THORNTON — MiRita Dorsey had a huge weight lifted off her shoulders when she found out she could renew her lease at her two-bedroom apartment near 104th Avenue and York Street.
“I feel at peace, especially with my daughter being in school now,” said Dorsey, who is 24. “I don’t want to have to keep transferring her to a different school every year.”
Dorsey’s home at the Village of Yorkshire Apartments is the fifth place in metro Denver that she has lived in nearly as many years. It’s the third Colorado home for her daughter, Mylah, 6, and the second for her son Mathai, 3.
The building is a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development complex and is part of the Adams County Housing Authority’s project-based voucher program, of which Dorsey is a client.
The federally funded program helps eligible low-income families find, pay for and keep their housing. But in Adams County, there aren’t enough voucher-based units available for all the people who qualify.
“It’s almost impossible to find this kind of housing right now,” said Monique Antillon, the authority’s regional community manager who oversees 13 authority-owned properties in Thornton, Commerce City and Westminster.
A lottery is periodically held to determine which families will be pulled from the waitlist and offered a project-based voucher.
“I jumped on it when they called me about the voucher,” Dorsey said. “When I moved here, I had to quit my job because I didn’t have a car at the time and I couldn’t find a daycare that would pick Mylah up after school. (Because of the vouchers), I was able to pay a very, very low rent … until I found a different job.”
Through the program, Dorsey found a full-time government job and her income-based rent went up to about 80 percent of the unit’s market cost.
The Adams County Housing Authority owns and manages more than 1,500 units and administers more than 1,460 vouchers.
There are approximately 17,211 residents who live in authority owned, developed or administered housing units or who get program services. But there are thousands of others who are on waiting lists.
“We did housing needs assessment about a year ago, and what we found out is that we need approximately 2,000 apartments to serve people earning between 31 and 51 percent area median income,” said Nicole Jeffers, Thornton’s manager of neighborhood services. “Those absolutely have to be subsidized.”
The county’s housing authority is working to address that gap through two new projects slated to break ground in Thornton and Westminster this time next year. In Thornton, the authority is planning a 200-unit apartment complex on a 5-acre site at 104th Avenue and Colorado Boulevard, next to the future Regional Transportation District’s North Metro Rail Line station.
“We see this as a great opportunity to locate housing in close proximity to alternate transportation,” said Don May, executive director of the Adams County Housing Authority. “Often, when you hear about the challenges facing (low-income) families, you hear about rent rates and alternate transportation. … We can help to address those needs.”
The estimated $28 million project will be funded through grants, anticipated tax credits and loans. In Westminster, May said the authority just received a state tax credit towards a new, 70-unit affordable housing development at 71st Avenue and Federal Boulevard.
That estimated $22 million project will include 16,000 square feet of first-level retail space, and the authority plans to move some of its offices there, as well, May said.
The two projects are the first time in about 15 years that the authority has initiated ground-up housing developments. Typically, they acquire properties, rehabilitate them and then rent them to eligible low-income families.
That was the case at the 200 Village of Yorkshire Apartments, which underwent an approximately $10 million exterior and interior renovation. The project used grant money from Thornton, Adams County and the Colorado Division of Housing.
And according to Antillon, the Yorkshire apartments have been at 100 percent capacity since their ribbon cutting in June.
“We don’t even hold a formal waitlist (at Village of Yorkshire) anymore because the demand is so high for housing,” Antillon said. “As soon as a unit becomes available, it’s rented.”
