© 2024
NPR News, Colorado Stories
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
KUNC is among the founding partners of the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration of public media stations that serve the Western states of Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.

Rent Assistance Key To People Staying In Their Homes, Groups Say

Maria Ziegler
/
Unsplash

As employers continue to lay off workers at unprecedented levels, every state in the Mountain West has some kind of rent assistance program in place. Low-income housing advocates hope those programs, and their funding, can keep up with the ongoing need.

"Losing one month of income is the determining factor between being housed and being unhoused," said Cathy Alderman with the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless.

When someone gets evicted because they can't afford rent, Alderman said, problems can snowball from there. 

"Everything becomes even a bigger uphill battle in terms of finding a new place, finding a landlord who will take you if you have an eviction on your record," she said.

In Colorado alone, the total funding needed for rent assistance is more than $1.4 billion, by far the highest level in the region, according to National Low Income Housing Coalition estimates.

Last month, the U.S. House passed a bill that would create a $100 billion national rent assistance program as part of a $3 trillion coronavirus relief package, but it was rejected by the Senate.

This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, the O'Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West in Montana, KUNC in Colorado, KUNM in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the .

Do you have questions about COVID-19? How has this crisis affected you? Our reporters would love to hear from you. You can submit your question or share your story here.

Copyright 2020 Boise State Public Radio News. To see more, visit .

Amanda Peacher is an Arthur F. Burns fellow reporting and producing in Berlin in 2013. Amanda is from Portland, Oregon, where she works as the public insight journalist for Oregon Public Broadcasting. She produces radio and online stories, data visualizations, multimedia projects, and facilitates community engagement opportunities for OPB's newsroom.
Amanda Peacher
Amanda Peacher works for the Mountain West News Bureau out of Boise State Public Radio. She's an Idaho native who returned home after a decade of living and reporting in Oregon. She's an award-winning reporter with a background in community engagement and investigative journalism.
Related Content