Denver Residents Share Top Concerns About Rent, Home Prices and Tax Increases

Denver residents young and old worry about home prices and rising rent.

Mile High locals have shared their housing affordability concerns with Mayor Mike Johnston during recent town halls across Denver. For the mayor, the first step to solving these issues is clear: Pass his sales tax bump that could be on the ballot in November.

Dubbed as the "Affordable Denver" tax, Johnston wants to raise the sales tax in Denver by 0.5 percent to generate $100 million to build and preserve upwards of 44,000 cost-controlled units, including at least 5,000 such units in the first year.

The current Denver sales tax is 8.81 percent, and the Affordable Denver tax isn't the only potential initiative this year that could increase sales taxes. In June, Denver City Council approved a ballot measure proposing 0.34 percent sales tax for Denver Health to provide services to uninsured patients.

"We're taxed to death," LaMone Knoles, a Northeast Park Hill resident, told Westword after a town hall on August 7. "The general sales tax will be close to 10 percent — that's probably the highest in the nation. What are we getting?"

On July 25, the proposed ballot measure hit a snag when the City Council Safety & Housing committee held off on approving it for the election, asking for more information from the mayor's office about how the tax revenue would be used. But the committee approved the measure on Thursday, August 7, after the mayor's office retooled it.

The proposal now specifies the tax revenue needs to serve "households living at or below 100 percent of Denver’s Area Median Income (AMI),” which is less than $117,000 a year for a family of three, though the federal government adjusts the AMI every year.

According to the mayor's office, the median income in Denver doubled from 2000 to 2022, going from $40,000 to $84,000 — but the median home price more than tripled during the span, from $165,500 to $525,000. Meanwhile, the median cost of Denver rent nearly tripled, from $630 to $1,870.

Councilmembers might be coming around, but the mayor still needs to sell voters, so he's been using the town halls on affordability to stump for the potential ballot measure.

Denver resident Carson Bryant attended a Community Conversation in Central Park on August 7. He told Westword that he would like to see a commitment to using the Affordable Denver tax revenue to fund community-owned housing, like land trusts formed by residents or nonprofits, and city-owned housing. He also wants the tax revenue to fund housing for families making 60 percent of the AMI, which is less than $70,000 for a family of three. 

"Investing $100 million in housing is really critical and really needed," Bryant said. "I want to see more commitment in the ballot language and in the plans, not just talk."

So far, Johnston has hosted four town halls about affordability in central, northeast, southwest and south Denver neighborhoods. Here are the most common housing concerns Mayor Johnston has heard during his first four meetings on affordability:

Central and Downtown Denver

At the first affordability meeting on July 18, Johnston spoke with residents living near downtown Denver in neighborhoods like Capitol Hill, Congress Park and the Golden Triangle.

Residents talked about the high cost of renting in their area. Roel Cuejilo, a Denver resident, said he knows people spending $1,400 a month for studio apartments.

Some residents complained that "downtown is all luxury housing," as one put it, while others agreed and said they wanted those luxury apartments to be spread throughout Denver instead of being clustered in the downtown area.

Southwest Denver

On July 24, Johnston hosted a town hall in Harvey Park, a southwest Denver neighborhood that's mostly homes instead of apartments. The meeting brought out homeowners and renters, and among them were people who had been in that area for multiple generations.

Homeowners said they were lucky to have bought their homes while prices were down, and explained to Johnston that they're worried for younger people who can't buy homes now.

"If I had to buy my house today, I wouldn't be able to afford it," Allyson Rogers, a homeowner in Harvey Park, said. "I feel bad for people younger than me, because I don't know how they're going to buy a house now."

Renters complained that their rent goes up every year and shows no signs of stopping. This was more worrisome for renters whose families have been in the area since their parents or grandparents moved in decades ago. 

"My grandmother came here as a displaced Aurarian, and she knew what it was like to be pushed out of her neighborhood," one resident recalled. "It's clear that we're getting etched out of Harvey Park. Each generation, the rent goes up, and now we're at the point where we're seeing our children have to leave their roots and their family behind."

South Denver

Johnston met with residents in University Hills on July 25. Similar to residents from the adjacent neighborhood of Hampden, University Hills residents talked about the rising price of homes.

But unlike the Harvey Park homeowners, most of these south Denver residents were still trying to buy homes. One woman shared that she had moved from Georgia and now lives with her husband and her daughter in her in-laws' basement.

"For a three-bedroom house [in Denver], you could have a ranch in the South," she said. "I can't find anywhere to live that's suitable for a child to grow up in." 

Homeowners at the meeting complained about the rising price of home insurance, with some saying they could barely afford monthly living costs in Denver even though they already paid off their mortgage. Others didn't like that small homes in their neighborhood were being torn down and replaced with mansions.

North Central Denver

Senior living facilities were the top concern at an affordability meeting that Johnston hosted in Central Park on Wednesday, August 7. Residents complained that they had sold their homes to move into senior-living apartment complexes like Dahlia Square Senior Apartments and Kappa Tower II Apartments. 

"They're having serious buyer's remorse," Knoles, who attended the meeting, says. "They're not getting the amenities that they bought into. The properties don't have balconies, they don't have windows that open. The maintenance is irregular."

The meeting was the most well-attended of the four affordability town halls that Johnston has hosted so far. While the previous brought in thirty to forty residents, this meeting brought out more than seventy residents from areas like west Montbello, Northeast Park Hill and Clayton, among others. 

Meeting attendees asked for the city to step up enforcement against "sham landlords" that don't take care of senior-living complexes or any other property. Residents said that some of the senior-living complexes had young people living in them and worried that they moved in by lying about being caretakers for senior tenants. 

As in Harvey Park, the homeowners in the crowd felt lucky to have bought their homes early on, but they also felt stuck or "locked in, like they can't move because if they did sell, there would be nowhere else to go," a city official explained while reading residents' comments aloud.

Former mayoral candidate Jesse Parris stood up at the meeting and quoted a popular meme to summarize his concern as a Denver renter in the area, saying, "The rent is too damn high!"

Future meetings

Another seven meetings remain for Johnston's affordability conversation series. Residents interested in sharing their concerns about the cost of living in Denver can find the schedule for the remaining meetings at the mayor's community outreach calendar.

Johnston's town halls are part of his Citywide Goals 2024. He's been visiting every Denver City Council district to talk about safety, affordability, vibrancy and good governance. The mayor wrapped up a town hall series on safety in June, but follow-up meetings for those gatherings have been scheduled for several neighborhoods, including Montbello and west Denver.