Across the country and in Colorado, we simply cannot build our way out of the affordable housing crisis. Preserving our supply of currently affordable homes is an essential strategy to one day ensure everyone can stably afford a home in their own community. In addition to building new homes, we must also preserve the affordability of currently affordable rental homes through recapitalization, acquisition, rehabilitation, and adaptive reuse.

While Colorado was once considered “relatively affordable,” that has changed over the past decades, said Jennie Rodgers, Enterprise’s vice president and market leader for Rocky Mountain and Tribal Nations and Rural Communities. In fact, affordable housing was rated the top concern people are grappling with across the state, according to a recent survey by the Colorado Health Foundation. “Right now, many people here are cost burdened, and many are even on the verge of eviction,” Rodgers said.