Y.I.M.B.Y.  Yes In My Back Yard. The new agenda for affordable housing is to convince people that housing is not a luxury but a right, and that housing of mixed incomes and uses is desirable for more efficient economies. Everyone has a place called home. 

This premise is a far cry from the protectionist presumptions of many owners of real estate. For them, the practice of sharing their neighborhoods is 'N.O.P.E. (Not on Planet Earth).’ This is a long-term strategy of gated communities, to sell only to specific income levels and to protect the size and nature of their neighbor's parcels. The problem with these exclusive communities, as Douglas and Arapahoe Counties discovered, is there is no one to provide basic services. Why is it that in Boulder County they devised a means to offer inclusionary zoning in all communities?  Do you think that they foresaw the housing crisis would impact all of the people living in Boulder County and not merely the lower tier of the economy?

Let's shift to Denver and investigate the market economy as determined in the 2006 Denver Housing Analysis. Page 1 of Section V reads, “Denver's rental market is affordable to most of Denver's renters, and renter's earning more than $20,000 per year have an adequate supply of rental units to meet their affordability needs." The report goes on to stipulate that, "Denver's lowest-income renters make up 41 percent of Denver's rental population, and 25,000 of these households need some form of assistance or subsidies." 

The report continues talking about a great chasm for those who are seeking rental housing:  "There were two units of housing available to these households because the rest were occupied by higher income residents." Where are the rental units located for the lowest tier of the economy? They are in the East Central and Northwest Denver communities, the BBC Research and Consulting report concluded.

Does it make sense in America to create favelas? These are the communities in Latin America, and elsewhere abroad, where the poor live in squalor. For healthy, thriving communities and urban growth to work, people have to live together, sharing the gifts that each citizen and neighbor has to offer. 

Page 13 of the same study reports a gap of 24,000 affordable units for households with incomes from $0 – 19,999 per year, and a surplus of 50,000 units for households from $20,000 – 39,999 per year.

The Denver Housing Plan of September 2008 proposes to build 5,500 units of housing. One official of the Human Services Administration remarked that, "this was wonderful news, because over the next decade they are committed to building 5,500 units and 3,000 of them for the lowest income.”

How is this arithmetic possible? Can we believe that creating one-eighth of the 41,000 units of housing for the lowest income will benefit Denver? The recently issued Denver Housing Report generated the projected number of housing units needed to fill the gap in demand. In places like Glendale, the affordable units that were located there on two sites were converted to condos and the affordable units were removed from the market.

In Denver, again, one woman who is retired on a Veterans Administration pension, said that she had been forced out of the affordable housing that was, to be sure, substandard, had to move into her garage with her dog. This was the second time the elderly woman was forced to abandon her home. In the process of living in this condition, which, if you have ever tried this life, is unbearable, the garage with all of her personal property burned.

She lost everything.

She was forced, then, to live out of a car and attempted to salvage her remaining life. No one should grow old and wither under the weight of foreclosure, gutting apartments and turning them into condominiums, and feeling that there is no place left to turn for affordable housing.

The rental market for the next decade has been selectively created and developed to drive out the poor, and with an element of derision, officials and the public alike say that the market is over saturated with people who pay little in tax revenue.

The problem with that conclusion is that we are interdependent. When one of us dies, as have the 150 homeless whose names were read in a solemn ceremony at the City and County Building on December 18 at 5:30 p.m., we cut off not merely those people but everyone remaining who is related, whether as families, friends or neighbors.

Taking a look at the foreclosure crisis, the future is grim. Reports indicate that monthly mortgage resets of rates project a growing number of adjustable rates that are losing ground through the next three years. The mortgage crisis may top $30-billion. Credit Suisse, a major financial services company heavily involved in the mortgage industry, has stated this in a study by R. Cestero at an Enterprise Foundation Conference on November 19, 2008.

Page four of the Power Point presentation portrayed a stark graph depicting the increase of foreclosures in what they refer to as subprime, which may become as high as $20-billion by 2011. These are numbers and markets that will be reset to reflect the already swelling numbers of households from 1.2 million currently to three times as many households by the time the disaster reaches its nadir.

The presentation also indicates that 60 percent of all households that have ARMs, or Adjustable Rate Mortgages, will end in foreclosures. Where do you think these people will live?

In an interview with a state official, that official acknowledged that a high percentage of those losing their homes would be looking for rental units. A number of the lower income persons will be moving in with family or friends, or with no other option, become homeless. These people will be driven from their local communities. What is the emotional fall out from these alarming circumstances, and what does this forecast for the health and welfare of the community?

These are some possible outcomes: increased blight, which means abandoned housing. This can be seen everywhere throughout the state. The local economy will continue to lose revenue. "40.6 million homes in neighborhoods surrounding foreclosed homes will suffer decline, as there is a $352-billion drop in property values and loss of $4.5-billion in property taxes," according to the Center for Responsible Lending.

What the economy must remedy is keeping people in their homes. Preserve affordable housing, first and foremost. Create a land bank by keeping properties and people housed. Renovate and sell rental buildings and vacant properties. Community stabilization begins with keeping people at home in their neighborhoods. For these tasks to be accomplished, public and private policymakers, who oversee and influence the political, economic and, thus, housing and labor markets, must respond to those who are most vulnerable by facilitating living wages and affordable housing through community partnerships that instill confidence in all of Denver’s neighborhoods.