Rather than offering the tenants a temporary place to live with water, Greystar, the property management company, set up portable toilets in the alleyway and offered residents the use of a hose.
“These are elders. These are veterans,” Watson said during a city council committee meeting on April 9. “These are folks that we promised — I know I did — as this project was being built that this will be a safe place, a place of dignity for residents to live.”
Watson and Lewis hope to prevent similar situations by introducing legislation that empowers the Denver Department of Public Health and Environment to require landlords to provide relocation assistance for tenants who live in units deemed uninhabitable.
Currently, the DDPHE has no such power and has repeatedly said not being able to ensure tenants have somewhere else to go has limited the department’s efforts at bringing negligent landlords into compliance; according to the DDPHE, completely displacing hundreds of residents is the worst option, because once a building is covered in placards, indicating the residence is no longer safe, residents have to fend for themselves.
A state law passed in 2024 requires landlords to provide alternate accommodations to residents when their units are found to violate the state Warranty of Habitability, but the DDPHE cannot enforce the warranty as the law is designed to give tenants legal standing in court, but it's not an actionable set of standards for any particular agency. Therefore, tenants would have to hire a lawyer and work through the court system, a difficult process that can take years, according to tenants rights groups.
“Our policy aligns local regulations with these state laws to protect our tenants and hold bad landlords, or unaccountable landlords at this point, accountable,” Watson said during the committee. “We make zero changes on what is expected for habitable environments for renters.”
The DDPHE enforces the housing code, which lists minimum housing requirements like safe egress, proper electrical wiring, running water, heat during cold weather and an absence of mold and infestations.
But, according to Lewis, landlords know DDPHE’s fines can only go so far, because tenants struggling with Denver’s high housing costs are reluctant to move out.
“Under current law, DDPHE struggles to enforce habitability regulations,” Lewis said at the April 9 meeting. “Therefore, noncompliant landlords ignore fines and wait for the courts to act, essentially, so they can delay the repairs, or whatever DDPHE might recommend.”
The bill sponsors emphasized they do not believe most Denver landlords fall into that unscrupulous group, saying they only expect DDPHE would have cause to use the new power around twice per year if the council approves the changes.
A common complaint among tenants is a lack of waste maintenance at apartments, like this dumpster pileup at the Felix.
Denver Metro Tenants Union
Lewis and Watson also want to allow the DDPHE to request property management records, such as work orders from residents, during inspections. Currently, the department has to pursue a warrant for that information.
“Say there's an apartment building that's had a recurring issue with heat or hot water and we're hearing from residents that this happens all the time, but we're hearing from management, maybe, something different,” DDPHE residential housing manager Nicol Caldwell told councilmembers. “We would like to have the ability to request records like that, just like we have the ability to request an inspection.”
Denver renters have complained of these issues, as well. In early 2024, tenants at the Felix apartments reported persistent hot water outages, but city inspectors could only identify if hot water was out on certain days during a single inspection.
The bill also proposes expanding DDHPE's fining abilities when required repairs aren’t being made; DDPHE would also be given the power to place liens on properties if landlords don’t provide alternative housing and the city has to shoulder those costs. The lien could be for the city’s expenses on alternative housing plus 5 percent according to the proposal.
In January, the city had to pay for alternative housing for residents at the William Penn Apartments after the complex was shut down over nearly $300,000 in code violations; a Denver judge issued an arrest warrant for William Penn's property managers in March.
During the council hearing, Tenants spoke in favor of the potential changes and shared hard living experiences in rental units, including a collapsed bathroom ceiling and a complete lack of water for nearly two weeks.
The Apartment Association of Metro Denver said the organization wanted to be sure landlords would be given the opportunity to fix buildings before the DDPHE issued an uninhabitability determination. The AAMD also doesn't want landlords to pay for alternate housing if damage was caused by tenants of if that tenants are not current on rent.
According to the bill sponsors, the carveout for resident-caused damages is already part of the proposal, and so are opportunities to fix problems before relocation is required. Additionally, if an issue was caused by elements outside of the landlord’s control such as a widespread Xcel Energy power outage, the landlord wouldn’t be held responsible.
The bill doesn't change current Denver policies that give landlords a break if they show in good faith that they are attempting to fix issues but are dealing with supply chain problems.
“If something goes out and you order a part, realistically it's not going to be here overnight,” Caldwell said. “We can provide extension requests for reasonable requests. … We'll take everything into consideration. But, ultimately, if the environment that someone is living in is so unsafe and unhealthy that it presents an imminent hazard to their safety, it's our job to get them out, despite how hard someone is working to address the issue.”
Other city councilors were supportive of the idea but most believed the idea needed more clarity on what, exactly, constitutes alternative dwelling arrangements as the bill currently leaves the official relocation process under the DDPHE's discretion.
“Does it have to be a home?” Councilwoman Amanda Sawyer said. “Can it be a hotel? …I didn't see a definition in the bill.”
Others added that there should be special considerations for children, particularly to ensure their replacement accommodations aren’t across town so they can still get to school easily. Councilwoman Stacie Gilmore believed some specificity on the duration of the replacement housing would improve the bill, as well.
“It should be comparable to the lease that was signed, or half of the lease duration, because folks are expecting that they're going to have housing for six months,” Gilmore said.
Councilmembers postponed a vote to send the ill to the full council until April 23 as bill drafters address some of those concerns.
