The Denver Social Housing Act

The Problem

Denver has over 7,500 people experiencing homelessness on any given night (MDHI Point-in-Time Count, 2024). The waitlist for Section 8 housing vouchers is years long (Denver Housing Authority) - and even when people get vouchers, landlords refuse to accept them. The private market has failed to provide affordable housing because the private market was never designed to. Its purpose is profit, not shelter.

Meanwhile, Denver’s median rent nearly doubled between 2010 and the early 2020s (Zillow Observed Rent Index, Denver-Aurora-Lakewood MSA). A 2024-2026 construction surge has since cooled the market - the average apartment rent eased to about $1,891 in mid-2026, down ~2.5% year-over-year, with a one-bedroom averaging ~$1,708 (RentCafe, 2026) - but rents remain far above pre-2020 levels, and a family earning median income still spends over 35% of their earnings on rent (U.S. Census Bureau ACS, 2023), above the federal affordability threshold. For low-income families, it’s 50-70%. Market-rate supply lowers the baseline; only permanently affordable, publicly owned housing guarantees that low-income families are never again at the mercy of the next upswing.

The city’s current approach - tax incentives for developers who include a handful of “affordable” units in luxury buildings - has produced a fraction of the housing needed, at costs per unit that are obscene, and with affordability restrictions that expire after 15-30 years.

We need a fundamentally different approach.

What Denver Currently Does

Denver’s current affordable housing apparatus centers on the Department of Housing Stability (HOST), which had a budget of approximately $200M in 2024 (boosted by the Proposition 123 affordable housing fund). The Expanding Housing Affordability (EHA) ordinance, overhauled in 2022, requires developers of projects with 10+ units to include affordable units or pay a fee-in-lieu. The city has also invested in the Denver Affordable Housing Fund and partners with the Denver Housing Authority (DHA), which manages approximately 4,100 public housing units and 6,700 Housing Choice Vouchers.

Despite this infrastructure, Denver produces approximately 500-800 affordable units per year through LIHTC and other programs - at per-unit subsidy costs of $400,000-600,000. Thousands of LIHTC units are approaching the end of their 15-30 year affordability periods and will revert to market rate. The current system is not keeping pace with demand, and the units it produces are temporary.

There are promising signs: in January 2026, The Irving at Mile High Vista - a 102-unit permanently affordable, all-electric community in West Colfax developed by the Urban Land Conservancy - became one of the first Proposition 123-funded projects to open. The Irving serves households at 20-80% AMI with 99-year affordability through a community land trust, and received a $4,080,000 HOST loan (Colorado Politics, January 22, 2026). But as Mayor Johnston acknowledged at its opening, Denver needs to open 30-40 such communities per year to meet the city’s need for approximately 44,000 new affordable units over the next decade (Denver HOST). A single project, however groundbreaking, underscores how far from that pace we remain. Our proposal scales permanently affordable housing through public ownership, at dramatically lower per-unit costs.

Our Solution

The Denver Social Housing Authority

Create a new city agency - the Denver Social Housing Authority (DSHA) - with the mandate and funding to build, acquire, and operate 10,000 permanently affordable housing units over 10 years.

Key Principles:

• Permanently affordable. These units never return to market rate. They are publicly owned, forever.
• Mixed-income. Not just low-income housing. Units for families earning 0-120% of Area Median Income (AMI). This prevents concentration of poverty and eliminates stigma.
• Rent at 25% of income. No tenant pays more than 25% of their household income in rent. If your income goes up, your rent adjusts gradually. If it drops, rent drops too.
• Democratically governed. Each building elects a tenant council. Tenant councils elect representatives to the DSHA board. Residents have real power over maintenance, rules, and building decisions.
• Priority populations. First access for: people exiting homelessness, families with children in Denver Public Schools, seniors on fixed income, essential workers (teachers, nurses, transit operators, service workers), and domestic violence survivors.

Unit Targets (10-Year Plan)

Year	New Units	Cumulative	Method
1-2	1,000	1,000	Acquire existing buildings + convert vacant commercial
3-4	2,000	3,000	New construction + continued acquisition
5-7	4,000	7,000	Scaled new construction
8-10	3,000	10,000	Complete buildout

The Vienna Model, Adapted for Denver

Vienna, Austria houses 60% of its population in publicly owned or subsidized housing. Rents average €5-7/sqm (Wiener Wohnen / City of Vienna Housing Department, 2023). There are no ghettos because public housing is everywhere, well-maintained, and desirable. The model works because:

1. Scale creates leverage over the private market
2. Mixed-income prevents stigma
3. Democratic governance ensures accountability
4. Public ownership means permanent affordability

We adapt this for Denver’s context: smaller initial scale, but the same principles.

International Evidence: Public Housing Works - When It’s Designed To

Country/City	Public Housing Stock	Key Feature	Result
Vienna, Austria	220,000 municipal apartments. 60% of residents in public/subsidized housing.	Mixed-income, architecturally excellent, democratic governance	Named “most livable city” repeatedly. Average rent: €5-7/sqm. No housing affordability crisis. No stigma - public housing is desirable.
Singapore	80% of residents in government HDB flats	Home ownership model: 99-year leases, resale market exists	Home ownership: 90%. Mixed-income, mixed-ethnicity by design. Housing is not a source of financial precarity.
Finland	Comprehensive social housing + Housing First	Converted shelters to permanent housing	Only EU country where homelessness is declining. Down 35% since 2008.
Denmark	20% of housing is almene boliger (non-profit)	Tenant-governed housing associations, rents set at cost	High quality, mixed-income, zero profit extraction. Democratically managed.
Red Vienna (1919-1934)	65,000 apartments built in 15 years during economic crisis	Municipal construction at massive scale	Created the template for modern social housing. Proved that bold public investment works even in hard times.

The American failure was deliberate. US public housing was underfunded by Congress, racially segregated by policy (Rothstein, The Color of Law), concentrated in poverty by design, and then defunded further when it predictably struggled. Every other country’s public housing works because it was designed to succeed. Denver follows the models that work.

How We Pay For It

Total estimated cost: $3-4 billion over 10 years. This is achievable without raising property taxes on primary homeowners.

Revenue Sources:

1. Revenue bonds backed by rental income from DSHA properties ($1.5B). Social housing is self-sustaining because rent revenue covers operating costs and debt service.
2. Tax Increment Financing (TIF) districts in gentrifying neighborhoods ($500M). Capture increased property tax revenue from surrounding development.
3. Vacancy tax revenue (see: Vacancy Tax proposal) - estimated $50-80M/year once implemented.
4. Federal matching funds. HUD programs, Low-Income Housing Tax Credits, and federal affordable housing grants ($500M estimated).
5. Denver’s Affordable Housing Fund - redirect existing fund toward DSHA acquisitions instead of developer subsidies ($200M).
6. City-owned land. Denver owns hundreds of vacant parcels. Dedicate them to social housing instead of selling to developers at below-market rates.

Cost per unit: $200-350K for new construction, $150-250K for acquisition/renovation. Dramatically cheaper than the $400-600K per unit Denver currently spends subsidizing “affordable” units in private luxury buildings.

Frequently Asked Questions

“Isn’t public housing always terrible?” American public housing was deliberately underfunded, concentrated in segregated neighborhoods, and designed to fail. Vienna, Singapore, and Finland prove public housing works when it’s properly funded, mixed-income, and well-maintained. Our model avoids every mistake of mid-20th century American public housing.

“Can the city actually manage 10,000 units?” DSHA would be an independent authority with professional property management, similar to how Denver manages its water utility. The city already operates Denver Health, DIA, and other large institutions. This is a management question, not a capability question.

“Won’t this cost too much?” The current cost of homelessness to Denver taxpayers is estimated at $40,000-60,000 per person per year (emergency services, policing, hospital visits). Housing 7,500 homeless people at $15,000/person/year in social housing saves money. It’s cheaper to house people than to leave them on the streets.

“Why not just give developers more incentives?” We’ve tried that for 20 years. It has produced a fraction of the needed units, at higher per-unit costs, with expiring affordability periods. The private market builds housing to maximize profit, not to maximize housing. We need a public option.

“Where will 10,000 units go? What about neighborhood opposition?” Social housing will be distributed across all Denver neighborhoods - including affluent ones - not concentrated in low-income areas. That was the mistake of mid-20th century American public housing and we won’t repeat it. Vienna’s model works precisely because public housing is everywhere: in wealthy districts, in commercial corridors, in transit-oriented developments. Denver already has hundreds of city-owned vacant parcels in every part of the city. The DSHA site selection process will prioritize proximity to transit, jobs, and schools - and will include mandatory community engagement. But “community engagement” is not a veto. The housing crisis affects the entire city, and every neighborhood must be part of the solution.

References

• Apartment List. (2026). Denver, CO rent report. https://www.apartmentlist.com/rent-report/co/denver
• City and County of Denver, Department of Housing Stability (HOST). (2024). Affordable housing programs and need estimates. https://www.denvergov.org/host
• Colorado General Assembly. (2026). 2026 regular session housing bills (HB26-1001, SB26-001, HB26-1065, HB26-1066, HB26-1114). https://leg.colorado.gov
• Colorado Politics. (2026, January 22). [News article on the opening of The Irving at Mile High Vista, a 102-unit Proposition 123-funded affordable community in West Colfax]. https://www.coloradopolitics.com
• Metro Denver Homeless Initiative. (2024). Point-in-Time count. https://www.mdhi.org
• RentCafe. (2026). Average rent in Denver, CO [Yardi Matrix market-trends data]. https://www.rentcafe.com/average-rent-market-trends/us/co/denver/
• Rothstein, R. (2017). The color of law: A forgotten history of how our government segregated America. Liveright Publishing.
• U.S. Census Bureau. (2023). Selected housing characteristics [American Community Survey, Denver-Aurora-Lakewood MSA]. https://data.census.gov
• Wiener Wohnen. (2023). Facts and figures on Vienna’s municipal housing. https://www.wienerwohnen.at
• Zillow. (2024). Zillow Observed Rent Index (ZORI), Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, CO [Data set]. https://www.zillow.com/research/data/