For four years, the property next to his house on York Street in Denver’s City Park neighborhood had devolved into a nightmare. Squatters set up camp in the abandoned 3,300-square-foot apartment building, he said. There was rampant drug use and frequent police presence. Last spring, a fire erupted on the back porch, sending plumes of smoke into Francisco’s residence and threatening to ignite other houses on the block.

“It’s been 24/7 stress having to live here,” Francisco said.

So when John Crays, a local investor, approached Francisco last year, he was immediately intrigued. Under Denver city ordinance, a neighborhood landowner is afforded what is known as a against the owner of a neglected or derelict property.

But these systems are difficult for the average homeowner to navigate. So Crays proposed an alternative: Francisco could assign his right of action to the investor, who knows the ins and outs of the city and court system. Ultimately, a judge appointed a caretaker to take possession of the property, and, eventually, the house will be sold.

“It was a leap of faith, but I was desperate,” Francisco said. “John has been a huge help.”

Crays has been making the same house calls all around the city, convincing discontented neighbors to let him take their problems off their hands. With the help of a housing attorney, Crays has begun to tackle Denver’s through civil court actions designed to pry troubled properties from their absentee owners.

The city seems happy to let him do his thing. Denver officials say they’re reluctant to take people’s property away and have a high constitutional bar to clear if they choose to do so. Plus, the city attorney’s office, which prosecutes such cases, has limited bandwidth to tackle this problem.

Denver has only moved for a court-appointed caretaker for problem properties four times since the start of 2025 — and city officials acknowledged that two of them were in response to Crays filing his own lawsuits.

“Folks are struggling and having to deal with a nightmare every single day,” Crays said. “There’s finally an answer that won’t take years or decades.”

Denver needs a method for dealing with problematic properties, said Zach Neumann, co-founder and CEO at the , a nonprofit organization that helps people facing eviction and foreclosure.

The question, he said, is whether that should be in the hands of private investors or whether a community ownership model could lead to more equitable outcomes.

“The tools being used here are some of the most coercive legal tools available, so they’re ripe for abuse,” Neumann said.

Genesis of a plan

Crays first took an interest in neglected properties 15 years ago after seeing one in his Baker neighborhood.

Unhoused individuals had set up camp in the backyard, while rodents and raccoons turned the house into their own.

Crays learned that Denver keeps a , which it updates quarterly. The July document lists 310 properties across Denver’s 11 City Council districts.

For a property to be declared a it generally must be an unoccupied building that city inspectors have identified as unsafe, a nuisance, habitually in violation of city codes, or at least one year behind in property taxes.

The city can issue fines if the property owner doesn’t submit a remedial plan or doesn’t comply with registration requirements. And yet, the same properties continue to remain on the city’s list year after year.

Crays figured he’d show up to a hearing for the property, at which he assumed the city would take action. He also approached the house’s owner, gauging whether he wanted to sell. That owner, he said, expressed no interest in fixing up the property or putting it up for sale.

Fifteen years later, the house at 119 Ellsworth Ave. remains on the city’s list.

“That was the genesis of finding a more effective method,” Crays said.

Early last year, Crays started reaching out to neighbors of the neglected properties on the city’s list. He found that “nothing was happening at the pace that would make much of a difference,” he said.

The city’s lien process simply wasn’t moving the needle, Crays said. Whether it’s $999 or $35,000, he said, if a property owner doesn’t care about liens, another won’t change their behavior.

“Cities in general are a little hamstrung,” he said. “They can’t be as effective of a tool as a private business owner.”

allows the city, an affected neighboring landowner or any other person who has suffered damages due to the condition of a property to bring legal action against an owner who refuses to fix up their building.

These parties can request an injunction ordering the owner to follow court directives; ask for the appointment of a receiver to take possession of the property to complete all work needed to make the place habitable; or petition the court to demolish the property.

Crucially, neighbors can also sign over their rights to a private party, such as Crays.

‘A little bit of hope’

Susan Bingler bought her first home in 2019 in Denver’s Chaffee Park neighborhood.

About three years ago, the house next door became abandoned. Bingler watched as people set up encampments on the property, openly used and sold drugs, and once set a truck on fire. People living there have kicked in her fence and threatened her safety, she said. Bingler began carrying pepper spray every time she took her dog out.

One day in November, she looked at her Ring camera and saw someone outside the house. As she readied to call the police again, she stopped. This person didn’t look like the normal crew hanging around the property.

That’s when she met Crays, who explained his plan for Denver’s neglected buildings. Bingler immediately bought in.

“I told him I’ve been working with the city for seven years and I’m sick of being afraid to live in my own home,” she said. “Someone finally showing up gives me a little bit of hope that I can one day feel comfortable in my own backyard.”

Bingler signed a document, assigning her rights as a neighbor to Crays.

The investor, under this arrangement, takes on all responsibility and legal fees associated with the lawsuit and doesn’t charge the neighbors anything for the service. Crays, though, does stand to benefit financially if a court awards damages. He also has the opportunity to bid on the properties if they go up for auction.

On Nov. 17, a limited liability company associated with Crays filed a lawsuit in Denver District Court, alleging that the building at 4801 Shoshone St. was a “nuisance property” full of vagrants and criminals. The property owner, Julie Wiley, hasn’t been seen for a year and may actually be dead, the complaint states.

Wiley could not be reached for comment.

Thus began the winding legal process, one in which the property owner did not participate.

In June, a judge granted a default judgment against the owner for $250,000. Weeks later, the same judge directed the Denver Sheriff Department to enforce the judgment through the sale of the property.

Crays, through his LLC, will receive the money from the eventual sale since he’s the named plaintiff in the lawsuit.

The investor and his attorney, Christopher Conant, have been following this same playbook around the city.

Crays said he didn’t know how many neglected properties he’d targeted. Court records show the pair has filed lawsuits in at least eight cases since the start of last year under various LLCs. In four cases, Crays said a judge has either appointed a receiver or the house in question has been sold at auction.

One of these homes he purchased himself, a 1,600-square-foot, two-bedroom house in Curtis Park. Denver property records show the house has been and is being . Crays, through one of his LLCs, paid $50,000 for it at auction.

To supplement the legal action, Conant has been filing records requests with the city’s , seeking details of enforcement actions taken by the city against properties on the neglected and derelict building list.

Nine times out of 10, Crays said, the absentee property owners inherited the home but don’t live there. Many can’t be located or don’t have an interest in engaging.

Nearly all the property owners The Post attempted to contact for this story did not have working numbers or did not return messages seeking comment. Some were dead.

In one case, the listed owner on a property in Washington Park West said he didn’t even know he owned the home until the reporter contacted him.

Earl Broderson, the sole listed owner for 749 S. Lincoln St., said he was part of an investment group some 20 years ago that flipped Denver properties. He said his partners defrauded him and that he didn’t have many records. Broderson said he had no idea Crays had filed suit against him over the derelict house.

“It’s not in my nature to neglect things,” he said. “I feel sad for the neighbors. I’m gonna have to apologize to some people.”

Some owners, though, are around — and fighting back.

Flavia Montecinos owns a million-dollar home along Denver’s East Seventh Avenue that has been coined the “Poop House” after neighbors flung bags of excrement onto the property to protest its derelict conditions.

Crays and Conant filed suit against Montecinos in October, using the same rights afforded to them by neighbors, as they sought to get a receiver appointed or require the owner to demolish the house.

Montecinos did not respond to messages from The Post, but told BusinessDen last year that the property was under a remedial plan with the city and that she was about to get a permit to resume work on the house. A city spokesperson confirmed the remedial plan was approved.

In November, Montecinos countersued Crays over what she said were harassing calls from neighbors and derogatory signs on the property.

“The plaintiff is an opportunist and has purchased claims belonging to ‘neighborhood owners,’” she wrote in her Nov. 4 countersuit, “and seeks to delay and impair the construction.”

Another homeowner in Arapahoe County sued Crays last year, alleging the investor did not disclose issues with the property before he sold it to them in 2022. Crays also did not obtain construction permits for work conducted on the house, the lawsuit alleged.

A jury in May awarded the couple $72,500, finding Crays liable for breach of contract, negligent misrepresentation and false representation. Crays is appealing the case. His lawyer, in a statement, noted the jury awarded only $2,500 for the breach-of-contract claim, “a result that reflects the jury’s rejection of the vast majority of the allegations in the case.”

Crays told The Post that he hired a general contractor for the work and that those individuals never obtained the correct permits.

“I hired the wrong contractor, but I didn’t do anything dishonest,” Crays said.

Limited bandwidth from the city

The city appears content to let the private investors run point on neglected properties.

The , since the start of last year, has filed or joined motions for receivers — the court-appointed caretakers — four times: two were in response to Crays filing suit against neglected and derelict properties; one was led by a neighbor who hired their own attorney; and the last was a joint effort with the city’s .

The Community Planning and Development Department has a committee that considers these properties, which the city calls “the worst of the worst.”

“The bar is so high for us,” said James Hicks, the city’s neglected and derelict properties administrator. “It’s not something we take lightly.”

He acknowledged that the city attorney’s office has “limited bandwidth” to tackle these cases.

Crays knows the city only moves for a receiver as a “last resort.” But for him, “it’s the thing I’m shooting for in some cases.”

Courtney Ronner, a city spokesperson, said the department understands neglected properties are an area of concern for residents. She pointed to the recent creation of a new inspector position that focuses solely on these types of properties, as well as dozens of hearings designed to spur owners into action.

Meanwhile, the Community Planning and Development Department worked with the City Council to develop more stringent enforcement mechanisms that will soon allow the city to issue higher fines to neglectful owners, along with stricter requirements and improved procedures.

“That said, all situations are different and there are many reasons why a property may fall into disrepair,” Ronner said. “Some properties become neglected because the owners have passed away or fallen on hard times. The city must balance the impact on the surrounding neighbors with the rights of property owners who are owed due process.”

Neumann, the foreclosure and eviction defense attorney, said he wonders whether the current approach — letting private investors collect judgments and capitalize on foreclosures — is the best way for a city to deal with blight.

The system, he said, is built on default judgments, which occur when a court rules in favor of a plaintiff because the defendant failed to respond to a lawsuit or missed a court date.

“That process can proceed against a party who may not know what’s going on or doesn’t have the resources to fight it,” Neumann said. “That can introduce risk for consumers.”

A recent example in Denver points to another option.

In 2017, the city pushed for a receiver and auction of a neglected property in Denver’s Cole neighborhood that was owned by former Colorado legislator and Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights author Douglas Bruce.

At auction, a private foundation partner of , a nonprofit organization that operates affordable housing complexes, bought the land for $4.63 million and converted it into . The organization also sold a parcel of the property at a steep discount to Habitat for Humanity, which built 17 townhomes to sell.

But the city could only get the property to auction; it couldn’t determine who bought the land and for how much. Mile High Ministries raised major capital to make it happen and certainly did not get a discount, said Jeff Johnsen, the organization’s executive director and CEO.

Detroit also serves as a good example of what can be done with a community ownership model.

Officials in 2008 established the , a public-benefit corporation dedicated to transforming vacant and abandoned properties into “inclusive community assets.” The city manages nearly 60,000 properties and has sold tens of thousands of homes and vacant lots since its inception for prices well below typical market value.

Neumann acknowledged that dealing with blight remains a complicated question with no easy answers.

“In the absence of a well-funded community ownership approach, the use of these types of legal tools is probably better than nothing,” he said.

Crays, for his part, said he was just operating as an investor at the beginning of all this. Now he’s seen that his work goes beyond the dollars and cents.

“I didn’t see how much impact I was gonna make on neighborhoods struggling with these properties,” he said. “After dealing with so many of these families — the situations they have to live with — I have a lot of sympathy for these people.”

Last year, about 70% of people responding to the annual said they weren’t sure living here would remain financially feasible. That rose to 76% this year.

“That majority concern was cutting across regions, across income levels, across racial and ethnic groups,” said Lucia Del Puppo, senior vice president at, which works with Democrats.

The poll found that the majority of those sampled said they had already cut back on entertainment spending and charitable giving, with smaller shares saying they’d skipped meals, delayed medical or dental care, or paid a utility bill late.

Only about one in four people said they hadn’t changed their spending or dealt with a financial setback in the last year, with older people and Republicans reporting less budget strain.

“It����ap significant and it affects the overall economy” when people reduce their discretionary spending, said Lori Weigel, principal of , which works with Republicans.

The responses suggested a significant minority expected further financial strains in the coming year:

• About two in five worried they or a family member would lose health insurance
• Three in 10 worried about affording enough food
• One-third thought they might lose their housing because they couldn’t afford their mortgage or rent

Notably, more than half of renters were worried about whether they could continue to afford their housing, Weigel said. One-third said they’d avoided asking their landlords to fix problems to avoid rent increases, and one-quarter said they’d taken on high-interest debt, such as payday loans or credit card balances, to deal with housing costs, she said.

Lower-income people and those who identified as Black, Hispanic or Native American reported greater financial struggles than other groups.

Even people who haven’t had to cut back are worried about affordability. When asked to rate the seriousness of a list of potential problems, 85% said both the general cost of living and the cost of housing were either “very serious” or “extremely serious.” Additionally, 82% said the cost of health care was a very serious or extremely serious problem.

Younger people were particularly worried about housing costs, with 94% of millennials and 90% of Generation Z members describing the problem as very or extremely serious.

At the same time, when respondents got the chance to name the most important issue facing the state, the largest share — 28% — chose government and politics. The cost of living and inflation came close behind, with 25% deeming it the top issue.

Just one year ago, only 13% of people considered cost of living and inflation their top concern, Del Puppo said.

“It has jumped really since 2025,” she said.

The two may be related, as 72% of respondents said they weren’t satisfied with the government’s response to economic issues. The only question where a slight majority said they were satisfied with the state government’s performance was making the state “safe and welcoming” to everyone, Del Puppo said.

The poll asked more than 2,200 people about their personal finances, experiences with health care and perceptions of the state between March and April, then weighted their results to represent Colorado’s demographics.

As usual, both a Democratic and a Republican firm ran the poll, to reduce the risk of bias.

But when Clayton Homes announced in December that it was shutting down the state’s largest modular manufacturing plant, located in Adams County, it raised a critical question.

If Clayton, the nation’s leading manufactured homebuilder, couldn’t justify operating in Colorado, what are the survival odds for the 18 newer and much smaller home-construction innovators the state has backed in recent years?

Before the housing crash in the late 2000s, Colorado was home to a half-dozen modular factories. Clayton’s Heibar facility, formerly known as Precision Building Systems, part of Oakwood Homes, was the last of that generation to finally call it quits.

Enter , which is trying to fill the void, to the point of acquiring equipment and hiring some of the workers let go last year by Clayton’s Heibar Installation plant.

Vederra’s 140,000-square-foot facility in Aurora is two-thirds the size of the shuttered Heibar plant. And the company says it has co-developed a proprietary model to create factory-built homes and apartments at a significantly lower cost.

Founder Nathan Peterson, who has spent 25 years in the modular industry, pointed with pride during a factory tour on the equipment deals he managed to land, some at pennies on the dollar.

He is leasing space rather than buying land for the factory. He has avoided investing heavily in robotics, in part because he lacks the money, but also because it would create a burdensome overhead when work orders slow.

Silicon Valley tried to address the inefficiencies in the home construction industry through a startup called Katerra, which deployed advanced robotics and software throughout.

Katerra was a private equity darling until it burned through $2.4 billion in six years before abruptly liquidating in June 2021. Its sudden failure left two Denver apartment buildings and a hotel in limbo, although all three were eventually completed.

Equity investors and unsecured creditors weren’t so fortunate.

Vederra Modular, by contrast, represents a bootstrap venture, one that is relying heavily on state support but also finding a way to lower costs.

In 2024, the collateral support via the Innovative Housing Incentive Program, through Colorado’s economic development office, and $3.5 million in working capital from the state’s Proposition 123 Affordable Housing Financing Fund, administered by the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority.

Peterson acknowledged his factory wouldn’t have gotten off the ground without state funds, which have some strings attached — the creation of 150 local jobs and 316 affordable housing units a year.

“Vederra is one of a growing number of Colorado companies developing innovative new off-site construction methods such as modular, panelization, 3D printing, foundation and framing kits, and composite wood technologies,” said Hilary Cooper, director of Innovative Funding for Housing Programs at the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade.

Rather than betting big on one technology or a couple of companies, the state has spread its wagers across 18 housing innovators in 12 counties. The target they have set is the construction of 7,000 housing units a year, which would represent a sizeable chunk of the 35,000 or so building permits pulled in the state in 2024.

Over time, the hope is that innovation can shrink the state’s shortfall, which the State Demography Office estimated last fall at 106,000 homes and apartments.

“By helping these companies launch and grow, we can help more Coloradans live close to their jobs, and in communities they love,” Cooper said.

Modular construction involves building components, such as walls or trusses, or entire structures, inside a factory, rather than on the home site. Assembly lines can run day and night, protected from the elements, making for a more efficient and attractive work environment. Quality control is easier to maintain, and waste is much lower.

Completed components ship to the home site, where they are assembled or put on a foundation. Modular construction promises lower costs, higher quality and much faster completion time. But factories need a steady flow of orders to support their overhead, and that went away after orders dried up during the housing crash in the late 2000s.

Workforce housing in the mountains

With the Front Range currently facing a glut of apartments, Vederra Modular has zeroed in on the affordable housing market in resort communities where the shortfall remains acute.

The approach of building energy-efficient modules in a factory, while the land is prepared, aligns better with the short building season faced in mountain communities, said Paul Capps, president of Summit Housing Group in Missoula, Mont.

Summit Housing and the town of Granby are currently developing a 66-unit project called the Summit at Granby Apartments for people earning between 30% and 60% of the area median income in Grand County. That would likely put rents in the range of $600 to $1,200 a month for a two-bedroom unit based on the AMI.

They are also developing a related 75-unit workforce housing development within Nuche Village, which targets workers making 80% to 120% of the area’s median income.

Summit expects to close on its construction loans within the next 30 days, at which point it will give Vederra Modular the go-ahead to start assembling modules.

“We hope that the boxes can be built and shipped up there by November of this year before it gets too cold,” Capps said.

Time is money when it comes to construction. Each month of delay will cost Summit $100,000 in interest payments on its construction loans, he said.

Having apartments completed and occupied in one year rather than in two or three years could save Summit Housing between $1.2 million and $2.4 million in financing costs, he estimates.

Modules currently take about three weeks to build, Peterson said, and the company is working on a real-time labor management software called Vederra OS to keep the assembly line flowing more smoothly by reducing the idle time of workers.

Savings in the void

One of the key innovations developed by Peterson, in partnership with Dean Dalvit, owner of EVstudio in Denver, is a construction method known as Alt-Mod.

Traditional modular designs contain complete walls and floors ready to be shipped to the construction site. That allows boxes, which can contain a full room or a room and parts of other rooms, to be more easily stacked on top of or next to each other.

However, the convenience in assembly comes with a trade-off: overbuilt walls and floors and wasted construction materials.

Vederra’s method, which will be tested in Granby, only builds enough of the walls and floors to interlock with other modules.

“We intentionally leave a void space,” Peterson said. “That cuts the number of boxes needed in half.”

The approach involves more finishing work onsite, but it saves between 15% to 20% over traditional modular methods, according to EVstudio.

For The Summit at Granby, a traditional modular approach would require 93 boxes with a component cost estimated at  $13.7 million. The Alt-Mod method reduces the box count to 47 and brings the component costs to $9.4 million.

The system, however, does require more on-site labor to complete the unfinished spaces. Those costs rise to $1.93 million versus $581,000.

All in, the Summit at Granby carries a price tag of $18.7 million versus $22.6 million using more traditional modular methods, a savings of 17%.

Rodger Hara, an affordable housing industry consultant, said better economies of scale mean more affordable homes can be built.

Vederra and EVstudio appear to have made a promising breakthrough in that regard, he added.

Capps said lower costs can make the difference between an affordable project winning tax credits and getting completed or staying on the drawing board. And that can make the difference between workers in a community having a place to lay their heads near where jobs are or having to make long commutes on icy roads.

“The Alt-Mod program is a cost-saver and a game-changer in the affordable housing space,” he said.

Emergency housing on the go

Another innovation that Vederra is working on involves moveable “pop-up” factories that can be brought into disaster areas or into remote areas without homebuilders.

Vederra Onsite is developing a system to quickly set up 60,000-square-foot factories capable of producing 350 homes a year in areas where the housing stock has been destroyed or isn’t keeping up.

The idea is to put factories close to where homes are needed, whether it is a hurricane-scoured Gulf Coast community or a fire-scorched mountain town. As an added benefit, the factories could provide 50 to 75 jobs to residents who might otherwise be unemployed after a natural disaster.

Factories could also be set up in isolated places with acute housing shortages, like North Dakota’s Williston Basin experienced during the shale oil boom from 2006 to 2014.

Peterson said the Colorado Department of Local Affairs is funding a pilot plant. He is working to get the Federal Emergency Management Agency interested.

“We are trying to take one to Hawaii,” he said.

A catastrophic wildfire in August 2023 killed 102 residents of Lahaina in Maui and destroyed about 1,900 homes and apartments. Nearly three years later, only 231 replacement homes have been completed, with building permits issued for another 549, according to a .

In January, Colorado extended a $1 million line of credit through Proposition 123 and a $1.8 million loan through the Innovative Housing Incentive Program for a pilot project to assemble the first pop-up factory.

After the homes are built, the factories can then be packed up and moved to the next crisis zone as needed, Peterson said.

Mounashram Inc., a Hindu-centered nonprofit based in Brighton, purchased the former Highlands Lutheran Church building at 3955 N. Irving St. in February 2024 for $1.5 million. The group wanted to redevelop the site but didn’t have a plan or any real specifics about what that would entail.

“It����ap very atypical for a developer,” Workman said.

The nonprofit submitted a simple working concept to the city last week. It calls for converting the roughly 14,000-square-foot, 70-year-old church into 10 income-restricted apartments for seniors. Workman said the city required that he submit the plan before it proceeded with the necessary rezoning to convert the use from a church to residential.

“This process is backward because we’d have to get it rezoned first,” he said. “I’m not really sure why the city asked us to do a site plan first.”

The Berkeley building has been vacant since the end of 2025. Mounashram had leased it to the Spanish-speaking El Siloe Community Church after it bought the site.

But the plan from the get-go was a redevelopment, Workman said. He was brought into the project when Mounashram was in the process of buying the site. He pointed out that the organization could probably raze the church, build duplexes and sell them for millions. But Mounashram was more interested in doing an income-restricted housing project.

“They’re not as profit-oriented,” Workman said.

The consultant and his client have been talking with the neighborhood association and various historical groups and city agencies about the project. Two things have been made clear: People want the building to stay, and they don’t want it to become a retail operation.

“We’ve been in the hopper talking to neighbors and folks for a while,” Workman said.

Mounashram owns duplexes and other houses across the metro, but this project is its largest, Workman said. When it bought the property, Mounashram took out a $1.4 million, 30-year loan from Bhoomi Ventures LLC. That entity lists the same Brighton address as the nonprofit.

Read more from our partner, .

The potential project has been discussed in the city for years and could potentially include hundreds of apartment units, some townhomes, retail, dining and work space as well as the redevelopment of the former Safeway location, .

Much of the planning is already complete for the development of the Town Square — slated for a nearly-40-acre area north of 120th Avenue and east of Main Street — but disagreements between the developer team and Broomfield’s government have brought the project����ap future into question.

, an “owner” is required to apply for and be issued building permits for construction within three years of receiving approval for the site’s development plan. If they miss the deadline, the Broomfield City Council is authorized to revoke the site development plan.

The Broomfield Town Square site development plan was approved in September 2023, and . But the developer team withdrew the extension request June 24, according to an email from Matt Prekosovich with Outpost Partners, one of the development groups working on the project.

“Our application was withdrawn because we were not able to meet new terms required by the City in exchange for an extension,” Prekosovich said in the email.

Prekosovich said the city was requesting an amount of affordable housing within the project that isn’t “economically viable” — 20% of the units within the residential buildings offered at an income level of 60% of the area median income.

“Our team proposed delivering the same quantity of affordable housing units, at the requested 60% AMI, but delivering them within one new residential community within the Broomfield Town Square as opposed to dispersed throughout various residential buildings,” Prekosovich said. He said the configuration would allow for different financing mechanisms and the units would be developed on the same timeline as the non-income-restricted units.

“The City has informed us that at this time they are only interested in delivering affordable housing units that are disbursed within the 3 residential buildings in the approved site plan,” Prekosovich said.

Broomfield’s 2026 area median income, or AMI, for a family of four is $144,000, .

Despite the disagreement with the city, the developer team is committed to finding a path forward, according to Prekosovich’s email.

“The Broomfield Town Square is too important of a project to let die. There must be a path forward, the alternative is unfathomable,” he said. “With the right support, we will find a way.”

The Broomfield City Council is slated to hold a special meeting July 16 to discuss the project and provide an update, according to the city’s website. The meeting will include an opportunity for public comment, . The meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. at the George Di Ciero City and County Building at 1 DesCombes Drive. The public can find information about City Council meetings, including how to participate, via .

McNeill grew up in New York City and loved his career directing legislation and local elections for the National Rifle Association. He’s been in and out of seven nursing homes in nine years, due to a condition that causes him to collapse into unconsciousness, and ranks his current stay at as one of the best.

Once, after he pressed his call button, nobody arrived for 21 minutes, McNeill said, but nurses typically arrive in under 10 minutes.

“These places all have the same toys. They have wheelchairs. They have oxygen. They have beds that go up and down to make it easy to get in and out. It’s the staff that makes the difference,” he said. “If I collapse here, there’s somebody who can take care of me. I feel safe.”

But the conditions in nursing homes and assisted living centers around Colorado, where residents often receive as little as two hours of direct care each day, are deteriorating. Chronic understaffing has led to severe deficiencies at these facilities, more than in most states, with rising numbers of .

In 2025, 40% of nursing homes in Colorado had severe deficiencies, defined as problems that can threaten residents’ lives, according to data. The state’s number went up from 14% in 2019.

The only states with higher nursing home deficiency rates were Illinois (61%), South Dakota (53%), Delaware (45%) and Rhode Island (45%).

Meanwhile, the rules governing care, such as the federal requirement that nursing homes keep a registered nurse on-site 24/7, have been relaxed. Long-term care industry leaders say caregivers with the necessary skills cannot be retained for the wages companies are willing to pay. This is happening as a demographic shift to an older, grayer population slams Colorado.

The estimated 38,069 residents in Colorado’s 210 nursing homes and 675 assisted living centers are filing formal complaints at the rate of 20 a day, and the annual total hit 7,426 in the 2025 fiscal year, up from 6,778 in 2024 and 6,342 in 2023, records show.

That equates to a complaint for about one in five residents of these facilities.

‘Residents are suffering’

The complaints include “disturbing numbers” alleging “abuse and neglect,” said Leah McMahon, director of program, which deploys 64 trained inspectors to investigate and try to solve problems affecting residents.

Being in a nursing home no longer guarantees frequent daily contact with licensed nurses, and conditions often lead to “loss and grief, no joy, no animation, no engagement in life, and complete loss of hope that somebody is going to help residents feel better, take their pain away,” McMahon said. “Their dignity is lost. Their respect is lost. It����ap like being the number on the wall outside the door of your room. It����ap not like being a person. Residents are suffering.”

�ճ����, which licenses nursing homes and assisted living facilities, reported 175 investigations in progress in June, including 89 in nursing homes and 86 at assisted living facilities. Since 2023, state regulators have issued 6,928 citations, including 140 for abuse and neglect by staff, 254 for accident hazards, and 257 for failing to control infections, according to state records.

Among inspectors’ findings:

• An insufficient staffing citation issued to a Lakewood nursing home in 2025 alleged that nurse aides “failed to ensure residents received their showers as scheduled and incontinence care in a timely manner,” and complained to residents about being short-staffed. An employee told a state inspector that two nurse aides were assigned to 50 residents, the report said.
• At a Pueblo nursing home in 2024, a state inspector heard from a man who waited more than 30 minutes for assistance getting to a bathroom and “reported extreme pain and discomfort and was afraid to leave his room due to fear of falling again.”
• This year, a man in a Longmont nursing home cited for insufficient staffing told an inspector that “he had pushed his call light button before because he was having a hard time breathing and had to wait over an hour.”
• At a nursing home in Craig, a state inspector in 2024 noted that “some of the residents have resorted to checking on one another when they have noticed call lights were on.”
• For a citation issued to a Glenwood Springs nursing home in 2025, a state inspector wrote that a resident “said he sometimes called for assistance before he actually needed it because he knew he would have to wait for a long time.”

A U.S. Department of Health and Human Services of elder care in Colorado, based on unannounced visits at 20 facilities in 2022, concluded that inadequate oversight by state regulators and nursing home managers, along with high staffing turnover, led to 556 deficiencies. Those included 165 deficiencies related to life safety requirements, 210 related to emergency preparedness and 181 related to infection control.

Seniors and families turn to assisted living and nursing facilities to ensure needs are met and count on the caregivers. Pushing a call button to summon help often is done reluctantly, according to state ombudsmen.

And when nobody responds, “you feel helpless,” said Sherrie Jarrett, 79, recalling her experience in a Parker assisted living center where she and her late husband lived.

The center initially offered “mystery trips,” frozen yogurt gatherings and pottery to combat isolation. But then Jarrett fell, breaking her hip. Staffing decreased.

“We didn’t have an activities director for almost five years” and “at the tail end it was depressing,” she said. Jarrett moved to a nursing home where the staffing is sufficient to ensure swift responses, she said. “That’s who your day-to-day contact is with, the staff.”

Around Colorado, state health department citations have led to at least 317 fines for violations since 2023, the earliest date in recent The average nursing home fine in 2025 was $20,563, and assisted living center fines average around $2,000, according to industry records. Colorado holds money from the fines collected each year in a nursing home penalties account, which this year had a balance of nearly $20 million.

The administrators of facilities — 83% of them for-profit, up from 76% a decade ago, than in most other states — must pay fines from their operating budgets.

“Low profit margins” constrain companies from paying higher wages, and “it’s difficult to compete with other parts of the healthcare system for nurses,” said Doug Farmer, president of the , which represents the for-profit long-term care companies.

“Fines are an outdated compliance tool,” Farmer said. “I don’t see the rationale in citing a care center for inadequate staff and then taking money from them as a punishment. If they need more staff or to increase staff training, taking money from them is contrary to that goal.”

Industry blames nurse shortage

Long-term care industry leaders blame workforce challenges, saying companies are hard-pressed to recruit and retain enough certified caregivers.

The annual turnover rate in Colorado facilities is 47%, and nursing home companies’ annual profits average around 2%, said Jenny Albertson, the Colorado Health Care Association’s director of quality and regulatory affairs, who previously ran nursing homes for 16 years.

Cuts in Medicaid funding will exacerbate pressures, reducing the $288 daily per-resident rate paid to facilities in Colorado by 2% starting July 1.

Colorado’s overall nursing shortage has intensified, with the federal projecting the state will be short 7,100 licensed practical nurses and 6,090 registered nurses by 2034.

Running a nursing home with nearly one in two nurses leaving each year “is a struggle,” Albertson said. “You lose that brain trust that knows what it means to give patient-centered care. It brings chaos. It sucks away resources from the actual act of caregiving,” she said.

“We’re seeing workforce pressures reaching a critical mass,” she said. “Nursing homes have to right-size to the care they can provide by closing their doors to new admissions. We’re seeing a need to cap the care we can provide in order to do it well.”

Meanwhile, state ombudsmen blame commercial profit priorities and low wages — nurse aides typically earn less than $20 a hour — that force many facility caregivers to work second jobs, even after heavy 12-hour shifts. The ombudsmen point to impossible care burdens that cause burnout, irregular schedules, lack of training and the difficulty of taking care of seniors who, in previous decades, would have qualified for hospital care.

“When we’re looking at private-equity-owned facilities, we see a systemwide stripping down of the quality of life. The food goes down. The care goes down. Staff leaves. It’s a revolving door,” McMahon said. “…The bottom line is the dollar, not people care.”

Two hours of care per day

A Colorado rule requires companies to ensure at least two hours of nursing care per resident per day. This year, state officials and the industry are

At the federal level, Trump administration officials on Dec. 2 a proposed 3.48 hours-of-care requirement, replacing it with a looser standard that “sufficient” care is acceptable. On Dec. 3, Trump officials also repealed a federal rule requiring 24/7 on-site registered nursing service.

Colorado still has a state-level registered nurse requirement on the books, but since 2021, health overseers have been waiving that requirement at all nursing homes if a registered nurse is on call, a licensed practical nurse is present and medications are carefully managed.

State health officials don’t know how many nursing homes keep a registered nurse on-site 24/7, Department of Public Health and Environment spokeswoman Alexandrea Kallin said.

Colorado regulators who recently began a formal rulemaking process had suggested a state-level minimum of three hours of nursing care per resident. The Colorado Health Care Association objected, favoring alignment with the Trump administration.

“We have allegations of people literally not being seen for days,” said Shannon Gimbel, manager of the ombudsman investigations across an eight-county metro Denver area. “Understaffing is significant in any complaint we get. It is usually the underlying cause, and if companies are only required to provide two hours of care, that’s what they are going to provide.”

Gimbel worked in nursing homes for two decades and is participating in the rulemaking discussions.

“The industry will scream that facilities are not going to be able to afford to stay open. Elder-care advocates will argue that the burdens on staff are too great and that companies should pay better wages and provide a better work-life balance… The system is failing, and the staffing in the facilities is dismal,” she said.

Colorado’s aging population

The demand for elder care in nursing and assisted living facilities is projected to increase ������Colorado’s population ages.

While the state’s average age of 38 remains slightly younger than the national average, residents who are over 60 now outnumber those under 18 for the first time in state history. The population most likely to use nursing and assisted living facilities, those who are 75 and over, is the fastest-growing segment, according to the .

The number of Colorado residents over 80, estimated by state demographers at 201,806, is projected to increase by 75% and reach 353,452 before 2034. That would be 5.4% of the state’s population, or one in 20 residents.

More will need care in facilities, requiring 59,340 registered nurses and 12,970 licensed practical nurses by 2034, according to industry projections. Colorado nursing and assisted living facilities hold a total of about 46,000 beds, with a nursing home occupancy rate around 80%, according to industry data.

By 2034, industry officials estimated Colorado would need 50 additional nursing homes and 40 more assisted living centers.

While growing numbers of older people rely on in-home care, it becomes more costly than care in facilities when they need 24/7 attention, said Deborah Lively, chief executive for , which represents non-profit facilities.

The workforce challenges have intensified as corporate owners of nursing homes and assisted living facilities focus on “trying to do more with less,” Lively said.

“It’s scary to think about it. There are all these aging people, and there are not enough workers to take care of them,” she said. “I don’t know how it is going to be addressed.”

State enforcement

Officials at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment say they are enforcing state and federal rules aggressively.

However, the federal rule that previously required 24/7 onsite registered nurse service, reduced by Trump officials effective Feb. 2, now only requires that a nurse be “on duty or present for at least eight consecutive hours each day.”

Colorado’s rules still say facilities must keep a registered nurse on-site 24/7, but under the waiver, facilities get by with a registered nurse or physician on-call, a licensed practical nurse present and a clear policy for managing medications

“We are concerned anytime a facility’s systems break down in ways that put residents at risk. Residents rely on facilities to provide safe, appropriate care, and CDPHE’s oversight is focused on ensuring facilities meet those responsibilities,” said Elaine McManis, the state health department’s director of health facilities and emergency medical services. “Our concern increases when problems are repeated, systemic, or not corrected.”

State health officials will decide in February about a state-level standard for hours of care per resident, said Dr. Ned Calonge, Colorado’s chief medical officer. State rules require “the level of care and service that each resident needs, regardless of the hours set in the minimum standard,” Calonge said.

“We’re having discussions with stakeholders about the standards we want to see for the industry. Is two hours enough? Or three hours? Have we set the floor at the right level? That����ap what we’re talking about,” he said. “On the side of the patients and their families, they want more contact with licensed professional nurses. And from the industry side, it is: ‘What cost does that translate to?’ ”

Since January 2023, 10 nursing homes in Colorado have shut down, a loss of 418 beds, along with 66 assisted living facilities, where 1,391 more beds were lost, according to the state. Health officials declined to identify the facilities or to specify reasons, other than saying that the long-term care industry opens facilities and increases or decreases beds based on business factors.

This year, one nursing home reported failing to meet the two-hour care standard, and 10 facilities didn’t provide data. State officials also declined to identify those facilities.

“CDPHE’s goal is not to close facilities. Our goal is safe resident care. We use a range of tools depending on the severity of the issue, including directed plans of correction, temporary management, conditional licenses, denial of license renewal, revocations, and closure when necessary,” McManis said.

‘This is my home now’

Inside the , southwest of Denver, administrator Sara Dent last month had beds for 115 residents, along with an additional 35 seniors sent by hospitals to the facility for short-term rehabilitation.

The center’s nurse and support staff numbered 195, and Dent said residents receive 3.97 hours a day of nurse care. The facility is one of more than 200 in 27 states run by Tennessee-based .

Dent knows the residents by name. She knows the caregivers, including a 75-year-old Spanish-speaking dishwasher who said she hoped to retire and become a resident of the facility where she’s worked for two decades.

Most staffers work second jobs to make ends meet, Dent said. She pays the nurse aides $19.29 an hour, the minimum wage in Denver, more than the state-required $15.16 that applies in Littleton.

Dent works to instill a culture of swift response anytime a light outside a room door flashes on. “Our patients have to come first,” she said.

Residents said they were mostly comfortable and pleased with the facility.

“I miss my yard at home. I miss my dog,” said William Reitz, 94, a retired engineer, sitting in a wheelchair by his bed, across from a framed photo of his departed spouse.

“I think I still have it mentally,” Reitz said. He discussed with Dent the plan to upgrade his wheelchair to a motorized version so that he could roll around the building and grounds independently, as long as his insurance would cover the cost.

“Then I won’t be pestering people to push me,” he said, noting he’d still be attending daily exercise sessions. “I’ll be able to do it on my own… This is my home now.”

For artist Terry Dunlap, 81, the main priority is “to be able to paint,” following head injuries in 2025 that necessitated a move from her family home in Conifer. She sat surrounded by scores of her abstract paintings, a Cat Stevens song playing as she worked in a two-room suite she’s converted to a studio.

“I wish there were more staff here at night. I’d like to walk. You have to have a CNA (certified nursing assistant) with you. So I get a bit frustrated,” Dunlap said, though she assessed the overall conditions positively. “Just a couple more” staffers would help, she said.

Like other nursing home administrators, Dent said she regularly sees state health inspectors. Each time they arrive at the facility, “they are hunting” for any deficiency, such as a rug positioned by the front entrance that could be deemed a tripping hazard, she said.

Some residents are reluctant to file complaints with state ombudsmen, fearing retaliation or even involuntary discharge, said Jayla Sanchez-Warren, director of the .

Earlier this year, Sanchez-Warren visited a relative in her 80s with dementia inside a facility.

“She was hungry. She did not know when she last had a shower,” Sanchez-Warren said, adding that she couldn’t find anybody on the facility’s staff with the authority to help.

She asked her relative whether she wanted her to press a complaint.

“She said, ‘No, don’t you make it harder for me,’ ” Sanchez-Warren said. “She was fearing retaliation. Once you leave, they are still there. They have to deal with it if you cause problems. She was adamant. ‘Don’t you cause me problems.’ ”

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A sprawling legislative package aimed at lowering the cost of housing and spurring more home construction won this week, but it����ap hit in becoming law: President Donald Trump.

The White House supported the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, but on Wednesday Trump canceled the signing ceremony for the bill, saying he would not sign the measure until Congress passes legislation that would require proof of citizenship for all voters.

Here’s what to know.

How significant is this housing legislation?

The measure is the culmination of months of negotiations by lawmakers who combined dozens of bills meant to address how housing affordability for both renters and aspiring homeowners in the U.S. has grown increasingly out of reach for many Americans.

The bill would reduce federal regulations, streamline environmental reviews, speed up the construction process and curb the influence of corporate landlords by limiting their ability to purchase single-family homes.

Still, it����ap not a silver bullet for all the factors that contribute to reduced housing affordability, including lack of construction labor, rising insurance costs and years of subdued wage growth relative to sharply rising rents and home prices.

Even so, the bill has drawn broad support from the real estate industry, including organizations representing homebuilders and apartment complex owners, as well as housing advocates.

“We need more homes built, and legislation that removes construction barriers is exactly what the market needs right now,” said Daryl Fairweather, chief economist at Redfin. “Homebuyers who were hoping for relief may have to wait even longer, and in a market already starved for inventory, that����ap a tough pill to swallow.”

What led lawmakers to pass the first major housing legislation in decades?

Housing has grown into a hot-button issue among voters in recent years as homeownership and rents in many areas have become less affordable for many Americans.

The U.S. housing market has been in a since 2022, when mortgage rates began to climb from pandemic-era lows. Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes were essentially flat last year, stuck at While sales accelerated in May to their , they continue to hover close to a 4 million annual pace, far short of the historic norm that is closer to 5.2 million, limited partly by elevated mortgage rates.

Years of soaring home prices, especially in the early part of this decade when rock-bottom mortgage rates fueled a buying frenzy, have left many would-be homebuyers frozen out of the market. And a chronic shortage of homes for sale nationally, due partly to years of below-average new home construction, has helped prop up home prices even in a multiyear sales slump.

Home prices have increased 54% nationwide since 2020, and last year the median existing single-family sales price was nearly five times the median household income, according to researchers at Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.

Renters, meanwhile, have seen little improvement in affordability. While the median U.S. monthly rent has been declining for nearly three years, it was still 17.2% higher in May than it was before the pandemic, according to data from Realtor.com.

What if the bill doesn’t become law?

One of the biggest hurdles to homeownership has been an imbalance between supply and demand in many parts of the country.

When there are fewer homes on the market, that helps prop up home prices even during a slowdown. Conversely, during times when mortgage rates are low, buyers end up competing for fewer homes, which drives up prices.

The housing bill would help increase the supply of housing, particularly when it comes to smaller, more affordable starter homes.

It amends existing regulations to boost construction of manufactured homes, which tend to be more affordable than other types of newly built homes, and expand access to government-backed loans to include construction of standalone dwellings a homeowner can rent out.

The bill also provides new dollars for communities to turn abandoned infrastructure into housing, and provides guidelines for communities that want to reform outdated zoning regulations, which often limit larger housing developments.

“It won’t make housing more affordable overnight, but in the coming years we will see more construction of town homes, multifamily housing, and ADUs,” notes Fairweather, saying the additional supply “will relieve the pressure on home prices, and make it easier for homebuyers to break into the market.”

What about renters?

The legislation includes a broad set of provisions, including an expansion of government rental assistance and affordable housing construction programs , and measures aimed at encouraging state and local governments to make it easier to build new homes and apartments, including federal funding to places exceeding the median rate of homebuilding.

In addition, the bill would raise limits on the number of public housing units that can receive financing for renovations and codify a recovery program to help expedite funds to communities rebuilding after disaster.

It also requires new renter protections.

“Families are struggling under the heavy weight of housing costs that have climbed for decades,” said San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria, who is president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors. “There’s no time to waste. Without federal action, America’s housing shortfall will continue to grow, falling another 2 million units behind in the next five years.”

What happens if the bill signing is held up for weeks or longer?

While hailed as a significant step, the federal government����ap power to dictate things like how many homes are built or rents is limited, given that most of the regulations on construction, such as zoning laws, and other facets of real estate are determined by local and state governments.

So, even if the bill is delayed, it����ap not like it would have had an immediate impact on local house prices, for example. But it would set back the clock on new construction projects that might not otherwise get the go-ahead.

“The sooner this bill becomes law, the sooner builders and homebuyers will benefit from its downstream effects,” said Danielle Hale, chief economist at Realtor.com. “Even if the president were to sign this bill immediately, many of the provisions will take time to impact builder planning and projects in the pipeline, so there is going to be a delay before consumers feel the impacts of this legislation either way.”

What happens next?

Trump’s decision to not sign the legislation into law Wednesday could end up just temporarily delaying the measure from taking effect.

The House passed the bill in a 358-32 vote on Tuesday and the Senate passed it 85-5 on Monday. That level of support is what����ap colloquially called a veto-proof majority.

Still, if Trump were to veto the measure, the Senate and the House would have to vote again to override the veto.

It may not come to that.

Speaker Mike Johnson said Wednesday that he had spoken with Trump earlier in the day and was confident the president would sign the bill.

“The president, when we go through the details of the bill, he’s going to understand that it����ap a good product,” Johnson said.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House gave final approval Tuesday to a broad bipartisan bill aimed at lowering the cost of housing, with lawmakers in both parties eager to show progress on affordability issues ahead of this year’s midterm elections.

The 358-32 vote sends the bill to President Donald Trump, who is expected to sign it into law Wednesday at the Capitol. The Senate 85-5 on Monday.

The legislation would reduce federal regulations, streamline environmental reviews, speed up the construction process and curb the influence of corporate landlords by limiting their ability to purchase single-family homes. It represents one of the most sweeping efforts in decades to increase the supply of housing and bring down prices, as voter frustration runs high about the cost of living.

Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters of California, who helped negotiate the bill, said the median age of a first-time homebuyer is now 40 and rents have soared some 47% since the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Our country must do better and today we will,” she said.

Dozens of bills were combined to create the final package after months of negotiations, creating a rare moment of bipartisanship in a congressional session that has been plagued by bitter standoffs.

House Financial Services Chairman French Hill, an Arkansas Republican who worked with Waters and the Senate on the bill, said it is the first time in years that Congress has come together to make “measurable, accountable changes” to the nation’s housing laws.

The bill will “help build more homes to meet that growing demand and keep the American dream within reach,” he said.

The bill expands financing and protects renters

The legislation on its way to Trump would expand financing, encourage the development of “innovative housing” like modular homes, require new renter protections and enhance programs that aim to end homelessness.

It would also offer funding to local governments that build more housing, including Community Development Block Grant money to places exceeding the median rate of homebuilding. It would provide new dollars for communities to turn abandoned infrastructure into housing, and it offers a framework for communities that want to reform outdated zoning regulations, which often limit larger housing developments.

ln addition, the bill would raise limits on the number of public housing units that can receive financing for renovations and codify a recovery program to help expedite funds to communities rebuilding after disaster.

The legislation does not include a that would have required investors to sell newly constructed homes within seven years.

Housing costs are a concern for both parties

Republicans and Democrats have embraced the bill as a way to show they are addressing the nation’s affordability crisis, driven in part by rising home prices due to a shortage of affordable housing. The U.S. housing market has been in a slump dating back to 2022, when mortgage rates began to climb from pandemic-era lows.

Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes have been hovering close to a 4-million annual pace going back to 2023 — well short of the 5.2-million annual pace that����ap historically been the norm. Sales slowed last year to and have remained sluggish so far this year, declining in and versus a year earlier.

The in April found a shortage of 10 million homes, while a report this month from the Joint Center For Housing Studies at Harvard University found sales of existing homes were at three-decade lows and inventories were rising due to high home buying costs. “Cost burdens for both renters and owners continue to climb, while assistance remains profoundly underfunded,” the report said.

While the median U.S. monthly rent has been declining for nearly three years, it was still 17.2% higher in May than it was before the pandemic, according to data from Realtor.com.

The legislation drew widespread support in the housing community, both from organizations representing landlords and large property owners as well as groups that advocate for tenants and low-income renters.

It also brought together Republicans and Democrats, many of whom noted the unusual level of bipartisanship ahead of the vote.

“In this polarized and angry Congress, we are actually getting something done,” said Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn.

Associated Press writer Kevin Freking contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate passed a bipartisan housing bill on Monday that aims to reduce federal regulations and expand local control, one of the most sweeping efforts in recent decades to increase supply and bring down prices.

The bill, which passed 85-5 and now heads to the House, has been the focus of intense negotiations in recent weeks as lawmakers in both parties try to address housing costs in an election year. The final version of the legislation bans corporate investors from buying single-family homes but doesn’t include a  that would have required investors to sell newly constructed homes within seven years.

The measure was the result of years of work to “lower costs, expand housing supply, cut red tape, protect taxpayers, and help more Americans achieve the dream of homeownership,” said Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott, R-S.C., who worked with Democrats to get the bill passed.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the banking panel, said it is the most significant housing bill to pass Congress since 1990, when the average home in America was sold for $150,000. Now it costs more than $500,000, she said.

The bill “acknowledges that the federal government has a role to play in lowering housing prices,” Warren told The Associated Press. “For the first time ever, private equity will be blocked from buying up single-family homes and trying to turn housing into one more Wall Street investment.”

Senate passage of the bill shapes up as a rare bipartisan legislative achievement when much of Republicans’ agenda has stalled. The House is expected to give final approval later this week and send the bill to President Donald Trump, who has signaled his support.

Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters of California, who helped negotiate the legislation, said it was a “huge step toward finally addressing the affordable housing and homelessness crises in this country.”

Housing costs are a concern for both parties

Republicans and Democrats have embraced the bill as a way to show they are addressing the nation’s affordability crisis, driven in part by rising home prices due to a shortage of affordable housing. The U.S. housing market has been in a slump dating back to 2022, when mortgage rates began to climb from pandemic-era lows.

Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes have been hovering close to a 4-million annual pace going back to 2023 — well short of the 5.2-million annual pace that����ap historically been the norm. Sales slowed last year to  and have remained sluggish so far this year, declining in �����Ի��� versus a year earlier.

�ճ���� in April found a shortage of 10 million homes, while a report this month from the Joint Center For Housing Studies at Harvard University found sales of existing homes were at three-decade lows and inventories were rising due to high home buying costs. “Cost burdens for both renters and owners continue to climb, while assistance remains profoundly underfunded,” the report said.

While the median U.S. monthly rent has been declining for nearly three years, it was still 17.2% higher in May than it was before the pandemic, according to data from Realtor.com.

Changes for grants, Section 8 and manufactured housing

To increase the supply of housing, the bill would streamline environmental reviews and speed up the construction process.

It would offer funding to local governments that build more housing, including Community Development Block Grant money to places exceeding the median rate of homebuilding. It would also provide new dollars for communities to turn abandoned infrastructure into housing, and offers a framework for communities that want to reform outdated zoning regulations, which often limit larger housing developments.

The legislation would allow banks to invest more in affordable housing and raise limits on the number of public housing units that can receive private financing through Section 8 funding to rehabilitate properties. And it would remove outdated requirements and expand federal financing to make manufactured homes more affordable.

“Manufactured housing produces some of the most cost-effective housing in America, but access to financing has been tightly restricted,” Warren said. “This creates the opportunity for more manufactured housing and, at the same time, creates a structure for people living in manufactured housing communities to organize and protect their investment in their homes.”

Lawmakers compromised on a disaster program

One of the sticking points between the two chambers was over a federal disaster recovery program.

An earlier Senate bill had permanently authorized block grant recovery funds, a change intended to ensure that funding requests aren’t needed after every disaster. House lawmakers opposed that provision because of concerns over how the program was run, so they agreed on a three-year authorization instead.

The final bill has received widespread support in the housing community, both from organizations representing landlords and large property owners as well as groups that advocate for tenants and low-income renters.

“There is no magic wand that will fix this crisis overnight, and no single piece of legislation is perfect,” said David Dworkin, chief executive of the National Housing Conference, the nation’s oldest housing coalition.

“Compromise demands that. But this bill is a significant down payment on a long-term effort to make housing more affordable for all Americans.”

Both times, he has received zero offers, as in none, nada, zip.

“If someone came to the door and said I will offer you $180,000, I would say, ‘Great, take it!’ ” he said.

After failing to find a buyer on the second go-around with a list price of $259,000 last spring, he rented out his condo again, even though it meant losing $300 a month.

The U.S. housing market is not performing the way buyers, sellers, and the agents who represent them had expected this year.

It has even tripped up housing experts, such as the National Association of Realtors chief economist Lawrence Yun, who thought a rebound would finally arrive in 2026.

After a series of sluggish years, Yun had predicted a 14% gain in home sales nationally based on mortgage rates dropping below 6%.

Now he predicts only a 4% increase in sales and a 4% gain in home prices this year, with mortgage rates averaging around 6.5%.

He hasn’t given up on a double-digit increase in sales, but has pushed it out to next year.

“I think the housing market is bottoming in terms of unit sales — it’s pretty much occurring at the moment. It’s just a question of how much of an increase we can anticipate,” Yun told attendees at the earlier this month.

His recalibration traces back to weaker-than-expected job growth and the headfake 30-year mortgage rates made after the conflict with Iran reignited inflationary pressures.

Federal Reserve rate cuts, which were widely expected in 2026, appear to be off the table for now. Yields on the 10-year Treasury notes, which heavily influence mortgage rates, remain higher than expected.

If affordability is one pillar of a healthy housing market, a strong job market is another. U.S. job counts are at a record level, which should translate into a record number of home sales, Yun said.

That isn’t the case. Although the headline number is strong, Yun said that about half of states, including Colorado, have lost jobs over the past year.

“Housing has been in a recession for some years — essentially since mortgage rates spiked in 2022,” Selma Hepp, chief economist with Cotality, said at the NAREE conference. “And that has led to very low housing market activity, and also very low turnover.”

Home sales, measured against the number of households, are the weakest they have been since the early 2000s, when the country was dealing with the tech and telecom bust, Hepp said.

In a statistic that is not widely understood, per-household sales are weaker than they were during the housing downturn of the late ’00s.

And while home prices aren’t crashing as they did during the housing bust, they aren’t keeping pace with inflation. And Denver’s housing market is one of the weakest anywhere when it comes to price appreciation.

Cotality helps assemble the , a closely watched home price measure.

Denver has consistently ranked at or near the bottom for its annual change in home prices in recent months.

In February, Denver dropped below Tampa to claim the biggest annual decline in home values among the nation’s 20 largest metros.

In March, Seattle, whose index fell 2.5%, overtook Denver, down 2%, for the bottom spot.

Add in inflation, and owners in weaker markets like Denver are losing more ground than they may realize, noted economist Elliot Eisenberg in an email.

In Denver, the median price of a single-family home sold in May is up 1.5% year-over-year, while the median condo and townhome price is down 2.5%, according to the .

Denver’s annual inflation rate, as measured by the Consumer Price Index, reached 5% in May. Adjusting for inflation, the typical condo or townhome owner has lost 7.5% in “real” value.

In metro Denver, year-to-date home sales volumes are down 3% from levels seen the past three years and a quarter from the peak year of 2022.

And after accelerating the past two years, new listings are down 6% so far this year in Denver compared to last, a sign of seller fatigue.

The spring home-selling season, Eisenberg declares, was a “failure.”

Zillow’s chief economist, Mischa Fisher, also speaking at NAREE, said the unexpected rise in inflation this year didn’t push rates higher than where they were last year.

But they have acted as a restraint that consumers can’t shake off. And the chains serve as a reminder that the promises of relief, long anticipated, have yet to arrive.

“Mortgage payments have doubled, while incomes are up a third in the last six years,” Fisher said. “It really reset what it means to be a homeowner, and it reset how accessible homeownership is.”

Historically, 30-year mortgage rates are below their long-term average, Yun said.

But a stretch of unprecedentedly low mortgage rates of around 3% in 2020 and 2021 transformed the housing market in ways it is still trying to work through.

Yun and Hepp don’t forecast mortgage rates dipping below 5%, a level that would boost affordability for potential buyers and free more current owners to sell, any time soon.

Patience pays off for buyers

For Sundeep Viswanathan and Elizabeth Perkins-Pride, the rebound in interest rates this year has worked in their favor.

The married couple has kept a close eye on their Observatory Park neighborhood near the University of Denver for the past three years in search of a bigger home to accommodate their family.

But until recently, the market was working against them. Prices were elevated, the inventory was tight, and as buyers, they had almost no negotiating power.

Things have changed, even in one of Denver’s hottest neighborhoods.

Observatory Park homes that were going for $4 million three years ago can now be had for closer to $3 million, Viswanathan said.

“We have a lot of leverage and try to negotiate as much as we can,” he said. “We will try to get a good deal, and if we don’t, we will walk.”

The couple expects to close on a home next month that has been on the market for six months and is seeing a significant price drop.

The couple, who moved from California in 2013, paid off their original mortgage. They don’t wear the “golden handcuffs” of a low-rate mortgage that can’t be replaced.

Because they are bringing so much equity to the table, they are less sensitive to what interest rates are doing. But freeing up that equity will require them to sell.

“The challenge for buyers waiting on rates to come down is that everyone else is waiting for the same thing,” said Bret Weinstein, founder of Guide Real Estate, and the couple’s agent.

Lower rates will mean more demand and competition, which will cause buyers to lose some of the leverage they currently have working in their favor.

“For buyers who can comfortably make the numbers work right now, this market can offer a significant advantage,” he said.

The condo market is a quagmire

Although the lack of affordability remains a major headwind for the market, condos and townhomes, which represent an important pathway into ownership for many first-time buyers, are struggling.

Insurance costs have risen sharply, driving up association fees. Older developments are coping with deferred maintenance costs. Property taxes are higher.

Make has felt all those pressures and then some. He considered selling back in 2016 when he and his soon-to-be wife moved into a single-family home in the suburbs of Jefferson County.

But it didn’t feel right, and for years, the condo was a profitable rental. When he needed to raise some cash in 2021, he took out a home equity loan.

He thought he had locked in a low fixed rate, but it was actually a variable rate loan, one that is up to 8%.

“Condos are a tough hold right now, and they are a tough sell,” he said. “I thought this was going to be a long-term retirement plan.”

Condos, especially older and more affordable units, are in direct competition with apartments. Denver is among the cities that have seen a surge in new apartment supply this decade.

Fisher notes that in 2019, only 4.4% of Zillow rental listings came with concessions like a month or two of free rent. Now that is up to 40% nationally, with Denver and Austin approaching 70% of rentals offering concessions.

Zillow’s shows that typical rents in Denver are only 1% higher than the national average, while home prices are 30%  higher.

Over seven years, a Denver renter will come out ahead of a buyer by $108,151, assuming 3% home price appreciation and 3% rent inflation.

More renters who might have bought a condo in the past are staying put.

Yet, the market defies absolutes. Some listings still sell in a few days, while others languish for months, agents note.

“I’ve been traveling around the nation this year, and I am hearing a lot from you that it����ap a really wonky market,” Jessica Lautz, NAR’s deputy chief economist, told a gathering of Realtors on June 16 in Washington, D.C.

“You’ll list a home on the market, and sometimes it’ll sit for months. And sometimes it����ap going to have multiple offers, and they can be next door to each other,” she said.

Weinstein said interest rates are definitely impacting the market, but it����ap still very neighborhood-specific.

“Buyers are still active and getting deals done,” he said.

Absent a big drop in mortgage rates or a recession, Denver’s housing market may remain stuck.

And many people will find themselves in a holding pattern, as Viswanathan did for three years and as Make continues to be.