It's not just Denver: Rural Colorado feeling housing crunch, with more residents spending half their

It’s not just Denver: Rural Colorado feeling housing crunch, with more residents spending half their income on a place to live


YUMA — In one of her two jobs, Kerri Horton visits the homes of new and expectant mothers to advise them on healthy practices as they step into parenthood. Along the way, she sometimes catches an inside look at what the lack of affordable housing looks like in rural Colorado.

One young mother she counseled paid well over half of her meager income for a “tiny, tiny home,” barely even a studio apartment. Since then, Horton has seen the same cruel math catching up to a growing number of locals — including herself.

She and her husband, Wes, pay $900 a month for a three-bedroom frame house on a quiet corner in town. It was manageable when her mother was living with them and paying one-third of the rent. But when she passed away, the calculus changed.

If she adds utilities, Horton estimates that her household has become one of those that has passed that 50%-for-housing threshold, which affects not just the poor, but also those farther up the income scale. At any level, the federal government calls it “severely cost-burdened.”

Read more: https://coloradosun.com/2019/05/02/housing-costs-rural-colorado/