"People are going to end up homeless": Inside lawmakers' failed effort to extend Colorado's eviction

“People are going to end up homeless”: Inside lawmakers’ failed effort to extend Colorado’s eviction moratorium


In the closing hours of Colorado’s 2020 legislative session and with a statewide eviction moratorium set to expire, Senate Democrats worked feverishly on a last-minute plan to protect hundreds of thousands of Coloradans who may be at risk of eviction in the coming months.

State Sen. Julie Gonzales, D-Denver, hoped to extend the moratorium through October. As she spoke emotionally on the Senate floor for more than an hour about housing insecurity, Sen. Jeff Bridges, D-Greenwood Village, was working to broker a last-minute deal that would satisfy tenant advocates, the housing lobby and a handful of wavering Democratic lawmakers.

But the talks collapsed and as the Senate adjourned just before 11 on Thursday night, it seemed unlikely that any extension of the eviction moratorium would materialize before the legislature adjourns in coming days.

There’s additional urgency beyond lawmakers’ calendar: Gov. Jared Polis, responding to ongoing economic ruin and job loss, issued a temporary executive order banning evictions and foreclosures, and it expires at the end of this week. If the legislature does not act by then, the matter will fall back to the governor. Polis said he’s committed to working with the General Assembly to protect renters but has not committed to extending his executive order. Few expect he will take action on the scale of what Gonzales and others have in mind.

Read more: https://www.denverpost.com/2020/06/11/colorado-eviction-moratorium-foreclosure-coronavirus/