Coloradans who want to help move the needle on homelessness can still sign up for a lobbying day next Tuesday at the State Capitol.

Cathy Alderman, chief communications and public policy officer with the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, expects dozens of people to join this year's effort. Folks will meet up in the morning to hear from a couple of legislators. And they'll get a brief training on how to talk with lawmakers about bills that impact people experiencing homelessness.

"Then we send people out in teams to go find legislators - in their office, sometimes they're debating on the floor, sometimes they're in committee - and we encourage them to support our priorities," she said.

Alderman added this year's legislative priorities include homelessness prevention and resolution, housing availability and access, health care, and economic justice. The group is backing a number of bills, including House Bill 25-1168 which adds protections for victims of gender-based violence in rental housing. Those interested can sign up for the event online at 'ColoradoCoalition.org.'

The coalition is also pressing lawmakers to improve the infrastructure needed to address homelessness across the state. Alderman says House Bill 25-1032 would create a homelessness council, made up of representatives from all state agencies and important stakeholders like local governments and nonprofits, to set a statewide strategy.

"Which we think is really important because it kind of sends a message to the entire community that the state is making this a priority," she explained. "But it needs its local government and nonprofit partners to do the work."

The coalition also supports Senate Bill 25-008, to help people experiencing homelessness and survivors of natural disasters and domestic violence get access to driver's licenses and other vital documents. Alderman said they'll also be tracking any measures related to renter's protections.

"Trying to create that balance between renters and landlords to make sure that folks can stay stably housed. Because we know that it's much more difficult to get housed once you've lost your housing," she added.

Rents in Los Angeles were already high before the firestorm earlier this year, but now a coalition of housing groups is suing six landlords for price gouging.

In California, it is generally illegal to raise rents more than 10% following an emergency declaration, but the nonprofit Strategic Actions for a Just Economy has found many units where advertised rates jumped 25% to almost 50%.

Heeyoung Linda Park, an attorney with the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, a co-counsel for the plaintiffs, has been watching the activity.

"When they tracked these rental prices, they found hundreds of properties illegally gouging rents, and so there were so many that they eventually had to recruit volunteers to help them track the listings and identify the worst offenders," Park said.

Attempts to reach the defendants for comment were unsuccessful. The first court appearance is scheduled for later this summer. The City of Los Angeles is seeking $62 million in damages in a separate lawsuit against different landlords.

Rodney Leggett, an attorney with the Housing Rights Center, is also a co-counsel for the plaintiffs alongside the Western Center on Law & Poverty and the California Center for Movement Legal Services.

"We find it very exploitive to sort of take advantage of people when they're most desperate, including people who have been displaced as a result of the wildfires," he said.

More than 16,000 structures were destroyed by the Palisades and Eaton fires, adding more pressure to an already-stretched rental market.


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A new report on homelessness in Colorado released by the Common Sense Institute has come under fire for muddying the waters for lawmakers and other stakeholders working to get people off the streets and back on their feet.

The report claimed an Intervention First model, where people only get housing if they agree to addiction treatment and workforce training, is more effective than the Housing First with Supportive Services approach, which it said has failed to decrease homelessness.

Cathy Alderman, chief communications and public policy officer at the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, said the report does not even mention rising housing costs.

"When we see housing costs go up, when we see rents increase, we see homelessness increase," Alderman pointed out. "When we don't see more affordable housing being made available to low-income households, we see homelessness increase."

Between 2019 and 2023, Denver's already high rents rose by nearly 30%. Last year, there was a gap of more than 134,000 affordable housing units across the state for workers earning 30% of the median income or less. The Institute defended its report and said by email the public deserves to know whether their tax dollars are helping reduce homelessness, not just reshuffling where people sleep.

According to the National Low-Income Housing Coalition, Housing First reduces homelessness by 88% and improves housing stability by 41% compared with Intervention First programs, which Alderman called a one-size-fits-all approach.

"It said you must participate with those specific services in order to be eligible for housing," Alderman noted. "There are lots of people experiencing homelessness that don't need substance-use treatment, that don't need behavioral health. They need housing."

Housing First programs provide rapid access to housing and care teams connect people to employment opportunities, medical and mental health care and substance use treatment but the services are not required or used as a punitive tool.

Alderman stressed the model works but current investments do not meet the scale of the problem.

"If we had the housing resources and we were providing more housing with supportive services to larger populations of people experiencing homelessness, we would absolutely see a reduction in homelessness," Alderman asserted. "But we've never had the political will to do that."

Keeping more renters in their homes is one goal of a new Utah initiative.

The Utah Housing Coalition has formed a Landlord and Community Partners Coalition to cultivate better relationships and more equitable solutions for issues between landlords and tenants.

A report by the Utah Housing Coalition found a 23% failure rate in Utah's Housing Choice voucher program, which Project Manager Zoe Newmann said underscores the need for action. Multiple bills to help renters have failed in the Utah Legislature and there is uncertainty about how federal funding for housing assistance will fare in the Trump administration's spending cuts.

Newmann pointed out they are aiming to fill gaps where they can.

"We hope that by developing this system, connecting people to services that already exist in their communities, that we can start working towards a place where potentially we have our own lease that people can kind of hop onto," Newmann explained. "Because, as we all know in Utah, the lease is law."

Newmann stressed they see the need for what she calls "more holistic leases." Creating them is a longer-term goal for the coalition, which was launched last week. About 40 partners have joined so far. Learn more online at UtahHousing.org.

Data show housing affordability and availability are top issues for Utahns. Newmann is hopeful the new coalition will be able to bring stakeholders to the table, leading to improved communication, trust building and addressing what she describes as "systemic housing barriers."

"Our case managers are swamped," Newmann observed. "They have 20+ people that they're trying to manage. So, once they get someone placed in housing, just with funding and the need for these services, and then you're on to the next person. So, that continuous case management, we don't necessarily have support systems' help with that."

The Utah Housing Coalition will measure the initiative's success by monitoring increased collaboration between landlords, tenants and community-based organizations. They will also look at whether the effort improves housing stability, and can streamline pathways to mediation and other services.


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