The state legislature Tuesday gave final approval to a measure that aims to improve living conditions for renters across Colorado by closing “loopholes” that make it difficult to request repairs from landlords.
Colorado has for years had a so-called warranty of habitability law on the books, which sets basic housing standards for landlords. But lawmakers and fair housing advocates have said the 2008 statute needs improvement because exceptions in the law make it difficult for residents to request action for serious issues such as mold, sewage leaks and rodent infestations.
State lawmakers this week passed Senate Bill 94, which would require landlords complete repairs for most issues within 14 days, including things such as fixing loose tiles or ensuring adequate trash pickups.
Once the legislature sends the bill to Gov. Jared Polis, he has 10 days to sign the measure, veto it or let it become law without his signature. It would start to take effect immediately if signed.
“Governor Polis appreciates the work of the sponsors, and is committed to reducing housing costs for Coloradans,” Shelby Wieman, a spokesperson for the Governor’s Office, wrote in an email to The Colorado Sun. “The Governor’s Office will review the final version of the bill when it reaches his desk.”
The bill would give landlords seven days to resolve more serious conditions that can threaten a person’s life, safety or health. That includes gas leaks, dysfunctional heating systems, inadequate running water and pest infestations.
The main sponsors of Senate Bill 94 are Sens. Julie Gonzales and Tony Exum and state Reps. Meg Froelich and Mandy Lindsay, all Democrats, and the measure is supported by about 20 housing, health and human service organizations.
“The bill will require landlords to actually complete repairs,” said Rebecca Cohn, who helped draft the bill as head of CED Law, the legal office at the Community Economic Defense Project, which advocates for economic and racial equity for working people and those with low incomes.
“Currently, landlords are required to make reasonable efforts to commence repairs but are not required to actually complete the repairs,” she said. “This will be a major advancement in the law.”
The bill comes at a time when evictions are at an all-time high — and while new tenant associations that are popping up statewide are overwhelmed by demand from residents who need help navigating subpar living conditions.
One tenant advocacy group in Denver said it recently had to shut down its hotline because it didn’t have the capacity to respond to so many requests.
Colorado’s warranty of habitability law requires that landlords maintain a minimum standard for healthy housing but the law is not working as intended, lawmakers and housing advocates said.
The law fails to protect residents from extreme heat and other issues such as broken doors, windows and elevators, they said.
People most acutely affected by those living conditions are children, older adults, migrants, people with disabilities, others with chronic illnesses and renters with low incomes, said Zach Neumann, executive director of the Community Economic Defense Project.
The bill that lawmakers approved this week aims to ensure that residents know that they can use written or verbal notice to notify their landlord when health and safety issues arise.
The measure also clarifies the process for landlords arranging alternative lodging while repairs are completed, and spells out when a resident may obtain a court order to demand landlord compliance or seek monetary damages.
Landlords would be prohibited from retaliating against residents who request repairs.
“One provision of the bill will require the landlord to hold on to all documents related to requests made under the Warranty of Habitability, throughout the duration of the tenant’s lease, and up to a year afterward,” Cohn said. “This will help people assert these habitability claims when they have them and help them prove them.”
Max Kronstadt, lead organizer with Colorado Springs Pro-Housing Partnership, said the new organization is working to build a more robust housing justice movement.
Kronstadt is hopeful the bill will help renters address issues with their living conditions. But he had hoped the bill would go further — by allowing residents to withhold rent when there are concerns in their homes or to take action against their landlords over habitability concerns without having to consult a lawyer.
Currently, under the habitability law, a tenant can repair issues on their own and deduct the cost of the repairs from their rent, Cohn said.
An earlier version of Senate Bill 94 included a clause that would have also allowed residents to withhold rent until repairs were made. But it was removed after organizations representing landlords lobbied against it, she said.
“That is unfortunate,” Cohn added. “But I still think there are a lot of new elements that are in this bill that will be helpful to tenants and will enable them to take action on their own.”
The Colorado Apartment Association opposed the bill, arguing it would lead to increased costs for maintenance and litigation, in turn leading to higher rents across the state, Destiny Bossert, manager of government affairs at the association, wrote in an email to The Colorado Sun.
“Such drastic and impractical changes are not the answer,” she wrote. “The Colorado Apartment Association remains committed to collaborating with legislators to develop balanced, practical solutions that serve the interests of both housing providers and residents — unfortunately, this proposed policy does not meet that standard.”
Tenant organizing
Roshan Bliss has helped organize residents at La Villa de Barela in Denver for almost a year.
Renters with low incomes, who must qualify to live there, have had water leaks leading to mold, broken doors on garages and stairwells, ventilation issues that caused residents to smell sewage in their units, broken laundry systems and frequent elevator outages, he said.
When residents make requests for repairs, the building management company Wheelhouse, does not respond at all or says it will send workers to resolve the issues, but often the concerns are not adequately remediated, Bliss said.
Since the tenant union formed, the broken garage door and elevator issues were resolved. But Bliss said no one has adequately addressed mold growing in some people’s apartments, and the leasing office continues to use an 80-page lease that has confusing language and what he called “predatory” clauses in it.
Wheelhouse has spent $250,000 on making repairs to the building over the past year including fixing the elevator and garage doors and leaks, said Charles Messick, regional property manager for Wheelhouse, which manages Villa de Barela.
Wheelhouse began managing the building in November 2022, and inherited many habitability concerns from several former property management companies, Messick said.
Messick denied that mold is an issue at the building, saying Wheelhouse hired a company to test for mold, which found mold levels were no higher inside the building compared to outside.
However, he said, in one case where mold was found growing inside the walls of an apartment, Wheelhouse moved the resident into a hotel until it was resolved.
The lease given to residents, Messick said, is standard and is one of the most-used lease formats in Colorado.
“We’ve fixed pretty much everything,” he said. “It wasn’t in the best shape when we took over but the building is completely different than last year.”
Andrea Barela, CEO at NewsEd, which owns the building, gave The Colorado Sun a tour of the building last week.
NewsEd has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to make repairs to the building, she said, and plans to continue meeting with the resident council.
“We’ve done everything we can to take care of the building and most importantly the residents that live there,” Barela said. “It is our goal to maintain the building and provide a safe and clean environment for everybody.”
NewsEd’s office is in the apartment complex, Barela said.
Bliss said residents are still having trouble scheduling meetings with NewsEd leaders to resolve ongoing issues.
The main reason the tenant unions get involved in landlord-resident disputes is because the landlord doesn’t address issues, said Eida Altman, a lead organizer at Denver Metro Tenants Union.
Denver doesn’t have a long history of tenant organizing, Altman said, and residents rely on limited legal aid resources when they have issues that need repairs in their homes, she said.
“None of these organizations can manage to protect tenants at the scale that tenants are vulnerable,” Altman said. “We get more requests we can handle as a volunteer organization. We used to have a hotline on our website and we had to take it down. We would constantly get calls from people who wanted to get involved in tenant organizing and we had to keep saying ‘no’ because we were at capacity.”
The tenant association is working with renters at The Felix Apartments in southeastern Denver, a 418-unit complex where many residents were living without any hot water from June until December. “The problem still comes and goes,” Altman said.
The building garnered news attention in February for frequent water shut-offs, trash buildup, rodent infestations, broken appliances, ceiling leaks and lack of responses to maintenance requests, Altman said.
“There were people living on the roof starting fires there because it looks like an abandoned property,” Altman said.
When people were without heat at the Felix Apartments, Altman saw elderly people bundled up in their apartments. People boiled hot water and poured it in their baths while others got gym memberships to be able to shower, she said.
“We have seen some incremental changes but there’s a long way to go,” Altman said. “We submitted 30 complaints to the Denver Department of Public Health and Environment last week.”
In an email to The Colorado Sun, a spokesperson for the building’s property manager said it began managing the Felix Apartments on Dec. 27, and since then, it has worked hard to resolve issues inherited from prior management.
“We encourage all residents to report any issues directly to the leasing office, so we can immediately research and resolve as quickly as possible,” Brenda Barrett, the spokesperson wrote in an email.
Barrett, did not name the property management company. The Felix Apartments are owned by Trion Properties, which contracts with AMC LLC to manage the building. Until January, the building’s manager was Echelon Property Group, Altman said.
Senate Bill 94 passed the House by a 40-20 vote on Monday. It passed the Senate Tuesday 21-13.