The Next Mayor of Denver Holds the Key to Zero Evictions by 2025
As the next Mayor of Denver, you are inheriting a historic housing crisis defined by skyrocketing rents and a significant housing shortage, perpetuating record levels of evictions and first-time homelessness. Displacement and eviction are traumatic for families, drive intergenerational poverty, and cost the City tens of thousands of dollars in avoidable social services costs for each person removed from their home.
It doesn’t have to be this way. As Mayor, you can end evictions for unpaid rent. We have the tools and the knowledge to keep our neighbors safe in their homes.
Unaffordable Housing Drives Eviction and Displacement in Denver
Between 2021 and 2022, rent in Denver increased by 45%, with the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment requiring an hourly wage of nearly $30. The sharp increases in rent exactly parallel the historically high eviction filings we’ve seen this year.
In March, Denver County Court processed 1,195 eviction filings — meaning that nearly 3,000 Denverites risked losing their homes. This is Denver’s highest number of eviction filings over the last five years. This results in an alarming trend of displacement that extracts wealth from our communities. In a matter of days following an eviction filing, an eviction case goes before a judge. Ten days after the judge’s order, a sheriff can remove the family and their belongings from their home and put them onto the street.
But eviction filings are merely the tip of the iceberg and do not reflect the actual number of Denver families displaced each month. Research suggests that for every eviction filing, two more households self-evict before a filing occurs, often due to landlord pressure. This means that for each of the 1,195 eviction filings filed in Denver County Court in March, two additional households opted to abandon their homes rather than face an eviction trial in front of a judge.
If someone is rent burdened, one emergency expense — a flat tire, sick kid, or an unexpected tow — can lead to a missed or partial rental payment, followed quickly by an eviction, displacement, and homelessness. A recent point-in-time survey conducted by Metro Denver Homelessness Initiative found that the leading cause of homelessness in Denver is an inability to pay rent or mortgage, and the second leading cause of homelessness was being evicted or asked to leave one’s home.
The City’s average cost of serving someone experiencing homelessness is between $42,000 and $104,000 annually. The low end of this range is double the cost of the median annual rent in Denver. It is far easier to occasionally assist neighbors struggling with unexpected emergencies than bear the enormous cost of their displacement.
Eviction has a devastating ripple effect on a person’s life. Someone who experiences eviction often experiences a significant decline in physical and mental health. As a result, it is harder for them to find or keep a job, and their chances of being institutionalized, incarcerated, or visiting the emergency room dramatically increase. Even worse, children in displaced households experience poor health, developmental delays, food insecurity, and inadequate care.
The Next Mayor of Denver Can End Evictions for Unpaid Rent
We must do better. In 2020 and 2021, the City and its providers built and fine-tuned a system that rapidly delivered rental assistance, legal services, and other community resources to Denverites facing eviction. It cut eviction filings in half — dramatically reducing the number of families displaced. With federal funding for these programs ending, we need committed leadership and a clear vision from the Mayor’s office to reduce the city’s eviction rate to zero and create a long-term plan for housing stability.
Our Zero by Twenty-Five Plan will help you accomplish these goals in your first term as Mayor of Denver:
- Invest $55 million annually in rapidly-paid emergency rental assistance, integrated into the existing courthouse eviction prevention infrastructure.
Timely rental assistance stops evictions. Legally, if rental aid arrives before a judge hears an eviction case, the funding settles the case by paying off the rental debt. It also resolves the root cause of a non-payment eviction, stabilizing families in their homes. An investment of $55 million in accessible, equitably managed, fast-moving rental assistance could stop 8,000–9,000 evictions in Denver County, keeping 20,000 people in their homes and putting our city on a path to zero non-payment evictions.
In addition to keeping people in their homes and making landlords whole, this funding would reduce first-time homelessness and save the City millions by avoiding the high cost of services for those experiencing homelessness. For example, one estimate found that the ROI of rental assistance programs in Colorado during the pandemic was 167–380 percent.
However, rental assistance only works when the check arrives on time and the landlord follows the rules. In-court emergency assistance programs that can cut a check within hours have a significantly higher success rate than programs that do not prioritize funding to stop evictions or work sequentially through long waitlists. In general, rental aid should follow nationally recognized best practices. For example, investments in rental assistance funds should emphasize in-person service in multiple languages, the ability to make last-minute deposits with the court to stop an eviction proceeding, and integration with other stability services.
2. Invest $10 million annually in eviction legal defense, intake and navigation, and system-wide capacity building.
Rental assistance should be paired with significant investments in programs and services that help renters facing displacement understand their options, assert their rights, and navigate the complexities of the legal eviction process. An investment of $10 million annually in eviction legal defense, intake navigation, and system-wide capacity building will help us reach zero non-payment evictions by 2025.
When paired with adequate funding, resource navigation, legal services, and case management services are powerful tools that can address outstanding rental balances and lead to housing stability.
3. Implement a pay-for-success model backed by a $3 million investment in measurement and evaluation.
The City’s housing stability investments should focus on clear, measurable results for program participants. By implementing a “pay-for-success” model, Denver can ensure that rental assistance, legal aid, and stability services arrive on time and keep people in their homes. An investment of $3 million annually could fund new investments in measuring the effectiveness of the cities’ programs, deepen funding for effective best practices, and incentivize the alignment of unaligned service delivery with best practices.
The City should employ tools like “secret shopper” and outcome-based evaluations to assess client experience and stability. As we have learned, funding well-intentioned supportive programs is not enough. From an outcome-based perspective, the only thing that matters is clients’ keeping their homes. Where assistance fails to keep people housed, we must pursue new or adjusted approaches. In the end, we must ensure they’re well-managed, responsive to clients, and delivering their intended benefits quickly.
As Denver’s next Mayor, you can tackle the housing crisis and keep our neighbors in their homes. We believe that by fully investing in eviction prevention services and long-term housing stability, you can dramatically reduce first-time homelessness, prevent displacement, and save the City hundreds of millions of dollars. But, most importantly, full investment, careful implementation, and clear accountability standards for the displacement prevention and housing stability programs outlined above would help tens of thousands of Denver families avoid the intergenerational poverty and trauma associated with eviction.
Signed,
ACLU of Colorado, B-Konnected, Bayaud Enterprises, Community Economic Defense Project, Colorado Children’s Campaign, Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, Coloradans for the Common Good, Colorado Poverty Law Project, Colorado Safe Parking Initiative, Colorado Village Collaborative, Community Investment Alliance, Enterprise Community Partners, The Gathering Place, The Globeville, Elyria-Swansea Coalition, Habitat for Humanity of Metro Denver, Jewish Family Service, Neighborhood Development Collaborative, No Eviction Without Representation (NEWR), Project Moxie, The Redress Movement, Servicios de la Raza, Towards Justice, and Westwood Unidos
