Lakewood taxpayers face 30-year shelter obligation after city grant deal

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project

From a recent edition of the Lakewood Informer (copied here with links intact):

“Lakewood purchased 8000 W Colfax Avenue to use as an emergency shelter and Navigation Center using a grant from the state to fund the property purchase and renovation. As a condition to getting the grant, Lakewood committed the property to shelter use for 30 years. No public discussion about this condition occurred when City Council authorized the purchase. At an annual operating cost of $3,000,000, that’s a $90,000,000 commitment that was not disclosed to the public. That makes the Center severely underfunded, with declining neighborhood support, and may be one reason for the proposed city sales tax hike.”

This was startling to me for a couple of reasons, both because the building is now tied to a shelter for 30 years and also because the City Council did this without public discussion. This is all besides the giant cost taxpayers will be forced to bear to operate the shelter.

On Friday I did a deep dive into the eviction prevention grants (among other things). I read this while outlining that newsletter and it struck me as of a piece with eviction prevention grants.

How much money do we sink into providing housing on a yearly basis? What do we get from it? Do we affect real change or just transfer money from hardworking families to house others?

These would be minor questions, were it not for the outsized scale of the numbers involved.

https://lakewoodinformer.substack.com/p/30-year-shelter-commitment-wildfire

READ THE FULL COMMENTARY AT COLORADO ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT

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