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Colorado’s Department of Local Affairs recently awarded $9.5 million of Proposition 123 money to counties and towns across the state.
The money came through the Division of Housing’s State Housing Board “to rehabilitate homes and provide homeownership opportunities for Coloradans,” according to a news release.
And so the $3.545 million awarded to the HomesFund that will be shared among Montezuma, La Plata, Dolores, San Juan and Archuleta counties will drive at that goal.
Which makes sense, as rehabilitating homes and providing homeownership opportunities aligns with Prop 123 itself, which passed in 2022 and created the Colorado Affordable Housing Fund to support such projects.
The news release explained the HomesFund and said it’ll “continue to offer Mortgage/Down Payment Assistance Loans for households with incomes at 120% AMI or below.”
AMI, or area median income, varies by household size.
In Montezuma County, 120% of AMI for one person means $69,120; for two, $78,960; for three, $88,800, and so on, according to the city of Cortez’s website.
Those income levels are at the higher end of the homeownership support money, and 120% represents the high end of the “middle income” class on that same website.
Since the newest round of Prop 123 money – $3.545 million – coming into the area will be split between five counties of different AMI’s, the 42 total homes it’s projected to “facilitate homeownership” for in the next two years will impact counties differently, the release said.
Seventeen of the 42 will be secured in the “rural resort communities” of La Plata, Archuleta and San Juan counties, and the remaining 25 households will benefit prospective homeowners in the “rural communities” of Montezuma and Dolores counties, the news release said.
The money helps this jurisdiction – made up of Cortez, Mancos, Dolores, Montezuma County and the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe – meet its baseline requirement of “increasing the stock of affordable units by 3% each year for three consecutive years,” which was a requirement when it first opted into Prop 123 in 2023, according to the city of Cortez’s website.
To meet such requirements over those three years, then, the affordable housing “stock” in Cortez is supposed to increase by 89 units. In Mancos, 14; Dolores, 26; Montezuma County, 28; and the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, 5.
