Renter and eviction protections revived
As the clock neared midnight on the penultimate day of last year’s legislative session, a core piece of progressive housing policy sputtered toward a bitter, procedural end.
The bill would have granted “just-cause” eviction protections to Colorado renters, essentially giving them the ability to renew an expiring lease even if their landlord wanted to move them out. The measure had cleared the House but then languished in the Senate amid opposition from moderate Democrats.
Nine months and more than 35,000 Colorado eviction filings later, the bill is back — albeit in a more limited form. Now dubbed “for-cause” eviction after undergoing changes, the revamped measure joins a half-dozen other proposals that seek to preserve affordable housing and keep renters in place. They also aim to realign the relationship between tenants and landlords in an era of record evictions. The bill’s new version is sponsors’ acknowledgment of the complicated politics of housing policy, even in a legislature largely under one-party control.
The for-cause bill generally would require that landlords have cause, such as failure to pay rent, before evicting a tenant. As with last year’s version, the bill still would require that tenants be given first choice to renew their leases, but it no longer would require landlords to offer a new lease that’s substantially similar to the expiring one.
The revised bill also would give landlords a handful of exemptions — for instance, if a landlord was trying to move into the property or significantly renovate it. Last year’s bill was more restrictive on landlords, prompting concern it could protect “problem” tenants. The Colorado Apartment Association opposed it.
Other bills seek to limit eviction court fees, to ban software that uses algorithms to set rents and to improve local governments’ ability to retain affordable housing.
The package comes come amid a parallel and similarly renewed push by Gov. Jared Polis to reform the state’s approach to land use.
The death of several housing bills last year sparked criticism that the legislature hadn’t done enough to help tenants, despite sizable Democratic majorities.
Several legislators note that the crisis has only worsened: Eviction filings continue to surge in Colorado, hitting record levels in Denver last year.
Nationally, a record high 22.4 million renter households — half of renters nationwide — spent more than 30% of their income on rent in 2022, according to new research from the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University.
State lawmakers’ scramble to blunt the impact of this year’s property tax increases helped fuel the desire by Democrats to direct relief to tenants, too.
After Proposition HH’S defeat by voters in November, a special session saw the passage not only of property tax relief bills but also of a measure to flatten the state’s tax refunds, providing $800 to each income-tax filer. That move predominantly helps lower- and middle-income earners.
The legislature also passed a special session bill that directed $30 million to the state’s rental assistance program for tenants facing eviction. That money, which must be spent by June 30, has still not begun to flow but state officials expect that to happen this week.
Another bill that had been discussed ahead of the special session was introduced this week. It would give tax credits to single renters who make up to $75,000 and to couples who file taxes jointly and make up to $150,000.
The credits — up to $1,000 for singles and $2,000 for couples — would decrease as income rises toward those limits.
Legislators said they learned lessons from last year’s losses and from the broader debate about how to address Colorado’s housing crisis.
Limiting the for-cause measure was “a hard pill to swallow for our members,” said Carmen Medrano, the executive director of United for a New Economy. But “it was something we decided to do because the substance of the rest of the bill can be life-changing for our grassroots members.”
The new for-cause bill largely nixes a contentious requirement that would have required landlords to pay relocation fees to tenants who are displaced. That change may help smooth some moderates’ ruffled feathers.
“The eviction crisis and the housing crisis continue to plague us, so we have to act,” said Sen. Julie Gonzales, a Denver Democrat who’s sponsoring the forcause bill, plus a second measure to bolster regulations around the habitability of apartments.