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By Krista Nordback. Also published as a letter to the editor in the Daily Camera on September 8, 2021.
The Bedrooms Are For People ballot initiative will provide much needed affordable housing in Boulder. The Bedrooms initiative is driven by folks, like myself, who have had to rent rooms (the most affordable way to live in most places) to live in Boulder, some of whom have had to live “illegally” in “over occupied” houses because that’s the only thing they can afford.
Expanding rooms for rent seems to me like a sure-fire way to expand affordability immediately. We don’t even have to wait for new dwellings to be constructed. This allows us to use our existing bedrooms more efficiently. It just makes sense.
As I discovered when I was a young single professional looking for a room to rent, the cost of renting a room in a large house where you have to share with many other people is lower than the cost of renting a room in a smaller home where you have fewer housemates. That’s just how the market works. Most people prefer to share with fewer people. So, affordability is baked into the Bedrooms Initiative.
Emergency Family Assistance Association (EFAA) and Out Boulder County have endorsed the Bedrooms campaign. Their members know what it’s like to find affordable housing in Boulder and what will actually work because they have lived it. If you want to see more affordable housing in Boulder, join me in voting for the Bedrooms Are For People ballot initiative this November.