When Boulder County officials launched a new fund meant to spark innovative solutions to the county’s housing shortage, nonprofits and local governments quickly lined up with proposals.
Fourteen groups applied for a portion of the $500,000 Housing Innovation Fund, proposing ideas ranging from housing stability services to programs helping people transition out of homelessness.
But in January, the county rejected every proposal.
County officials suggested that none of the submissions were innovative enough.
The decision surprised and frustrated many applicants and added to a broader debate about how the county is spending revenue from a voter-approved sales tax that was intended to expand solutions to the housing shortage.
The Housing Innovation Fund is financed by the Affordable and Attainable Housing Tax, a measure voters approved in 2023 that generated about $16.7 million last year for housing programs. The innovation grants represented a small share of that money but were intended to support new approaches to housing affordability.
For some housing leaders, the decision was disappointing not because of the amount of money involved, but because of the signal they believe it sent about the county’s priorities.
“When they didn’t fund any of the proposals, that was just really disappointing,” said Dan McColley, executive director of Flatirons Habitat for Humanity, which applied for funding to support building homes for Marshall Fire recovery. “If you’re not giving the money to Habitat — fine, give it to somebody. Let’s put the money to work solving this crisis.”
The Housing Innovation Fund was designed to award grants of up to $100,000 to pilot, scale or test new strategies that could expand equitable access to affordable housing in Boulder County.
Initially, county housing staff recommended funding the following nine of the 14 proposals, according to Dec. 29 county records.
Among the projects staff recommended were Sister Carmen Community Center’s pilot program providing financial assistance to mobile home owners for essential repairs, and a new program at All Roads Shelter connecting employers with unhoused individuals to help them exit homelessness.
Staff also recommended a Thistle Community Housing pilot to fund essential repairs for owners of permanently affordable homes, a Rocky Mountain Equality program providing housing stability services to LGBTQ+ clients, and a City of Boulder initiative offering legal and mediation services to residents facing eviction.
But after an administrative meeting with county commissioners, staff reversed course and recommended rejecting all of them, according to county spokesperson Gloria Handyside.
In a Jan. 16 letter, Boulder County Housing Authority Director Susana Lopez-Baker wrote to applicants that staff recommended no awards be issued.
“In considering new investment areas, potential sustainability of proposed initiatives, and the many things already on your plate,” she wrote, “our best advice to the county is not to proceed with any awards under this fund at this time.”
Later, county spokesperson Gloria Handyside suggested the issue was innovation. “The Innovation Fund was intended for new ideas,” she told Boulder Reporting Lab on Feb. 10. She later said commissioners wanted the program to better address equity in housing access. She also said the staff recommendation was a draft.
Applicants said the explanation left them puzzled.
County guidance for the grant appeared to allow proposals connected to existing programs, and sample eligible projects provided by the county included efforts such as eviction prevention services, proposals similar to a few that were submitted.
“I get frustrated with funders that seem to always be chasing the shiny new object, when we all know what the issues are and how to solve them,” said Suzanne Crawford, CEO of Sister Carmen, which applied for $100,000 for a pilot program providing financial assistance to mobile home owners for essential repairs.
“We know what it takes to help solve it is money,” she said. “And we’re not being funded.”
Crawford said if novelty becomes the main criterion in the next funding round, her organization may not apply again.
Kurt Firnhaber, Boulder’s director of Housing and Human Services, expressed a similar sentiment.
“We have a pretty good idea of how to solve for affordable housing in our communities in Boulder County,” he said. “I’m not sure there’s one magic, innovative thing that’s going to change the world. We really just need resources.”
He added that the need is becoming more urgent as state and federal housing support declines. The county also recently cut funding to its housing authority in October 2025.
Equity concerns cited, and a restart planned
County officials said commissioners were also concerned that the proposals did not sufficiently address equity in housing access. Handyside said revising the program will allow the county to better focus on those goals.
“Revising and relaunching the Innovation Fund will allow the county to take a more thoughtful approach to addressing equity and access to housing,” Handyside said.
Equity was not cited as a reason in the rejection letter sent to applicants.
Grant proposals were evaluated using a scoring rubric that included up to 20 points for “equitable access to resources,” and many projects scored over 15 on that measure.
At a March 5 meeting, County Commissioner Claire Levy said county commissioners had not clearly defined what they were seeking from proposals when the housing department launched the innovation fund.
“We haven’t talked about this other than to conclude that what we got as a result of that request for proposals was not really what we were thinking of in terms of innovation,” Levy said.
Lopez-Baker told commissioners on March 5 that she plans to return later this month with a new recommendation for the fund. She said she believed “a new recommendation on the Innovation Fund is necessary” after reviewing a December report from the consulting law firm Somos, which has consulted on housing innovation funds in other communities.
She said the report found that Boulder County faces persistent racial disparities in homeownership and that the income gap between renters and homeowners is about $75,000, as median home values in the county reach $713,000. The firm reported that these conditions deepen inequities and limit wealth-building opportunities for communities of color.
Applicants will be asked to submit new proposals under revised guidelines, Handyside said. Funding had originally been expected to go out in February. It is now unclear when the grants will be awarded.
“I know there were some folks that were just disappointed. I’ve got people grabbing me at community events and out at the grocery store,” Commissioner Marta Loachaminn told Lopez-Baker. “And I just want to make clear that I support what you and staff’s recommendation is.”
Hmmm … and yet BCHA is prepared to spend $600,000 on fixing a streambank in Lyons to build just 4 housing units.
The commissioners action on this issue makes a strong argument for having five commissioners. It is unreasonable for a commissioner to say ……”what we got as a result of that request for proposals was not really what we were thinking of ……” Requests for Proposals are intended to spell out clear expectations. Responders cannot possibly discern what the commissioners ….. “were thinking of….”
In fact the county staff received nine responses from very credible entities that provided the info that the commissioners actually requested. It is inexcusable that the commissioners simply changed their criteria and summarily rejected 14 responses that undoubtedly required several hundred hours of community effort.
This process is a textbook example of a dysfunctional government action. Boulder County deserves better than this.
Good for the commissioners in rejecting these proposals. The funds are for housing, all of these requests were to fill funding gaps in existing programs. These funds are for new ways to fund housing, none of these proposals fit that parameter.
If you read the request for proposals (RFP), many of the proposals submitted did meet the requirements. $500,000 is not enough to build a significant amount of housing, if that is how you are defining housing. And, SCCC’s request was not for a funding gap in an existing program.
I agree, Sean, it’s not supposed to be just a pot of money for existing programs and services to do more of what they are already doing (or a slight tweak on it). Innovation is a difficult concept for people in Boulder to comprehend – likely because we have a city housing dept. that is very heavy handed and completely controls affordable housing through it’s very few nonprofit partnerships. Not exactly a recipe for innovation. But what do the commissioners expect? Another problem is that the amount of money is too small to do much that is innovative. $100k is about what it costs to hire a consultant to do a report these days. How could one implement a pilot project that accomplishes the high goals of this grant for that amount unless there were significant additional free resources in the mix? Even $500k would be a challenging to do something meaningful.
Roxanne, I agree with you that “the amount of money is too small to do much that is innovative”. If you’re talking about building housing, then yes it would be challenging to do “something meaningful” for $500,000. However, the RFP wasn’t targeted to building housing. As I said above, SCCC didn’t apply for funding for an existing program. And to your point, it wasn’t a tweak of an existing program either. We applied for something we don’t currently offer. We know (because we are asked by mobile homeowners in our area) that there is a need for funding to repair/ refurbish homes. It would have been very meaningful to those homeowners to have their homes repaired. We will continue to search for a source of funding for this unmet need.
I think the RFP was poorly written and misleading. The most relevant info seemed to be in the introduction. The focus was supposed to be on equity and accessibility in housing. That is difficult to achieve when even our City of Boulder housing dept. (HHS) has only two tools in the toolbox when it comes to affordable housing for low-income residents.
As stated at the last Boulder City Council meeting, the greatest need in the city (may differ in rest of county) is in the 0-50% range. Now that we have no more housing vouchers in the pipeline, that puts a huge crimp in their main tool right there. But if the county is looking for innovation in how to increase equity and access for low-income residents, I’m baffled as well as to what they think orgs can do with $100k projects.
I would like to see really innovative pilots like shared equity housing or a genuine social housing authority. But Boulder is allergic to models that don’t fit neatly into their existing mindset. Plus it would require real funding for a pilot project.