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Colorado News Miner 69
303 Creative and standing, housing, stalkers, gun thieves, 16th Street Mall, drugs, transgender care, transparency, and more.
Copyright © 2024 by Ari Armstrong
July 18, 2023; ported here August 3, 2024
303 Creative and the Fake Request
In my follow-up column for Complete Colorado about the 303 Creative Supreme Court decision (see also my first column and my extra notes), I discuss the matter of the fake request submitted to 303 Creative and the issue of standing.
Housing Burdened
If we want less-expensive housing, we need to fully legalize the building of housing, including lower-cost units. That's the key point when it comes to housing.
Unfortunately, not all of the journalism about housing is great. Here is an especially silly bit from Newsline:
A household needs to earn around $56,000 annually to avoid paying more than 30% of its income on a rent of $1,400, which is otherwise known as being "housing burdened." For comparison, a household needs to earn around $40,000 to afford a rent of $1,000 per month.
This definition of "housing burdened" is totally arbitrary. Let's do the math here: $56,000 - ($1,400 x 12) is $39,200. Meanwhile, $40,000 - ($1,000 x 12) is $28,000. Ask any sensible person—some journalists need not apply—if they'd rather have $39,200 after housing costs or $28,000.
Anyway, all of that is just a big distraction from the fact that local governments have long outlawed the building of economic housing in many areas—something the cited article doesn't even mention. Until we change that, we're just pretending to care about the housing crisis.
Quick Takes
Stalkers: Krista Kafer writes of the problem of holding stalkers legally accountable, using a Colorado case as an example. My tentative take: We should be less concerned with whether a person makes an actionable threat—threats often are given a veil of plausible deniability—and more concerned with harassing behavior. People should be able to get the government's help in staying clear of stalkers.
Attempted Gun Thefts: Nine young suspects robbed five gun stores over two days. They got parts but no guns. CBS reports: "Bighorn Firearms owner Ryan Resch . . . says they appeared calm and confident, spending 20 minutes breaking through a secure window as pedestrians and cars passed by." Resch told the station, "It'd be nice to see some local community kind of looking out for each other a little bit more when they see this kind of activity actually . . . calling the police." Yes, it would be nice if people could trust the police to do their jobs without needlessly hurting people.
Denver Business Failures: Despite Denver subsidizing affected businesses, Denver's renovation of the 16th Street Mall is destroying some businesses there. The streetside homeless encampments on the way into town can't be helping; parts of Denver look like the third-world.
Drug Abuse: Here is a very strange article from the Sun and Rocky Mountain PBS. According to the headline, it's about how some homeless people take meth to stay awake to protect their belongings. But, if you read the article, you'll find that it's about an utterly ruined life of which drug abuse has long been a part.
Transgender Care: Children's Hospital has stopped offering "top surgeries" to transgender adults because of threats the hospital has received. Let's call such threats what they are: domestic terrorism.
Insurance: Sun: "Colorado is shutting down insurer Friday Health Plans, impacting more than 30,000 people."
Transparency: Elisabeth Epps and Bob Marshall are not impressed with some of the reactions to their transparency lawsuit. See also Marshall's op-ed. Corey Hutchins reviews the details.
Denver Schools: It's so weird how government-run schools become so political, Denver education research edition.
Homelessness: Denverite: "Denver Mayor Mike Johnston . . . pledged to get 1,000 people who are currently living on the streets into housing by the end of the year," apparently mostly by subsidizing their housing. But how many additional homeless people will move into Denver in hopes of getting the "free" housing? Incentives matter, and generally you get more of what you subsidize.
Child Services: Although the Arapahoe County Department of Human Services let through bogus allegations of child abuse, a review found no "pervasive" problems. Victims allege "systemic" problems.