The large majority of people buying affordable housing under Denver’s Inclusionary Housing Ordinance are single people without children.
Of the 737 units provided as part of the ordinance, 62 percent (or 456 units) are owned by a single person. Units with two people make up just 15 percent of the total available units and housing occupied by three people is only 12 percent of the total.
And only about a quarter of the units are owned by people with children, according to a required annual report issued Tuesday.
The 2002 ordinance mandates that for-sale housing developments of 30 or more units provide 10 percent of their units as affordable housing.
Denver’s director of the Division of Housing & Neighborhood Development, Jacky Morales-Ferand, said the program is not really geared toward luring families. She said the program is designed to provide housing for a workforce that would otherwise rent in Denver or commute from another town.
She added that a housing task force has found that 70 percent of the people who live in Denver are “singles, couples and elderly people without children.”
“So we are already in a community that is primarily made of people who don’t have children,” she said.
But Denver Realtor Ed Shackelford told a committee presenting the report he was disappointed in the high number of single-resident units.
“In my mind we are trying to reach families,” he said. “I think you need to take a serious look at this.”
Staff writer George Merritt can be reached at 303-820-1657 or gmerritt@denverpost.com.
