OUR POLICY PLATFORM
As a coalition of housing providers and housing supportive nonprofit organizations, the Neighborhood Development Collaborative recognizes that our current system does not naturally produce the necessary range of housing types our community needs. We are working towards a future in which there are homes and support systems for all of our unhoused neighbors, every Coloradan has access to housing options, regardless of income level, and homeownership is within reach for more Coloradans regardless of race, class, or zip code. Together we can make that happen.
What’s Needed
Resources to prevent people from becoming homeless
- Many individuals and families across our state are one emergency away from homelessness. We need a safety net in place that is robust, well advertised, accessible, and unstigmatized to support our neighbors through the rough patches we all face to keep our communities whole.
Sufficient housing and services for people experiencing and transitioning out of homelessness
- The causes of homelessness are as numerous as the people experiencing homelessness, no two stories are the same. When people lose their homes they are vulnerable to abuse, extreme weather, mental instability, and many other dangers. To avoid the worst outcomes of homelessness, solutions must be readily available. These solutions include having safe places to sleep at night and stay during the day where our neighbors are not separated from family or pets and their belongings can be secure. Simultaneously, housed or unhoused, people need access to a wide range of supports that are responsive to their particular circumstances.
Housing variety to serve households of various income levels, sizes, and lifestyles
- Housing is a human right, but our systems don’t reflect that. To have truly responsive housing, we need options that serve the needs of all combinations of income level, family size, and housing preferences. Research shows that in the long term, adding market-rate supply is the surest way to increase vacancies, bring down rents, and reduce housing cost burden and homelessness. But in the short term, public dollars should be prioritized to build affordable housing for those with the lowest incomes and reduce displacement for those who are most vulnerable.
Secure rental tenure and the protection of renters rights
- Coloradans shouldn’t feel they are one rent hike away from having to leave their communities, and everyone should feel secure in their homes. To ensure this, we need to be committed to creating and maintaining a safe rental housing stock, tenant’s rights protections, and other strategies to make everyone’s home secure.
Wage levels to keep up with the cost of housing
- While housing costs are the biggest expense most of us have, it is only one side of the equation. If housing costs continue to escalate without a commensurate increase in income, we will continue to fight an unwinnable battle. Communities must monitor housing costs and consider local wage floors that will enable their workforce to live near employment opportunities.
Broader access to homeownership and alternate pathways to generational wealth
- The American Dream should be within grasp of everyone, but we all start the journey on an uneven playing field. We want to increase access to generational wealth-building through the traditional means of home ownership, but also by supporting opportunities for tenant equity building and other pathways to wealth creation.
Homeownership opportunities targeted towards people who have been excluded from homeownership historically and today
- White homeownership consistently hovers around 70%, while Black homeownership in Colorado is just above 40%. This is a direct outcome of discriminatory policies spanning redlining, predatory lending, and racial inequality in home appraisals. We want Colorado to lead the nation in closing the racial homeownership gap; to get there we need to stop relying on “racially neutral” policies and take an explicitly anti-racist approach to homeownership.