Housing costs aren’t just an issue for entry-level workers and renters, according to a poll of likely voters in Colorado Springs and El Paso County commissioned in December by the Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce & EDC.
The poll found 89% of those surveyed making an annual income of $50,000 or less said surging housing costs created a “big problem” in finding affordable housing, and 71% of residents earning between $50,000 and $100,000 agreed housing costs were a problem.
“This is a fast-growing community, and these are growing pains,” said Johnna Reeder Kleymeyer, the chamber’s CEO. “It is unconscionable that people making between $50,000 and $100,000 a year would struggle to afford housing. That is supposed to be a livable income.”
The telephone poll, which included both landlines and cellphones, of 409 randomly selected likely voters was conducted by WPA Intelligence, a Washington, D.C.-based market research and polling firm the chamber has used regularly for polling. The poll’s margin of error was 4.9%.
Rising housing costs have made recruiting entry-level employees more difficult for UCHealth in Colorado Springs and has even resulted in some candidates for management-level jobs — such as a director of oncology candidate from Michigan — to turn down offers when they found buying a home locally much more costly and difficult than expected, said Jeff Johnson, vice president of human resources for UCHealth.
“We just increased our minimum pay to $18 an hour but a single-room apartment costs $1,500 to $1,600 a month, and that is a big chunk of coin unless you have a roommate,” Johnson said. “For nurses, we aren’t seeing as many applicants from other states as we did before COVID. So we are hiring more new graduates from nursing school than we typically would take. We are seeing the problem of high housing costs creep into the middle class.”
Hiring challenges have come as UCHealth is working to rapidly grow its staff, adding 1,500 employees in the past year; one-third of the new hires were made in the Colorado Springs area, where the nonprofit employs about 6,500 people. To help fill openings, UCHealth launched its Ascend Career Program, which offers entry-level staff a path to get promoted, often with free training, including bachelor’s and master’s degrees in many health care fields.
“We still find that candidates see Colorado Springs as attractive place, especially with all of the changes in the downtown area and the outdoor recreation opportunities,” Johnson said. “There is still momentum because of our location.”
Colorado state demographer Elizabeth Garner said surging housing prices along the Front Range result from a housing shortage that developed during and after the Great Recession. Housing construction in Colorado averaged about 50,000 units a year before the downturn and dropped to about 10,000 units a year during and afterwards, she said.
“The problem is we stopped building after the Great Recession and supply has been greatly diminished. and if you want job growth, you cannot have it without housing growth,” Garner said.
The UCCS Economic Forum has estimated that the Colorado Springs area needs an additional 12,125 housing units to meet current demand, while the state needs another 225,000 units, and that doesn’t even include housing for newly arriving residents.
The Affordable Housing Collaborative — which includes the Housing and Building Association of Colorado Springs, the Colorado Springs Chamber and EDC, the Pikes Peak Association of Realtors, the Apartment Association of Southern Colorado and the Downtown Partnership — formed in 2018 to come up with ideas and plans to encourage and fund construction of more housing targeted at entry-level and middle-income workers.
The group has asked the Colorado Springs City Council and the El Paso County Board of Commissioners to help reduce regulatory and financial burdens to building affordable housing. Among the proposals are imposing impact fees to help pay various development fees for such projects and allocating taxes paid on short-term rentals such as AirBnB or VRBO from the city’s tax on hotel rooms and rental cars for affordable housing.
The collaborative also is seeking a sales tax exemption on building materials used in affordable housing projects, quicker regulatory reviews of such projects and encouraging higher housing density in the current rewrite of the city’s zoning code.
“The people most likely to relocate to a new area are 18 to 32 years old and those are people are moving to start a career and family,” said Kleymeyer, the chamber’s CEO. “If there isn’t enough (housing) availability and they can’t afford to live here, then employers will not have the labor to fill jobs. This is not just an issue for low-income residents but is an issue for all of Colorado Springs and El Paso County. We all need to be concerned if we want to find employees in the future.”
Read the full article on The Gazette.
Related Links
Rocky Mountain National Park begins closures for elk rut season
Southwest Denver home flips are happening more frequently, often enriching private companies
If there is a home that you would like more information about, if you are considering selling a property, or if you have questions about the housing market in your neighborhood, please reach out. We’re here to help.
