New program opens doors for students, employers looking to address affordable-housing shortage

Stacy Berry is a licensed real-estate agent. But that’s not how she pays the bills.

“I’m a paralegal during the day. I got a real-estate license so I could give back,” she said.

The people she wants to give back to are women escaping abusive relationships — something the mother of three knows about firsthand. She knows, for example, that one of the biggest obstacles those women face is finding a place to live. “[A lack of] affordable housing is one of the main reasons women stay in those abusive relationships,” she said.

The desire to put her real-estate background to work for those women is why Berry signed up to be one of the first students in the first class in the first semester of Metropolitan State University of Denver’s new Affordable Housing Institute.

She’s come to the right place.

The new institute will address the state’s affordable-housing shortage while providing a multidisciplinary education that prepares a new generation of leaders and workers for meaningful careers creating, funding and managing affordable housing.

AHI Director Andy Proctor said the institute has “three customers: students who are investing in their careers, employers that need prepared workforce and, ultimately, people who will become housed.”

The institute began taking shape last August, thanks to early funding from the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority and a seven-figure gift — the largest in the history of MSU Denver’s College of Business — from FHLBank of Topeka.

The investment is a first for the bank. Although the Kansas-based, member-owned institution has given $250 million in support of affordable housing, it traditionally funds brick-and-mortar building projects.

Matt Koupal, FHLBank’s executive vice president and chief mission officer, said he expects the AHI program to have broad, long-term impact, benefiting the community and the affordable-housing industry. “We need to energize people, get them engaged and knowledgeable about affordable housing as a career opportunity,” he said.

The AHI grew out of the recent formation of MSU Denver’s Bachelor of Science in Real Estate. As that program was being formed, real-estate professionals advising the University said “we should be talking about affordable housing,” Proctor said.

Ultimately, they did more than talk.

What they ended up with was a certificate program, available to undergraduates as well as graduate students. In addition, several non-credit offerings provide an introduction to affordable housing finance.

Real estate and social work are two worlds that seemingly meet only in the realm of affordable housing. And when they do, they often conflict.

To earn the AHI’s certificate in Affordable Housing, students complete coursework in social work as well as business and finance. The result is professionals trained to navigate the complicated waters of securing funding and monitoring compliance with the rules around government funding. They also know how to work with residents experiencing unemployment, health problems and other issues that could lead to losing their home.

In the first weeks of Proctor’s introductory AHI class, he discussed basic housing terms such as “low-income” and reviewed Denver’s current minimum wage — $18.81 an hour — and average rent of $2,150 a month for a two-bedroom apartment. Even nonmath majors guessed that those two figures don’t add up for anyone trying to afford a place to live on minimum wage.

In fact, the federal government defines anyone paying more than 30% of their income on rent or a mortgage as “cost-burdened.” As of 2023, nearly half the renters in the United States fell into that category, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

To many in Proctor’s class, such terms and definitions were alien. Others, such as Berry, knew them all too well.

She helps women apply for grants so they can become first-time owners of affordable homes. That’s when she puts her real-estate license to work.

But when she was getting that license, the instructors didn’t cover affordable housing. “So hearing about this class, that was an ‘aha!’ moment,” she said.

Given the tremendous need in Colorado for affordable housing, and the growing recognition that addressing the problem benefits everyone, Proctor and Koupal are sure that students emerging from the AHI program will find employers eager to snatch them up.

Mark Marshall, president and chief executive of Rocky Mountain Communities, a provider of affordable housing and services, said that over more than three decades in the field, he has not encountered many people who are trained to work in the industry. “It seems everyone in affordable housing stumbled into it,” he said. “Most of the training is on-the-job.”

That’s unfortunate, he said, given the complexity of financing and regulation in the industry. “I’m excited about MSU Denver being one of the first colleges to offer a certificate in Affordable Housing,” he said.

Students should be excited about it too, Proctor said. “Affordable housing offers a steady, well-paying career where you can make a difference in people’s lives,” he said. “That’s a win-win.”