Q: How did your background lead you to your current career in affordable urban housing?
A: Before I moved to Denver, I worked in Washington, D.C., starting out with World Bank and then an international development firm. I did project management, mostly in Latin America. The National Council of La Raza is how I got into community development work.
I really wanted to be a little more rooted than I was. With consulting, you do a lot of traveling and don’t really get to see the fruits of your labor.
I moved here to take a job at Enterprise in 1999.
Q: What piqued your interest in affordable housing?
A: I like the local nature of it. You’re more likely to see change at the local level. It really is this transformation for people.
Most of us who do housing aren’t in it for the bricks and mortar. If we can get people out of very expensive or substandard housing, they can focus on the rest of their lives … their kids, their jobs or school.
We are the richest nation in the world, and it is unacceptable that people live in unsafe neighborhoods and unsafe housing.
Q: Does Denver have enough affordable housing?
A: No. I don’t know that you can find a city in the country that does.
Enterprise is working with the city and county of Denver to create a new housing plan. We did a market analysis and found we have a significant need for affordable rental houses. We need 26,000 units for people who have annual incomes of $21,000 or less. They just can’t afford that much, and the stock that’s available at $400 a month, there’s not that much.
We’re competing to keep moderate income households in the city, but our housing stock isn’t there. We have a lot of older single-family housing stock in neighborhoods that don’t have great schools.
Q: Is Denver’s housing ordinance working?
A: I think it’s an important tool that addresses a part of the affordable housing need.
What the ordinance does on the for-sale side is give back 10 percent of where the market is building, and the market is building in neighborhoods where they see potential. It’s part of the solution of workforce housing.
It’s a good start, but it needs work, particularly around the incentive package for developers. What we’re struggling with now is, can you make a density bonus work within Denver’s zoning code – and if you can’t, what would be of equal value?
Q: What are some of the successes in Denver?
A: You have to point to Denver’s Road Home and the 10-year plan to end homelessness. It addresses what it’s going to take, which is bringing together political will and resources. If we can maintain momentum, we’ll continue to see substantial progress.
We do have some very capable affordable housing developers. On the nonprofit side, there’s the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless and Mercy Housing. On the for-profit side, there’s New Town Builders and Gene Myers, Urban Ventures, and the Zocalo development David Zucker did. They go above and beyond because they are passionate about it.
Q: What are some of the failures?
A: I wouldn’t say failures. I would say missed opportunities.
What we saw in the ’90s was enormous reinvestment in center city neighborhoods, but in the process we displaced a whole lot of people who lived in those neighborhoods and suffered through the lousy times. We have to look at what steps we can take to make sure there is a range of housing stock.
Q: What are the opportunities now?
A: Transit corridors are really the big golden opportunity. We have both rail and the focus on Colfax with revitalization. You have the potential to really bring investment into these neighborhoods, and the question becomes, “Will it benefit low-income people?”
We don’t have the policies in place that will ensure what gets built around transit is mixed-income and doesn’t spark a wave of displacement.
I hope 15 years from now we don’t look back and see that was a missed opportunity.
Edited for space and clarity from an interview by staff writer Margaret Jackson.
