Does affordable housing mean subsidized housing?

By Cory Gaines | Colorado Accountability Project

The more I read into what the Democrats running this state think affordable housing ought to mean, and how it ought to get done, the more I’m convinced that what they’d like to do is to equate affordable with (in one way or another) publicly-funded housing.

The Sun article linked below offers pretty good evidence. It details a couple of proposals by Democrats. Quoting:

“Solutions to Colorado’s lack of affordable housing for teachers and other key staff are slowly taking shape, with one new state program designed to offer an estimated 200 low-interest mortgages to rural educators and district staff. Another potential program, part of legislation that Democrat state Sen. Jeff Bridges plans to introduce this week, would allocate funds to districts to build more rental units for their employees.”

There is more glowing detail about housing and the need for same in the Sun article. You are welcome to read it, I want to stay close to the policy itself and the important-but-skimmed-over-details-in-news-articles therein.

I found the law that authorized the grant program to give low-interest mortgages to rural educators. This bill does a whole lot of things besides this grant program.

Screenshot 1 is from the bill’s fiscal note.

In short form, what it requires is that the state treasurer invest some of the interest income from the state’s education trust fund into any one or more of the options listed.

The other program mentioned, the legislation to be introduced by Sen. Jeff Bridges is still in process or is not going to happen. I could not find a bill under his name that matched the description.

I did find, and it’s linked third below, a bill that Sen Bridges is on and that one is related to subsidies for housing, albeit not exactly as above. SB26-001 is another mouthful.

Screenshot 2 attached is from the bill’s fiscal note.

There are some provisions here that make significant changes to current law. For example, you’ll note up near the top that now your local government could sell government property (land or a building) for housing as long as its deemed affordable or a housing needs assessment says it’s needed.

The bill also allows your county to take property taxes and spend them on housing by doling them out to housing authorities. This was not permitted previously.

Lastly, middle income housing tax credits, which used to require ownership in the development used to claim said credits, can now be given to someone without requiring them to have an ownership in the development.

If you want some resources on housing authorities and or the middle income housing tax credits, you will find them as links 4 and 5 below.

Let’s step out of detail and look at the big picture.

In keeping with what I wrote at the top, I hope that (whether you dig in on the extra links and screenshots or not) the overall theme here has not escaped you. One way or another, public money is being put into helping other people buy homes.

Not just that, however. The list of ways in which this can be done is increasing.

Public money is going to secure loans and buy down interest rates. These are loans which we hope will be paid back, but which will tie up money that could be put to other uses.

Local tax revenue can be put to subsidize housing. That too leaves unanswered the questions, “what else could be done with this money?” and, since money don’t grow on trees, “what will counties have to do to make up what they put into housing?”

I find myself concerned reading about how public land and buildings can be used for affordable housing along with the fact that someone without a vested interest in developing a property can get a tax credit for it.

I’m not the world’s expert, nor a historian, but choosing to restrict those things in the past was done for a reason, no? Is this a door we want to open?

This question becomes all the more pertinent when you look at other instances of the government expanding programs and the potential for waste, fraud, and abuse. Just look at what we’re starting to learn now about fraud and abuse in Colorado’s greatly-expanded Medicaid program.

I’ll leave you with this. You’ve seen a lot of ways that the government is using public money to subsidize housing in this post.

I want you to consider all the other ways that the government could encourage housing development that don’t involve taking money from you or from other programs to give to someone else.

I want you to also consider how proper it is for the government to be this involved in the market. Is what we see here the proper role of government? At what point do we not have the government involved in housing?

**Just as a reminder: a tax deduction lets you lower the income that the state can tax. A tax credit directly lowers the taxes you owe. If you owed $100 in taxes, a $10 tax credit means you now only owe $90 in taxes.

https://coloradosun.com/2026/02/09/colorado-teachers-affordable-housing-state-programs/

https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/sb25-167

https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/SB26-001

https://doh.colorado.gov/housing-authorities#:~:text=Housing%20authorities%20(HA)%20are%20public%20entities%20that,assessments%20*%20Condemn%20property%20for%20public%20use

https://www.chfainfo.com/chfa-news/07242025-2025-mihtc-awards#:~:text=The%20MIHTC%20program%20supports%20the%20development%20of,MIHTC%20awarded%20in%202025%20exceeds%20$16.4%20million.

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Impact Development and government-funded mortgages

In the first post today, I gave a broad overview of how Colorado Democrats want to increasingly equate affordable housing with government-subsidized housing.

In this second post, let’s focus in on one specific way that works.

I re-copied the Colorado Sun article from today’s first post and put it first below for convenience. I also copied the 2025 bill that created one of the programs highlighted in the Sun article. It’s second below.

The portion of that law I want to focus on here is best related with a couple quotes from the 2025 bill’s fiscal note:

“The Public School Fund (also known as the Permanent Fund) is an intergenerational trust fund. Investment income from the fund is used to support K-12 education through the School Finance Act, or to build the principal of the fund. The bill specifies that investment priorities for the fund include preserving the principal and providing benefits through community investing. “

“The bill specifies that community investing intends to generate a positive, measurable impact for school children, families, or communities, and may have a below-market rate of return. Managed by the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority, the portfolio may include: [keeping only the relevant example]
mortgage revenue bonds that support public school employee mortgages with interest rates of up to 3 percent”

A quote from the Sun article shows how this is put into practice:

“A separate pilot program, folded into a law passed last year, will invest $50 million from the state public school fund into low-interest mortgages for rural teachers and district employees, helping lower their monthly payments and giving them a real shot at homeownership. The Rural Education Workforce Low Interest Mortgages program will work like this: The Colorado State Treasurer’s office will give a $50 million loan as an investment to Loveland-based Impact Development Fund, a nonprofit bank that hopes to serve as the lender on the project. Impact Development Fund will provide mortgages to rural educators at an interest rate around 3.5%. Educators will be able to purchase a home either on the market or under construction without a down payment. Impact Development Fund, as teachers begin to make payments on their loans, will pay back the $50 million to the state along with interest from the mortgages.”

READ THE FULL COMMENTARY at the Colorado Accountability Project

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