BREAKING POINT: Statewide poll reveals residents, even wealthy ones, fret over cost of living, housing

AURORA | Worries about the cost of living and housing affordability topped the list of concerns for most Coloradans in 2023, according to findings from the fourth-annual Pulse Poll commissioned by the Colorado Health Foundation.

Not only do the cost of living and housing press heavily on the minds of so many Colorado residents, but even those residents considered well-to-do or even wealthy share in the worry, according to survey results.

The findings come as Aurora is trying to build its inventory of affordable housing and keep more people from joining the ranks of  homelessness.

Between April 8 and May 3, a bipartisan team of CHF researchers collected responses from 2,639 Coloradans that showed persistently high living costs and housing affordability are presenting a ripple effect across multiple aspects of daily life and fueling worries for the state’s future generations.

Colorado Health Foundation is releasing an analysis of Coloradans’ top concerns this month to be followed in August by a deep-dive analysis of other key findings and in September with an emphasis on the perspectives of Hispanic and Latino respondents.

On one hand, concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic that took center stage in 2020 and 2021 have been erased, with less than 1% of respondents citing the pandemic as a concern in 2023.

But the pandemic “was not the only contagion that swept through Colorado in the last several years,” said Lori Weigel, a Republican pollster for Pulse and principal of New Bridge Strategy.

“In a three-year span, housing costs have spread from the concern of local workers in mountain resort communities to a top-tier statewide issue. In every region of the state — from the Eastern Plains, to the Front Range, to the Western Slope — and with virtually every single demographic group, the cost of living and cost of housing are the great uniters as the top-of-mind concerns.”

Asked to describe in an open-ended question and in their own words the most important issue facing Colorado right now, 16% of respondents brought up the cost of living and 15% mentioned housing affordability, followed by politics, homelessness, public safety and other topics.

Reinforcing these concerns, when asked to rank a series of specific problems facing Colorado, all four of the top issues relate to increasing costs and housing. Respondents ranked “the rising cost of living” and “the cost of housing” at the top of the list with 85% and 82%, respectively, saying the problems are extremely serious or very serious

Renters and people of color most concerned

Concerns about the cost of living are 8% higher for renters, 6% higher for Latinos and 4% higher for people living on low incomes. Concerns about the cost of housing are 16% higher for Native Americans and 11% higher for renters and people living on low incomes.

A report commissioned by the City of Aurora, and released in late 2020, indicated residents needed to make more than $50,000 per year to afford the average rent, which was about $10,000 more than the average renter’s income.

At a time when the COVID-19 pandemic was in full-swing, the report also said the city needed more than 10,200 units of affordable housing to serve all households earning less than $20,000. The problem predated the pandemic, however — in 2017, the city was said to have a shortfall of roughly 7,500 units for renters making less than $25,000 per year.

The city is in the process of implementing recommendations included in the report.

On July 20, the city invited proposals to develop properties at 15961 E. Colfax Ave. and 15978 E. 16th Ave. into affordable housing, part of a project to build about 600 units across multiple sites.

As of July 24, city spokesman Michael Brannen says the city estimated it needs about 7,500 more units of affordable housing to meet demand. 

Since 2020, the cost of housing as an extreme or very serious problem has risen from 67% to 82%, with 51% of respondents citing it as an extremely serious problem in 2023 compared to just 37% in 2020. Relatedly, the rising cost of living was ranked as an extremely serious or very serious problem by 85% of those surveyed.

Despite the waning pandemic, concerns about the ability to afford living in Colorado have persisted. Today, many Coloradans are doubting not only their ability to own homes but also their children’s ability to afford living in Colorado, with 83% of those making more than $50,000 worried about whether their children will be able to afford living in the state.

Results align with recent polls and analyses, including the annual U.S. News & World Report released in May that revealed Denver and select cities across Colorado — recently ranked among the Top 10 most desirable and livable cities in the country — are falling further down the rankings. Ultimately, concerns and changes detailed in the 2023 Pulse Poll may provide some insight into the changing face of Colorado in the years ahead.

“Concerns about the cost of living are not only a source of anxiety for Coloradans today, they are also dimming their hopes for the future,” said Dave Metz, a Democratic pollster for Pulse and president of FM3 Research.

Metz mentioned how nearly two in five Coloradans described “just getting by financially” and that more than one-quarter are worried about losing their home because they can’t afford it.

“Looking toward the future, the view is even darker,” he said. “Most renters who want to own a home doubt they will ever be able to purchase one in Colorado, and more than four in five parents are worried about whether their children will be able to afford to stay here at all. Coloradans not only have low expectations for a rapid turnaround on the cost of living — they worry that the state’s housing challenges could become generational.”

Homelessness a steady factor in worries

Closely following the cost of living and housing are concerns related to “homelessness” and “the cost of health care” with 79% and 69% respectively saying the problems are extremely serious or very serious. These related cost concerns have continued to increase incrementally in recent years and are even more common within specific demographics.

For instance, concerns about homelessness are 13% higher for Native Americans and 7% higher for Latinos, while concern about the cost of health care is 16% higher for people who are struggling to get by and 10% higher for Asian-American and Pacific Islander respondents. Additionally, concerns about homelessness as an extreme or very serious problem have risen from 67% in 2020 to 79% in 2023.

“More people are feeling more insecure about their ability to afford housing at the same time that more people are experiencing homelessness, and specifically unsheltered homelessness,” said Cathy Alderman, chief communications and public policy officer for the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless.

“So as Colorado as a state becomes less affordable to people, and particularly in Denver, we’re seeing not just the fear that people have about not being able to afford housing, but the reality that they can’t afford housing because they’re entering the cycle of homelessness.”

Results of the 2023 point-in-time count of homeless residents across the Denver metro area that were released this month show a surge in homelessness regionally, from 4,806 staying in shelters and 2,078 sleeping outside in 2022 to 6,302 and 2,763 respectively in 2023. Aurora’s stated homeless population declined over the same period, from 311 sheltered and 301 unsheltered to 409 sheltered and 163 unsheltered.

Service providers generally treat point-in-time figures as an undercount. Alderman said it can be difficult to draw conclusions about the data obtained from the survey, which is conducted by volunteer teams who have one night to find and count as many sheltered and unsheltered homeless residents as possible.

However, she said a real increase in the number of homeless people around Denver would make sense given the impacts of COVID-era protections for renters being allowed to expire.

“I’m not surprised to see the numbers across the region increase,” she said. “We’ve known that the numbers are increasing. And we certainly know that the federal funding for eviction prevention and rental subsidies running out meant that more people were going to lose their homes, and so more people were going to enter a cycle of homelessness. We’ve kind of been bracing for that all along the way.”

She said the apparent decrease in the number of homeless people in Aurora could also reflect the fact that more shelters are located in Denver or that some homeless campers may have relocated to less visible areas in response to the city’s ban on unauthorized camping that was introduced last year.

As people increasingly worry about their ability to afford the cost of living, they are less concerned about the broader economic picture. Concerns about jobs and the economy, considered an extremely serious or very serious problem by 63% in 2020, have fallen to 48% in 2023.

Housing concerns are impacting day-to-day decisions, particularly for those living on low incomes, with significant portions of the population afraid of losing their home or making tough decisions to be able to afford housing.

On July 24, Emily Fuller from Aurora Housing and Community Services told the council that the city has already spent close to $250,000 this year to prevent evictions and help pay the move-in costs for households through the city’s Flexible Housing Fund — one of the only local resources of its kind. She said funds are typically exhausted within 24 hours of the application portal opening each month.

Nearly 3 in 10 respondents to the CHF poll said they are worried they could lose their home in the coming year because they can’t afford rent or mortgage, including one in five people making more than $50,000 per year.

That number is up 6% from 2020. About 15% of respondents have either moved because they couldn’t afford their housing or lived with a roommate, friends, or family when they’d rather not. These tough decisions more than double for people living on low incomes.

For those in Generation Z, the oldest of which are pushing 26 years of age, almost one-third said they have to live with a roommate or a friend to afford rent or a mortgage.

Renters appear to be bearing the brunt of this cost crisis, with 85% aspiring to own a home but most of those people saying they do not think it’s likely they will ever be able to purchase a home in Colorado. Nearly half say they are working multiple jobs or more hours than they’d like in order to be able to pay their rent.

While concerns about housing are widespread, Coloradans’ actual experiences with the state’s housing market suggest that some groups are navigating other challenges in addition to soaring costs when trying to find a place to live.

About one in four Coloradans trying to rent or purchase a place to live say they have experienced unfair treatment, either personally or with someone they know, as a result of their race or ethnicity. This is true for six in 10 Native Americans, nearly half of African Americans, and nearly four in 10 Latinos.

The high cost of living is touching all aspects of Coloradans’ lives. About 40% say they are “just getting by financially,” including more than one in 10 describing themselves as “really struggling.” Another 40% of respondents say they are “worse off financially” than a year ago.

About one in three respondents say they are worried they might not be able to afford enough food to feed themselves or their families, including a quarter of all people making more than $50,000 per year. This worry is much higher among people living on less though, at 60%; Native Americans, at 55%; renters, at 51%; and Latinos, at 47%. Overall, 14% of respondents said they had skipped meals because they couldn’t afford food versus just 9% in 2021.

Karen McNeill-Miller, president and CEO of The Colorado Health Foundation, said the 2023 survey showed a “worrying picture” of Colorado residents compromising their healthy and long-term economic stability to accommodate the cost of living.

“These tradeoffs are even more common among people of color and those living on low income,” she said. “We want local and state officials to understand the stories behind these data, as they highlight policy opportunities that are essential for improving opportunities for everyone in our state.”

Respondents also shared what policy solutions they wanted to see to address the cost of housing, 80% said they considered lowering property taxes for people on low or fixed incomes to be effective, while 75% expressed support for rules preventing landlords from rapidly raising rents, 68% endorsed more funding for programs that prevent people from becoming homeless and 67% supported making it harder to evict tenants who haven’t violated their lease.

A majority of respondents also said they would support making affordable housing more available by changing zoning laws to make it easier to build more housing close to job and transportation hubs, requiring developers to build housing for people with lower income levels and speeding up permitting and inspection processes for developers building housing for low-income people.