Inside Arvada

Inside Arvada's Housing with Carrie Espinosa

• City of Arvada • Episode 42

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Arvada's Housing Manager and Housing Authority Director Carrie Espinosa explains how their work provides a variety of affordable housing support services including the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds to support local non-profits and critical home repairs for low-income residents. 

Other topics include: 

Support programs available for those in need: 

Contact Arvada's Housing Division at 720-898-7494 or housing@arvada.org.

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Text us with the link at the top of the show notes, or email podcast@arvada.org. We’d love your feedback on the episode


Visit us at arvadaco.gov/podcast or email us at podcast@arvada.org.

SPEAKER_02:

Hello and welcome to Inside Arvada, the official podcast of the City of Arvada. I'm one of your hosts, Sean Starr. Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode. Our guest is Carrie Espinoza. She serves as the housing manager for the City of Arvada and the executive director of the Arvada Housing Authority. She has over 25 years of experience working in the housing industry and leads a passionate team committed to improving access to affordable housing in Arvada. Carrie holds a bachelor's degree in psychology and a master's in social science, both from the University of Colorado at Denver. And as always, I'm joined by my co-host Katie Patterson. Hi, Katie.

SPEAKER_01:

Hey, Sean. Yeah, it was great to have Carrie on a lot of complex work that her team is doing. There's a lot of moving parts to housing services, affordable housing, what that even means. And so really great episode with Carrie. And then really encourage folks to listen through to the end of the interview where she'll mention she kind of talks throughout that the housing voucher program, the housing stock for people to kind of access their services is pretty limited. But there she mentions a lot of other programs that are available now. So I think that's a good ad there at the end.

SPEAKER_02:

Hi, Carrie. Welcome to Inside Arvada. Thanks so much for joining us. We'll begin by just telling us a little bit about yourself and your work with the city.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you for having me today. I've been with the city for 14 years. I've been in my current role as the housing manager and the director of the Arvada Housing Authority for the past five years. And the housing team were tasked with making more affordable housing options in the city.

SPEAKER_01:

And so there's kind of two parts of your work that we'll walk through. The first one we wanted to talk about was the housing division. So that's the team that you oversee. What does the housing division do?

SPEAKER_00:

So we apply for and administer grants. That's one of the tasks that we do. So we have the city receives the community development block grant, also known as CDBG. We receive$450,000 annually from HUD, and that grant is to serve low to moderate income households in Arvada. It can be used for a wide variety of projects. We primarily use it to fund the human services grant program that the city has that offers grants to local nonprofits who serve low-income households, and it can go for a variety of projects that they do to serve their mission. We also use CDBG to fund the Essential Home Repairs Program, which is a program designed for income-eligible homeowners who are in need of critical repairs to their home. We offer services like replacing windows, replacing their sewer line, replacing their furnace. It's those types of critical services or repairs that are needed to the home. That's what the Essential Home Repairs Program does. And that program is administered by Brothers Redevelopment. They're a big partner of ours in the housing division. Some exciting projects that we have coming up using CDBG. We do have some leftover prior year funds. So we are going to use CDBG to pay for playground equipment at Gold Strike Park, which is located off of 56th and Sheridan. So we're really excited to be able to support Gold Strike Park and the Parks Department in their work. We're also going to use CDBG to pay for the rehabilitation of Beyond Homes, townhomes. Beyond Home for someone who isn't familiar, they offer transitional housing to homeless families along with supportive services. They own some existing units here in Arvada that are in need of repair. So we're going to contribute$480,000 to that rehabilitation. In addition to CDBG and those types of grants, we also are tasked with carrying out the Arvada City Council Strategic Plan, the housing priority in there to increase affordable housing and preservation activities in Arvada. So we do have a housing development specialist. Her name is Sam Bradley, and Sam is really tasked with looking at how we can incentivize developers to come to Arvada and develop more housing here. What can we do to support rehabilitation of Arvada's current affordable housing stock to make sure that we don't lose it while we're still trying to increase our units?

SPEAKER_02:

And then, you know, you kind of walked through a little bit of the housing division. There's also the Arvada Housing Authority, and that is a council-run board. Tell us more about the work that the authority does and how it's a little separate from your staff.

SPEAKER_00:

Aaron Powell Sure. So the Arvada Housing Authority is a public housing authority similar to other housing authorities that you might hear of. Council does serve as the Board of Commissioners for the Housing Authority. But we also do work to support the Housing Division and its efforts to build and rehabilitate or preserve affordable housing in Arvada. So the Housing Authority can offer loans to support developments or rehabilitation work. We can come in and become a special limited partner, which then provides property and sales tax exemptions to the developers, which is makes the project more financially feasible. We can also offer housing vouchers to the development, which also allows the developer to offer to charge market rate rent for those units. The housing authority will help subsidize it. But at the same time, it's a financial tool in order to get the developments built.

SPEAKER_01:

That makes sense. And then another part of the authority's work is the housing choice voucher program, correct?

SPEAKER_00:

Right. And so I mentioned that we do run a rental assistance program, and that is the housing choice voucher program. It's a rental assistance program where participants pay 30% of their income for rent each month. The housing authority will then subsidize the remaining 70% to the landlord each month. So it's it's offering those, it's making sure that the participants are paying 30% of their income. One of the greatest features about the Housing Choice Voucher program is that participants get to choose where they live. So we don't tell them, you know, you're going to go live in this particular apartment. They get to choose where they live based on what's important to them, whether it's close to schools, transportation, medical facilities, family, it's whatever's in their best interest. So it's a really nice program to be part of if you're fortunate enough to get in.

SPEAKER_01:

And um, okay, that is new information to me because I always kind of picture, and maybe this is like a stereotype that's just kind of in like the way it's portrayed in movies or things, like Section 8 style housing, where it's like very specific location, it's a very specific type of housing. Um and so that's not how we run that here in Arvada.

SPEAKER_00:

No, that's a different program called public housing. Oh, and um there public housing still exists. Um, but they are starting to convert public housing. And actually they've done it for decades now, they're converting it more to look like the housing choice voucher program because it's um the operating funds for the public housing program, it's very expensive. So they're they've changed it a bit so that um it's it's a more feasible program.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And then who qualifies for that the voucher type program? Aaron Powell It's all income-based. For one a one-person household, they would have to be below fifty thousand dollars annually.

SPEAKER_02:

But you provide a sort of uh assistance to wide spectrum of people earning all sorts of incomes right all the way from you know middle medium income, and that's tied to the definition of affordable housing, correct? Like you hear that term thrown around a lot. We've thrown around a lot of terms here. Um, but that one's pretty important for people to kind of understand, right? And so help us understand that I believe it's pretty universal definition of what qualifies as affordable housing. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So affordable housing, the term itself really just means that a household is not paid more than 30 percent of their income for rent. Um so that's the HUD definition that we use. Now, where we can really dive into definitions, and I tend to try to stay away because I'm finding that different groups use the terms differently, and that's where I think it becomes challenging for the public to follow is if one group is using a term one way and another group's using it differently, it becomes really complicated. Um I I tend to use um terms like uh low income, middle income housing to help kind of break that up. But whether you're low income or you're middle income, the target is still for everyone to pay 30% of their income for rent.

SPEAKER_02:

Aaron Ross Powell And you know, in a in a city here like Arvada and the Denver metro area, I mean that income level can be quite high to still qualify for assistance just because housing costs are so high in our area.

SPEAKER_00:

Trevor Burrus Right, exactly. Um Yeah, we um I was looking at some numbers for the um to qualify for uh low-income housing versus like middle income or workforce housing. And the range for the workforce housing is um between 104,000 and 168,000 that qualifies as that workforce housing. Um and then for to qualify for low-income housing, it's if you uh for a household of four, you have to have less than 84,000.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

If I could go back and visit the workforce housing, I just want to make sure that that range that I just gave the 104,000 and the 168,000 is for a family of four. It's it's an important distinction because um a one-person household would not qualify for that range.

SPEAKER_02:

But I mean, I feel like not too long ago you would think that six figures in a household would be enough without assistance, but that's just not the case anymore.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, it's not. Um when we um we did a housing needs assessment uh back in 2023, and we found that the median um price range for a home in Arvada is six hundred and fifteen thousand, which means that you have to have a household income of two hundred thousand in order to purchase the house.

SPEAKER_02:

And who would have thought that some people might, but not your average, right? Um kind of taking a little bit of a step back at the bigger picture here, why is it so important to provide affordable and workforce housing to a community?

SPEAKER_00:

Right. Um it's important because we want to have a balanced housing stock. Um, and really meaning that there is a housing option available to every resident uh wherever they're at in their stage in life. So whether someone's just starting their career, whether someone is looking at retirement or even beyond that, we want to make sure that everyone has um a uh affordable housing option. Um so uh and the balanced housing option also um helps boost local economy because if you're bringing in a diverse um a diverse um group of folks to work in your community. Um you're excuse me, you're attracting and retaining a divide diverse workforce. And so that also helps create the infrastructure needed in a balanced community. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01:

And you can, yeah, like live where you work and not have to, you know, commute 45 minutes. Like there's a lot of benefits to that sort of um quality of life for someone, but also economic boom for the area.

SPEAKER_02:

Or I don't know, boom is a weird word, but benefit to Denver, you're gonna maybe go out to lunch in Denver if you live in Arvada and your tax dollars and sales tax is gonna be spent in Denver rather than where you live in Arvada or vice versa.

SPEAKER_01:

So um as a part of trying to achieve some of that, I think that we have in addition to the council strategic plan, there's a housing-specific strategic plan and a housing advisory committee that are both relatively new, I believe. Tell us a little bit about that work.

SPEAKER_00:

Aaron Ross Powell Sure. And if you don't mind, I'll back up just a little bit to talk about the work that led up to the strategic plan. Um so in 2023, the city completed a housing needs assessment to just ensure that we understood the um the conditions of housing in Arvada. And that housing needs assessment identified the three top housing needs in Arvada. Um, the first one being um additional affordable rentals, particularly for the households who have an income of less than$35,000 a year. That population has seen a steep decrease in housing options over the last few years. So think about households who are on limited income, such as Social Security, retirement, or disability income. We want to create more options for them. Um the second need is starter homes and family homes priced below$450,000. It is extremely challenging to find a house that is below$450,000. So that was the second need from that needs assessment. We um the third need is an increased diversity in housing stock. Arvada is very heavy in single family homes. Um and so we want to look at bringing in more of what they call missing middle housing. So think of town homes, duplexes, um, those attached homes. It'll bring in smaller units, a more dense product, which also then uh allows for more affordability. So that's um that was the third recommendation or the need from that housing needs assessment. Once we had those three needs, we then jumped into drafting the housing strategic plan. And this was really a partnership with the city, the housing advisory committee, um, and root policy research are consulted in order to make that work happen. The plan was approved by the Arvada City Council in May of 2024. And the strategic plan itself, it identifies nine strategies that we are going to use to try to meet those three needs found in the housing needs assessment. Um I'm not gonna go into detail what those nine strategies are today, but I will say that it really focuses on two policy levers. Um and one of those being leveraging financial assets. We can't do this without money in order to develop and and preserve. So making sure that we're leveraging financial assets to support this work. The second lever is consider land use and zoning modifications and just um helping pave an efficient path for developers in order to make this work happen.

SPEAKER_02:

Aaron Powell Yeah, and we can link to the the full um PDF version of that um report in our show notes so people can look at it and kind of look at those strategies. The land use and zoning modifications I think somewhat makes sense of like, you know, you could have like residential zones in the city or you can have mixed-use zones, and we can kind of change those depending on the needs. But can you explain a little bit more about that first lever about uh leveraging financial assets? So what does what does that mean?

SPEAKER_00:

Aaron Powell Yeah. So it's um so um diving deeper into the leveraging assets, one of the strategies under that policy lever is ensuring that we're using our existing financial resources appropriately to support um the developments. For example, we have um some loan repayments that came back to the housing authority in years past. And so we uh created an avo our VATA Affordable Housing Fund. Um, how are we going to use those funds to support this work? How can CDBG support this work? The housing choice vouchers can play a big role in the development of work as well. So making sure that we um are using our um current resources responsibly, but then taking those resources and then leveraging additional supports. So you might have heard um in the recent years about Proposition 123 that was passed in the state of Colorado. That really opened up opportunities for developers and municipalities, counties, and even nonprofits to um go after additional funding. But in order to get the additional funding, you need to bring in your own funding. So that's where leveraging can really be a critical tool here. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02:

Kind of to shift gears a little bit. Um previously, I think it was about a year ago, we had our two homelessness navigators on Alex and Hudson on the show and talked about the work that they do. But some of their work does overlap with with your teamworks. Uh tell us a little bit more about your work with with that, those two.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, they're a great team. We are very lucky to have Hudson and Alex. Um our work really intersects in that we tr uh with the housing's role and homelessness, um, we really try to identify permanent supportive housing solutions for folks. Um how can we help with grant writing, bringing in more funding to support their work, and coordinating our efforts to fill the gaps? There's a lot of um gaps in terms of homeless services, and so how can we support them in filling those gaps? It's a conversation that we have quite frequently. We, the city receives or has received, two state grants that we're working on right now to address homelessness. Um Hudson and Alex are out there doing the great work and meeting with folks and determining what their needs are and how can we assist them in their next step in their journey, whatever that might be. Um the housing team, we're more behind the scenes in supporting them in the grant compliance. So we are taking the data that they provide to us, completing our compliance reports, making sure the policies and procedures are written, we'll handle any of the auditing. We are working on additional grant applications to help continue their work over the next year or so. And we also have a housing navigator on the housing team, and she works very closely with Hudson and Alex and as they identify folks who are at the point of moving into they're ready for permanent housing, the housing navigator can step in and help them with an apartment search, help them with a job search if they need assistance with that. We can pay security deposits, those types of um services in order to help them break down those barriers.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's a lot of bes behind the scenes help, and they're a relatively new team. So I imagine that has really like ramped up for you all in the last few years, too.

SPEAKER_00:

It will, and I know that the conversations were um we will be bringing on a new homelessness program manager, and so we'll all sit down together and figure out how we can make this happen. But very supportive of the work. That's how I personally started out. I was doing case management work um in the homeless community. So I it's it's near and dear to me. So whatever we can do to support them, I'm all for it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Um and so you mentioned grant funding a little bit as part of kind of what you're seeking out and using for your funding. Um, but the majority of your funding isn't our kind of city general fund, local tax dollars. Can you talk a little bit more about how you all are funded?

SPEAKER_00:

Sure. So we the housing team is primarily funded with federal and state grants. The Housing Choice Voucher is a HUD grant. Um, it's federally funded. The CDBG Community Development Block Grant is a federal grant as well. Um the state grants obviously are funding the homeless work that provides those case management services. So we are almost entirely grant funded. So as you can imagine, some of the conversations that are happening at the federal and state levels, it can cause concern for us if there's budget decreases there. So something that we continue to monitor and we'll pivot where we need to.

SPEAKER_02:

I think pretty unique setup funding-wise, with anyone else we've had on the show. You know, usually it's general fund or enterprise funds, but not so many that are so dependent on state and federal dollars, like your division. Yeah. Um, before we move on to our final segment with some trivia questions, we like to ask our guests some sort of final thoughts or uh misconceptions, kind of just open the floor. Do you care what did we not ask you, or what do you want to maybe reiterate that we discussed so far?

SPEAKER_00:

Aaron Powell Yeah, I I think we touched on some of this already, but I I um people often think that households that qualify for low-income housing um are people who do not work, but that's not true at all. Um a single person earning around$65,000 will qualify for low-income housing. So that's something that our housing advisory committee is working on, is to educate the public about really who is the population being served here, because uh there's a lot of stereotypes out there. And I do want to um reinforce that the projects that we have been supporting, especially over the last five years, like the Habitat for Humanity Griffith Stations project, the Legacy Senior Residences Project, Ralston Gardens, Vance Street Flats, Marshall Point, Family Tree just opened up their Marshall Street Landing project just a couple of weeks ago. Those projects are so important in assisting in that gap because it can serve a pretty large segment of the population. Um I only mentioned a few of those communities because they're the most recent ones that we've been working on, but all of the the low income and um community serving that middle income level, they're critical in in this work. Um I also uh want to mention we've talked a lot about the services that the city offers. And unfortunately, there's uh there is a wait in order to receive any type of rental assistance from the city. We currently have about 3,000 households on our wait list, and uh uh that is not unusual. It's it's not a new problem for us to have, and uh that's what it looks like nationally, unfortunately. There's just um households can wait years before receiving that assistance. So I don't want someone to listen to the podcast and think that they can come to us and apply. Unfortunately, they can't, we're not taking applications now. However, on the flip side, um, I do want to plug a couple of programs that um that residents can receive um assistance on, and one of them being the Energy Outreach Colorado program. That is a program that offers um help with Excel energy bills. So if an Arvada resident is struggling to pay their bill, they receive a shutoff notice. Please reach out to the housing division and we can check to see if um they're eligible for our assistance. Um community table also offers the energy outreach program, so that is another resource as well. And I also want to plug the Essential Home Repairs Program because the wait for that program is also pretty short. So any homeowners who are income eligible and in need of some critical work to their um to their home, please reach out to Brothers Redevelopment to see if you qualify for that assistance. Um for someone who is looking for rental assistance, I encourage them to contact 211 through um, I believe it's ran through Mile High United Way. And Brothers Redevelopment also offers the Colorado Housing Connects hotline, and please reach out to them. And they have a um a database that they can tap into to see what organization they can connect you with.

SPEAKER_01:

And we can link to all of those resources in our show notes too for folks. So um don't feel like you had to remember it all. Thank you. Uh okay. Should we move on to some trivia? I'm in charge of trivia this time, so we'll see how it goes. Uh okay. So um I have three questions for you here, and uh you probably won't know any of the answers, so you can both just guess. Um but you can uh do your best. Yeah. None of them are things that you would naturally know from your job. So um in 1942, one of the biggest real estate deals in Arvada at that time um was to Gerard Knutson Knutson's purchase of 840 acres um for the Pomona Ranch property northwest of just northwest of Wadsworth and 80th Avenue for$65,000. 840 acres, let me see how much would that be today in 2025 dollars? 800 acres, you said 840 acres. So what how much would$65,000 be though? I just converted the, you know. Oh okay. And this is 1942? Yeah, 1942.

SPEAKER_02:

Um sixty-four thousand dollars?

SPEAKER_01:

Sixty-five thousand dollars, yeah. Two hundred and twenty thousand. Okay, Sean, you have a guess?

SPEAKER_02:

I'll just go with a million dollars.

SPEAKER_01:

1.3 million dollars. Which um the property is probably I mean, it's not a single property anymore, but it would make hundred and forty acres would be worth a lot more than even one point three million. I was looking at converting the dollars, not looking at the which makes more sense. What I I did convert the dollars, yeah. Um okay, so then the first permanent structure in Arvada was supposedly built in 1859. Hard to you know fact check this one, but this is what I found. Um, what type of structure was it? And I'll give you four options here: uh A, a sod house, B, a log cabin, C a brick farmhouse, or D, a railroad bunkhouse.

SPEAKER_00:

I'll guess D.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. Carrie guesses railroad bunkhouse?

SPEAKER_02:

Brick farmhouse.

SPEAKER_01:

You are both incorrect. It was a log cabin. Um okay, and then last one, in 1951, I clearly looked at one history book for all these answers. It was the early 90s, 1900s one. Um so in 1951, Chester Hot Hotkinson um started developing 173 homes in what would come to be called the vetting subdivision, which is in southeast Arvada. How much did those homes sell for? I'm sorry, what year was it? 1951.

SPEAKER_02:

Each home.

SPEAKER_01:

Each home.

SPEAKER_02:

$50,000.

SPEAKER_01:

I'll say$30,000.$7,000.$7,000 to$7,500. Um, yeah. So, and then uh I will say in that same year he went on to start two new developments a little further west, um, but still very, you know, today Eastern Arvada, um, around Grandview Avenue. And um, those were going from 12,000 to 35,000. Wow. So Those were apparently at the time the Bouchier ones. So well done. I definitely tricked you all up with those.

SPEAKER_02:

Hoskinson Park, just uh east of Ralston Central there. It's just like right on the trail. It's not much of a park itself, but Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm sure that's the the same person or family at least. So cool. Well thanks, Carrie. Thanks for coming on. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Thanks. Okay. And as a reminder, we love to hear from you all our listeners. So text us with the link at the shop top of the show notes, or you can send us an email at podcast at arvata.org. We'd love your feedback on the episode. We know we covered a lot today. So if you have any questions for Carrie or anything you'd like us to follow up on in another episode, we would love to hear it. And so news and upcoming events. We have the city's uh free to resident leaf recycling drop-off that runs November 8th through the 22nd, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. every day, Monday through Saturday, closed on Sundays, and that's at Stinger Sports Complex. And so that really program helps keep our leaves out of the landfill and get recycled and composted and then off of city streets where they can flood and pollute our waterways. So we encourage everybody to recycle their leaves. And then City Council at the end of October did pass the annual increases to water, wastewater, and stormwater rates and fees. And so we will link to the full rate and fee information in the show notes for that.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, and going back a few episodes, we had the clerk from the Jefferson County Clerks and Recorders Office on Amanda Gonzalez. Unfortunately, at the time of this uh recording, we don't have election results, but by the time this episode is published, we will have those and we will link to those in the show notes. And then finally, Trees Across Arvada is back. This is uh a program the city uh sponsors to offer low-cost and low-water trees for residents in Arvada and the community. You buy them now in the fall and winter, and then you pick them up in the spring. We'll link to that uh webpage where you can order your trees online in the show notes. Thank you once again to our guest today, Carrie Espinoza. Be sure to catch our next episode with Visit Arvada director Gene Gordon. We'll be talking all things holiday season coming up. Today's podcast was recorded and edited by Arvada Media Services. And my fun fact for today's episode is according to the 2024 uh City of Arvada Housing Needs Assessment, only 6% of people employed in Arvada also live in Arvada.

SPEAKER_01:

Whoa.