As growing numbers of Boulder County residents experience housing insecurity and seek emergency help, some Boulder community members are calling on the City Council to increase a local tax on landlords that helps fund eviction prevention services.
Currently, Boulder landlords must pay a $75 annual excise tax per rental property they own that requires a long-term rental license. That tax is the main source of funding for the city’s Eviction Prevention and Rental Assistance Services (EPRAS) program, which provides rental assistance, legal aid and mediation to people facing a possible eviction.
Voters approved the No Eviction Without Representation (NEWR) ballot measure in 2020, after which city officials established the excise tax and the Eviction Prevention and Rental Assistance Sevices program. Per city code, the tax is supposed to increase yearly by an amount not exceeding the Colorado consumer price index.
But according to city officials, the tax has not increased since its inception in 2021. Meanwhile, the consumer price index for the Denver-Aurora-Lakewood area showed inflation rates hitting 3.5% in 2021, 8% in 2022 and 5.2% in 2023, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Denver-Aurora-Lakewood statistical area is sometimes used as a proxy for the statewide inflation rate.
Officials also say the program is not bringing in enough revenue to meet increasing demand for its services. The statewide data shows the number of evictions trending upward. There were 1,398 eviction filings in Boulder County in 2023, up from 1,315 filings in 2022, a 6.3% increase.
Homelessness in the area also appears to be on the rise: Last year, the Metro Denver Homeless Initiative’s annual Point in Time Count counted 839 unhoused individuals living in the county as of Jan. 30 — the highest total in seven years.
Several speakers urged the council to raise the excise tax at a recent City Council meeting.
One speaker, Joseph Stein, said there is an “extreme need” for housing help in Boulder despite the passage of the NEWR ballot measure.
“The needs in Boulder remain dire. As of last summer, homelessness was increasing in Boulder County. … The cost of housing continues to rise, which we know is correlated, and likely causative, of homelessness and eviction,” Stein said. “I do not think that raising the excise tax is going to be some kind of silver bullet, but it is a common-sense first step that I hope (the) council will pursue.”
Another speaker, Bharath Tata, said rents have “consistently increased,” and that landlords should be able to afford a higher tax.
“We can’t pretend to care about the crisis of homelessness, about public health, about children’s health, about diversity in Boulder, if we allow our eviction prevention programs to stay underfunded for our most vulnerable neighbors who continue to face housing insecurity,” said Tata.
According to city data, the EPRAS program distributed about $365,000 to 175 clients, and it also gave $350,000 to the Emergency Family Assistance Association to give to their clients who qualified for eviction protection and rent help. Rent payment issues were by far the most common reason clients sought help from the program last year.
EPRAS Program Coordinator Jason Allen told the Daily Camera that while the program brings in about $1.4 million each year through the excise tax, there’s been an increased demand for eviction prevention services, in part because of pandemic-era assistance programs that have expired over the past couple of years.
Although there have been other sources of revenue for the program, such as funding from the American Rescue Plan Act and the Temporary Rental Assistance Grant program, the excise tax remains the lifeblood of the program. If the tax were to be raised in line with inflation rates, the impacts could be “pretty significant,” Allen said.
“The funds that we have just are probably not going to go as far today as they would have three years ago, four years ago,” Allen said.
But program officials have not asked the city to increase the tax. Allen said officials have been in conversations with the city’s legal and finance teams, as well as with the Tenant Advisory Committee established by the NEWR ordinance about the prospect of raising the tax, but increasing it “hasn’t been a priority” in the past few years.
Allen also expressed concern about not “placing too much of a burden” on landlords by increasing the tax.
Ruy Arango, who chaired Boulder’s NEWR ballot measure campaign, said it’s “very disappointing” the city has not raised the excise tax yet, and that the ballot measure’s language clearly stated the tax would be increased with inflation. If that doesn’t happen, he said, the program is essentially losing money.
“It’s in the ballot language. It’s explicit,” Arango said. “The ballot was approved by Boulder residents (who) voted in favor of it, and it’s the city’s responsibility to carry out what the voters directed them to do.”
