-120% AMI) –
Unfortunately, market rate options do not support the full range of need. For renters, prices continue to go up and are becoming less affordable by the year. Even before the pandemic, across the Front Range there were 291,000 cost-burdened renters, paying more than 30% of their incomes on housing costs. Many of those households qualify as extremely housing cost burdened paying more than 50% of their income on housing expenses. This pressure faces those who own their homes as well, with 257,000 cost-burdened homeowners (JCHS, The State of the Nation’s Housing 2021). This group is often living on a fixed income and has struggled to keep up with increasing property taxes as local real estate markets have experienced a decade long hot streak.
NDC members were interviewed for an article CNN Money published addressing How Colorado became one of the least affordable places to live in the U.S.
Cost Burdened Renters
Cost Burdened Home-Owners
It is your place of rest, recuperation, and rejuvenation. Numerous studies show that having a place to live is the linchpin of an individual’s social, economic, and psychological stability–and that insecure housing has an especially negative impact on children.
Furthermore, for every $500 in additional rental costs for low-income families, food insecurity increases by 10%. What is perhaps less well-known is that building new affordable housing has a very positive local economic effect – resulting in a steep increase in both temporary (construction) and long-term jobs.
Number of Construction Jobs For Every 3 Affordable Housing Units Built
Number of Permanent Jobs Created For Every 3 Affordable Housing Units Built
Local Construction-related Income Generated for Every 3 Affordable Housing Units Built
Local Ongoing Yearly Income Generated for Every 3 Affordable Housing Units Built
Local Construction-related Taxes Generated for Every 3 Affordable Housing Units Built
Local Ongoing Yearly Taxes Generated for Every 3 Affordable Housing Units Built
Together, since 2009, NDC members have created nearly 23,000 affordable multifamily and single family homes; helped 3,492 families with foreclosure prevention, housing rehabilitation, and down-payment assistance loans; and provided home-buyer assistance counseling to over 35,776 households.
Click below for properties of NDC members.
Unlike the affordable housing developments of the past, modern affordable housing is often mixed-income, mixed-use, and aesthetically indistinguishable from market-rate housing. Not only do these developments address the increasing lack of affordable housing options along Colorado’s Front Range, but they also stimulate development and create jobs.
NDC is building a diverse coalition of organizations to help support this initiative. Please click below to learn how to help.
