Gentrification in Colorado Springs (Denver, Pueblo: apartment complex, rent, eviction)

[Vision67]

This article is just one example of a phenomenon happening now in Colorado Springs due to exploding rents. A developer finds an older apartment complex, evicts the tenants as their month to month rent agreements expire, renovates the complex, and reopens with new rents at the new market value.

Very few, if any of the displaced tenants will be able to afford the new market rents. Without support from their families or community, they risk becoming homeless at an advanced age.

Rally organizer says evicted apartment residents victims of gentrifying Colorado Springs | Colorado Springs Gazette, News

-One side: This is just capitalism in action. Having an updated living quarters is a benefit to the tenants, the community, and the developers who likely will make a great ROI when they resell the complex after its renewal. It's just business.

-The other side: This is gentrification in action. Elderly tenants are unjustifiable displaced in order to allow a capitalist to profit from their misery. It should not be allowed.

Other big cities have implemented rent control to prevent this type of action. The justification is that it gives the tenants more power to prevent evictions. My own opinion is that rent control would just reduce the availability of units.

What do you think should be done, if anything?

Personally, this is a major reason to own a home free and clear upon retirement. Otherwise, we could all end up in a situation similar to these tenants.

[rochester_veteran]

Originally Posted by Vision67

What do you think should be done, if anything?

Personally, this is a major reason to own a home free and clear upon retirement. Otherwise, we could all end up in a situation similar to these tenants.

Seeing that I'm retiring at the end of August 2018 and moving out to Colorado Springs to be closer to my younger son, daughter in law and my grandson, who presently live in Castle Rock, I'm very interested in this issue as I could potentially be one of those retired individuals evicted from my apartment and scrambling to find another place with similar rents. I'll be looking for a 1 bedroom apartment in the $700-$900 range, but those are the buildings/complexes that could be a target of a buyout/renovation and subsequent eviction of current tenants. It would really suck to be in that situation. I'm actually seeking out over 55 buildings/complexes that cater to retirees on fixed incomes.

BTW, you never really own a home free and clear as you still owe property and school taxes. Where I live in New York State, we have the highest property and school taxes in the Nation, another reason I'm leaving NYS. Also, many retirees, such as I, prefer renting an apartment as we don't want to deal with upkeep of a yard and repairs on a house, which are taken care of by the owners/property management company of the building/complex.

[orngkat]

Sadly, it's the downside of renting and is going on all over the country in large cities. We had to leave our former city as we could not afford the rapidly escalating property taxes in retirement. It seems much more affordable here so I guess your outlook depends on where you are coming from. I wish there was more empathy/help for the elderly though in this case.

[otowi]

Home ownership is just not realistic or appropriate for everyone - people have various things that happen in life that lead to them to be renting in retirement - and it isn't all just poor planning or being careless, etc. I fall in the camp that there needs to be affordable housing and apartments on the market in necessary quantities and not just top-of-the-market. I really feel for these people and I don't care if it is legal and if the renovated apartments will be just great - I find ethical/moral issues with displacing elderly people who have lived there for decades and will be priced out of the market. Just because someone can do something doesn't mean they should or that it is right to do so. There has to be a more caring and responsible way to do this - yes, it may cost more money but hey that should be the price of doing that kind of business, imho.

[rochester_veteran]

Originally Posted by otowi

Home ownership is just not realistic or appropriate for everyone - people have various things that happen in life that lead to them to be renting in retirement - and it isn't all just poor planning or being careless, etc. I fall in the camp that there needs to be affordable housing and apartments on the market in necessary quantities and not just top-of-the-market. I really feel for these people and I don't care if it is legal and if the renovated apartments will be just great - I find ethical/moral issues with displacing elderly people who have lived there for decades and will be priced out of the market. Just because someone can do something doesn't mean they should or that it is right to do so. There has to be a more caring and responsible way to do this - yes, it may cost more money but hey that should be the price of doing that kind of business, imho.

Yup, just because someone can do something doesn't mean they should! Forcing the elderly out on the streets by eviction is one such example. Well written, otowi, my sentiments exactly!

[BornintheSprings]

Something tells me that it will be a long time for anything resembling rent control to enter Colorado Springs. This is the downside of capitalism people are discarded in favor of greater and greater profits.

[smdensbcs]

Originally Posted by otowi

I find ethical/moral issues with displacing elderly people who have lived there for decades and will be priced out of the market.

I find ethical/moral issues with roughly 90% of my personal observation of every aspect of life in modern USA. There is literally nowhere one can look in this country, state, city where one does not find ethical/moral issues in which the strong (those with market power in any form) take advantage of the weak (everybody else). I've been adapting to this reality since I grasped how it all works sometime in my late teens. Not adapting by trying to become strong so I can take advantage of the weak but adapting by doing everything in my power starting at an early age to prepare and thereby minimize the risk I and those who rely on me will be victimized by the system, which it will inevitably and relentlessly try to do. So far so good after 25+ years of dodging and weaving the system but there is zero rest/comfort in such a system, one is never ever safe. The system is not immoral it is amoral. It is rapacious and it does not care. I'm not sure any other system is realistically possible given that human nature is what it is. We all want our retirement portfolios to perform at a 6%-10% annualized rate of return. None of us (or the folks we task with running our corporations) get there by wringing our hands over how unfair life can be when some folks get displaced. I don't expect one shred of pity if the system we're in crushes me like a cartoon character beneath a steamroller.


Sorry if the above is cynical. I'd dearly love to be less cynical but 25+ years in the "real adult world" has done nothing to reduce the cynicism I developed in late teens observing how everything works. If anything, it's only been reinforced. It's being reinforced every time I look around at what is happening, the pace of selfish destruction on a national scale only seems to be ever increasing. A few fixed-income seniors being displaced from their apartment buildings so "market rent" can be charged? Sad in a sense but no more sad than 10,000 x 10,000 other forms of collateral damage. I tend to be really bothered when "it" happens to children as they've not had decades of adult life to prepare for what the "system" has in store for them. Seniors have presumably had decades of life experience to grasp the concept that life is brutally unfair and they better plan for it to be. Sorry if that seems harsh. I don't see any other rational response to the juggernaut that is US-style survival-of-the-fittest free-market capitalism.

[otowi]

Rather than acting resigned and hopeless and stand by and watch bad things happen to people because life is tough and they should know it is tough and be prepared to just suffer while we all watch, I'd rather fight for improvements and try to do something for people. If we allow cynicism to make us do nothing in the face of stuff we think is not right, then we become part of the problem and part of the machine, imho.

Originally Posted by smdensbcs

I find ethical/moral issues with roughly 90% of my personal observation of every aspect of life in modern USA. There is literally nowhere one can look in this country, state, city where one does not find ethical/moral issues in which the strong (those with market power in any form) take advantage of the weak (everybody else). I've been adapting to this reality since I grasped how it all works sometime in my late teens. Not adapting by trying to become strong so I can take advantage of the weak but adapting by doing everything in my power starting at an early age to prepare and thereby minimize the risk I and those who rely on me will be victimized by the system, which it will inevitably and relentlessly try to do. So far so good after 25+ years of dodging and weaving the system but there is zero rest/comfort in such a system, one is never ever safe. The system is not immoral it is amoral. It is rapacious and it does not care. I'm not sure any other system is realistically possible given that human nature is what it is. We all want our retirement portfolios to perform at a 6%-10% annualized rate of return. None of us (or the folks we task with running our corporations) get there by wringing our hands over how unfair life can be when some folks get displaced. I don't expect one shred of pity if the system we're in crushes me like a cartoon character beneath a steamroller.


Sorry if the above is cynical. I'd dearly love to be less cynical but 25+ years in the "real adult world" has done nothing to reduce the cynicism I developed in late teens observing how everything works. If anything, it's only been reinforced. It's being reinforced every time I look around at what is happening, the pace of selfish destruction on a national scale only seems to be ever increasing. A few fixed-income seniors being displaced from their apartment buildings so "market rent" can be charged? Sad in a sense but no more sad than 10,000 x 10,000 other forms of collateral damage. I tend to be really bothered when "it" happens to children as they've not had decades of adult life to prepare for what the "system" has in store for them. Seniors have presumably had decades of life experience to grasp the concept that life is brutally unfair and they better plan for it to be. Sorry if that seems harsh. I don't see any other rational response to the juggernaut that is US-style survival-of-the-fittest free-market capitalism.

[abcdefg567]

I just read about this on my Nextdoor - a few people were offering their time to form a group to help pack or find these people new places to live. Very sad.

I just see this as a Denver Metro 2.0 without as many economic opportunities.

5-10 more years and it'll be Pueblo growing and, "gentrifying," as it will be the last affordable housing option along the Front Range.

[otowi]

Originally Posted by abcdefg567

I just read about this on my Nextdoor - a few people were offering their time to form a group to help pack or find these people new places to live. Very sad.

I just see this as a Denver Metro 2.0 without as many economic opportunities.

5-10 more years and it'll be Pueblo growing and, "gentrifying," as it will be the last affordable housing option along the Front Range.

Maybe we should add Walsenburg to the Front Range list.