Denver Housing Authority announced its 2022 priorities which include delivering thousands of new housing options in the city. Efforts include continuing towards adding 1,300 units through the DHA Delivers for Denver (D3) housing initiative; continuing efforts on the Sun Valley revitalization through the Choice Neighborhoods Initiative adding more than 900 new housing options; and focusing efforts and resources to ensuring all residents have a holistic community living environment with access to healthy food, education, and employment opportunities. To support these efforts, the organization just launched a new brand look and feel and website to better meet the needs of DHAs multiple audiences.
“We realize the priorities set forth for the year are extensive, but we also know how important providing access to more affordable housing options, maintaining our current housing stock to a level we all would be proud to live in, increasing our partnership to assist our residents in their daily lives, and assisting our youth to find career and educational paths to success are key initiatives that will contribute to the success of our city,” said David Nisivoccia, executive director of DHA. “While building new units and offering services to our residents are mainstays for our organization, we can’t stop there. Thinking ahead and innovating to the future means we ensure that we address the needs of our communities through access to staples like food and employment through an equitable lens—the key to helping move Denver forward.”
Through the D3 Initiative, DHA will deliver 1,300 units with $62.5 million in gap bond funding in the city. This initiative is a key priority for the City and County of Denver and DHA as it directly responds to and attempts to meet the city’s affordable housing needs. Currently, DHA is under construction on seven of 11 projects and is 60 percent complete in meeting the requirements.
The Sun Valley revitalization through the Choice Neighborhoods Initiative is well underway and once completed will add 940 units to the Sun Valley neighborhood. In conjunction with Sun Valley, and expanding its efforts further, DHA is focused on building sustainable communities to ensure all residents have a holistic community living environment with access to healthy food, education, and employment opportunities. This initiative kicked off in 2021 with the opening of Decatur Fresh Market, an international grocery market, workforce training program, and community space for the Sun Valley Neighborhood and broader West Denver community. Located in a food desert, the 1,800 square foot market brings affordable, nutritious, and international food options to the community. The market opened in November 2021.
DHA’s new brand look and feel will help with brand cohesion and message consistency while communicating the breadth and depth of the DHA story to reach more DHA audiences through unique partnerships, collateral enhancements, multi-lingual materials, and public affairs efforts. The new website enhances user-friendliness for people to get connected to housing, is more adaptable and accessible to all audiences and utilizes multilingual translation, ADA compliance, and much more.
