Black Coloradans face barriers in homeownership
By Nina Joss and Haley Lena
A few years ago, Aurora Warms the Night, an Aurora-based nonprofit serving people who need housing, ran into a challenge when assisting its Black clients in applying for apartments. When the applicants visited properties, landlords denied their applications. This happened over and over again.
So the team decided to take a different approach, sending in White volunteers to check out the apartments first.
"I would send one of our employees or people that were White to look at the apartment — to get the pricing, get everything, to make sure everything was available," said Brian Arnold, who was executive director of the group at the time five years ago. "After that, we did the application online and sent it in without them being able to see the person."
Once the application got approved, the team at Aurora Warms the Night would let the real estate agents see the client was Black. Arnold said this process worked almost every time and became the organization's own way of making a dent in the discrimination that people of color may face, but find difficult to prove.
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This story is from Colorado Community Media. CBS News Colorado is a newsgathering partner with CCM, a network of two dozen newspapers and online publications serving eight metro-area counties on the Front Range.
