What are we proposing?

For various reasons, available federal and state disbursements, philanthropic grants, and agency-specific fundraisers only allow local stakeholders to maintain the current status quo, which means many struggling residents fall through the proverbial cracks. Paired with the fact that thousands of Broomfielders are struggling to make ends meet, these realities prompted our Task Force to pursue new, ongoing sources of local funding to help fill the gap. Our goal: to raise approximately $10 million per year for critical local non-profit programs, services and staffing that address our most urgent housing-related needs: 

• Rehousing via temporary and transitional housing supports for our most vulnerable residents, including survivors of domestic violence, families who are temporarily displaced, unhoused veterans and other people experiencing homelessness;

• Stabilization via rental/mortgage assistance, local housing vouchers, and case navigation to keep cost-burdened households housed, including struggling multi-generational families, retirees, teachers, first responders, service industry employees, and others; and, 

• Unit Creation & Preservation of desperately needed, truly affordable housing options for struggling Broomfielders on the lower end of the economic and AMI (area median income) spectrum, as well as “gap funding” for local affordable housing development.

To be clear, we are NOT trying to address all of Broomfield’s full-spectrum housing needs, just our most urgent ones, and that will take $10 million per year.

In early 2025, we proposed two local fund-generating measures — a 0.5% sales and use tax increase and a 1% excise tax increase on commercial development. Our hope: to place them on the Fall 2025 election ballot for Broomfield voters to approve.

We conducted extensive research, hired experienced consultants and proceeded through the steps toward potential referral of our measures by city council. The last of those steps involved the commissioning a scientific poll of likely voters by Broomfield-based Magellan Strategies, which was completed in May 2025. However, because poll results showed there isn’t enough current community support to justify referral of those specific revenue-generating measures to the Fall 2025 ballot, the Task Force shifted into “Plan B” mode.

That means we’re revisiting our proposed fund-generating mechanisms and beginning a longer-term community engagement process with local stakeholders. Our goal: to identify one or more viable and ongoing funding mechanisms that prioritize housing stability for hard-working Broomfield households. Those funding streams or mechanisms could include future ballot initiatives (the same or different than ones we proposed in the spring of 2025), potential city and county budget reallocations, enhanced local agencies’ pursuit of philanthropic grants, and whatever other creative approaches we can think of. We’re not tied to a specific mechanism. We’re just motivated to generate the funds necessary to enhance housing stability for vulnerable Broomfield families, so please let us know if you have any good ideas!

An infusion of $10 million per year would both significantly “raise the floor” of our current housing stability support system and give local agency stakeholders helpful leverage to raise the remaining $5 million per year needed to fill our $15 million annual gap between current needs and currently available resources. 

In case you’re wondering how we got here, here’s the short version.

• After applying in the summer of 2024 for grant funding to fuel our work, we began researching potential ballot mechanisms, seeking the least burdensome ones possible that would still generate the income needed to fill our urgent housing-related gap.

• We networked with local and area experts about the best ways to proceed.

• We’ve put together a steering committee of concerned local residents and hired communications and policy experts to advise our campaign.

• In the spring of 2025, we partnered with Magellan Strategies and the City and County of Broomfield, on a scientific poll to gauge likely voters’ perspectives on housing and on our two proposed ballot measures. Both would generate funds through new taxes, which is why they would need majority voter approval during an upcoming election: (1) Primary — A sales and use tax increase of 0.5%, which would generate approximately $10 million per year. A portion of the increase and the funds generated from it would be borne by non-residents purchasing items in Broomfield. As proposed, this measure would add 50 cents to every $100 purchase subject to sales and use tax. (That’s less than 3 cents on a $5 cup of coffee!) (2) Secondary — A construction excise tax increase of 1.0% on commercial construction, which would generate $80,250 per year. This tax would serve as a complementary measure to the above sales tax and to Broomfield’s already existing “inclusionary housing ordinance” that was passed in 2020.

• In May 2025, we began grassroots organizing (tabling, focus groups, etc.) to garner feedback and raise awareness about our local housing crisis.

• Our sights are now set on what can be done now and in 2026 and beyond to generate new funds to meet our most urgent-housing related needs, which are not going away just because we’re not proceeding with our proposed ballot measures in 2025.

  Stay tuned and please let us know if you’d like to get involved!