Statement in Support of Moratoriums on Evictions and Foreclosures During COVID-19 Pandemic

We have signed on to a letter to Colorado Chief Justice Coats to use his judicial authority to suspend evictions and foreclosures. Elected officials and protesters are rushing to re-open businesses and return to normal – we believe this will be harmful and will amplify our current public safety crisis. Health experts have been clear that the best way to slow the spread is to keep people at home if possible and implement social distancing.

However, while we agree that closing businesses is crucial to confronting the COVID-19 pandemic, we also believe that ordering workers to stay home while continuing to demand rent and mortgage is cruel and systemic violence and will absolutely lead to a spike in homelessness. DASHR believes that top priorities of public safety should be access to healthcare for all and housing security for all. While Denver’s $580 million dollar safety budget does not include the component of housing and shelter for all (compared to roughly 1% of our budget that goes towards affordable housing), we believe that suspending evictions and foreclosures is the very least our executive, legislative, and judicial branches could do at this time. We are also in solidarity with demands to #cancelrent in light of our current crisis.

Read the full statement below.