For months, state housing officials insisted they wouldn’t be able to spend $8 million in rental assistance approved by lawmakers before the budget year ends June 30.
In recent weeks, however, they made a startling admission behind closed doors: If they let renters apply, the money could be spent in a matter of days.
“When I asked them how long it would take to spend the money if we did open the (rental assistance application) portal, they said a week,” Madison Kaemerer, a legislative budget staff analyst, told the Joint Budget Committee on Monday.
The fight over rental assistance spilled onto the state Senate floor Tuesday, with lawmakers from both parties blasting the Polis administration for its handling of the money at a time when renters are being evicted in record numbers across the state.
“When we pass a bill and get it signed into law, how dare an agency then just not spend the money,” Sen. Julie Gonzales, a Denver Democrat, said in an address to the chamber.
The day before, the JBC issued a rebuke of its own, denying the administration’s request to cut $8 million from the rental assistance program.
“We are holding the line,” Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Brighton Republican who sits on the JBC, said in a speech on the Senate floor. “The money has been recaptured, and it will be this body — the legislative branch — which writes the budget and passes the budget that says where the money will go.”
Lawmakers cited a Colorado Sun report that the funding could have kept nearly 1,500 families in their homes, even as landlords filed 53,000 evictions last year. All the while, the administration was discouraging people from applying for help.
Until early January, a state housing website told renters that it wouldn’t process any applications filed after Nov. 16, 2022.
Department of Local Affairs officials, however, insist the portal was never closed. Instead, facing a flood of requests for help, they tried to limit applications to those who had already received a court summons threatening eviction. Renters who called a state hotline were encouraged to apply if they met the criteria, officials told The Sun in an interview.
Budget writers for months have been sparring with the administration over the funding. In November, the department asked to redirect the money to support the influx of migrants from Central and South America. When lawmakers pushed back, they suggested redirecting it to a separate $30 million rental assistance program that the legislature established during the special session.
But the new request was only an accounting maneuver. In effect, the program would have been left with $30 million, still $8 million short of the $38 million lawmakers approved in total last year.
“It is unfathomable that we are in the exact same position that we were months ago,” Sen. Rachel Zenzinger, an Arvada Democrat who also serves on the JBC, said Tuesday on the Senate floor. “We want the public to know what happened, because it is unacceptable.”
DOLA officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday. When asked last month by The Sun why the department would not simply spend the full $38 million, DOLA’s new director, Maria De Cambra, did not answer directly.
“Look, there’s been bumps along the road, but if you look at the program now, we’re getting the money out as quickly as possible,” De Cambra said. “Our priority is making sure that those Coloradans that are at the most imminent risk of being evicted are getting support.”
Now, lawmakers find themselves at an impasse. Budget writers Monday agreed to defer to the full legislature on how to use the money. But while many Democrats say they still want to spend it on rental assistance, they worry that the administration may once again refuse to do so.
“There is little that has made me more angry than the $8 million,” Rep. Emily Sirota, a Denver Democrat, said at Monday’s JBC meeting. “I fully believe that if they actually tried, it would be very easy for them to spend this $8 million, and keeping people in their homes is one of the most important things we can be doing.
“But I am not confident that they will spend it,” she said.
The spat over the $8 million has left lawmakers worried about the fate of the new $30 million program, which would be available to renters at risk of an eviction, even if their landlords haven’t filed a notice against them.
The application portal for that program has not yet been opened. Department officials told The Sun they are working to establish the eligibility criteria and it will be open later this month.
Like the original $8 million, the funding is supposed to be spent by June 30.
“I feel like I asked so many times, through the proper channels” for the department to open the application portal, Gonzales, who sponsored the legislation, said in her Senate floor speech.
“I don’t want to ask this question again,” Gonzales said. “But I’ll do it.”