Habitat’s Cost of Home Campaign Aspires to Make Housing Something we ALL can Afford

At Habitat for Humanity of Metro Denver, thousands of families reach out to us every year in search of a solution to their housing struggles in Denver’s expensive market. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Denver is now the most unaffordable rental market in the U.S.1 And the median price of a single family home has doubled in the past five years in Denver.2

With Denver’s average home sale prices now exceeding $500,0003, affordable homeownership is out of reach for families who have lived in our community for generations. With housing costs so high, hardworking families are forced to make impossible choices every day: healthy food or health care, gas money or utility bills? These are choices no one should have to make.

Across the country, nearly 19 million households pay half or more of their income on a place to live.4 In Denver, 1 in 6 households pay half of their income towards housing.5 That means 1 in 6 families are denied the personal and economic stability that safe, decent and affordable housing provides.

This is why we’re joining hundreds of Habitat for Humanity affiliates across the country to launch our first national advocacy campaign: Cost of Home

Through the Cost of Home campaign, we aim to improve housing affordability by influencing policies and systems focused on:

• Increasing the supply and preservation of affordable homes
• Increasing access to safe and sound credit
• Optimizing land use for affordable housing, and
• Ensuring access to and development of communities of opportunity
• We need your help! Here’s what you can do to support the campaign right now:

Post about the importance of keeping housing affordable on social media, using #CostOfHome, tag us @HabitatDenver
Write or call your representatives and tell them to support policies to improve housing affordability. We even have pre-populated messages for you to use.
Tell three friends about the campaign
Take action to support the Cost of Home campaign today, and together we can help make the #CostOfHome something we ALL can afford.

1. Colorado Real Estate Journal :https://crej.com/news/carvell-on-affordable-housing/
2. New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/27/us/denver-cafe-gentrification.html
3. Denver Business Journal https://www.bizjournals.com/denver/news/2019/05/03/denver-average-home-sale-record-high.html
4. Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/Harvard_JCHS_State_of_the_Nations_Housing_2018.pdf
5. Denver Office of Economic Development https://www.denvergov.org/content/dam/denvergov/Portals/690/Reports%20and%20Studies/ENGLISH%20CLEAN%202019%20Annual%20Action%20Plan%2012.11.18.pdf