Housing and health are inextricably linked. The location and quality of one's home impacts an extensive range of health-related issues that extend far beyond the basic need of shelter, including access to transportation and jobs, availability of nutritious foods, indoor environmental quality, and access to parks and open space. Yet housing affordability is at a crisis point in Colorado. Year over year, Pulse: The Colorado Health Foundation Poll, has found that Coloradans consider housing affordability a serious problem in the state.
The Colorado Health Foundation aims to disrupt these trends by supporting advocates and policymakers with practical tools to address damaging narratives about housing, advocate for the increase and preservation of funding for affordable housing and better understand the housing landscape in Colorado to legislate and implement impactful affordable housing policies.
Our goal is to partner with community members, advocates, policymakers and other interested parties to influence policy and public discourse toward understanding housing as a common good – ultimately leading to more transformational and just housing policies.
Housing On the Ballot
Housing policies directly impact our ability to thrive—shaping affordability, stability, and the future of our communities. To help communities stay informed, we partner with the Colorado Health Institute each year to create a tracker of ballot measures at the city and county level.
Our Housing Ballot Measure Tracker is a publicly available one-stop shop where you can see what’s on the ballot regarding housing in your community, explore trends statewide, and follow updates as new measures are proposed and decided by voters.
Colorado Affordable Housing State Legislation Tracker
To better understand the affordable housing laws and policies have been passed and implemented in the past several years, CHF conducted a scan of Colorado state legislation from 2019-2025 and produced the Colorado’s Affordable Housing Landscape brief to identify trends. Many opportunities remain for advocates, policymakers, affordable housing developers, and funders to continue addressing the housing crisis. The tracker aims to provide a helpful snapshot of the state policy landscape and a starting point to identify gaps, with an eye toward how collective energy could best be focused moving forward.