A state Senate panel has voted along party lines to advance a pair of stimulus bills seeking to address housing in Colorado.

The first from Sens. Julie Gonzales, D-denver, and Brittany Pettersen, D-lakewood, seeks to send $15 million to the Department of Local Affairs to help people experiencing homelessness or who could lose their homes. The bill would offers local governments funding for rental assistance and tenancy support programs.

Senate Bill 21-242 would also award grants and loans for local governments and nonprofit organizations to rent, acquire or renovate underutilized hotels or motels to provide housing.

“What we have seen during the pandemic is oftentimes people, who perhaps were struggling before the pandemic to make ends meet, find themselves experiencing housing challenges in an unprecedented way,” Gonzales told the Senate Local Affairs Committee on Tuesday.

The slate of witnesses representing the Colorado Municipal League, the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, All Families Deserves a Chance Coalition and DOLA each testified in support of the bill with some reiterating Gonzales’ urgency.

“Senate Bill 242 makes one of the most significant investments in homelessness resolution and prevention that Colorado has seen to date at a time when the need has never been more critical,” said Cathy Alderman, the chief communications and public policy officer for the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless.

But Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer disagreed. The Brighton Republican, a former Weld County commissioner, said her county stood up shelters for quarantine and isolation during the pandemic and also purchased hotel rooms.

Kirkmeyer said none of those were used. She also pointed to a DOLA dashboard tracking the homeless population in the state. That dashboard shows 940 actively homeless veterans with 343 in the chronically homeless category.

“I don’t think that represents unprecedented need,” Kirkmeyer said. “It appears to me that maybe the local governments and not-forprofits are taking care of this and I don’t think we need to create yet another grant program where the Department of Local Affairs — I’m just going to say it — gouges us for another four (full-time employees).”

Bruce Eisenhower, DOLA’S legislative liaison, countered that the figure on the dashboard only represented those experiencing homelessness who have actively sought out services.

The committee’s other GOP member, Sen. Larry Liston of Colorado Springs, also raised concerns on the element of the bill that would allow local governments to acquire hotels or motels.

“Buying it is the cheap part,” Liston said. “Keeping it up and running and maintained and utilized and paying the taxes and the utilities, that is the expensive part.”

In opposing the bill, Kirkmeyer and Liston indicated that they felt a bulk of the funding would go toward the Denver metro area. Still, the bill passed 3-2 on the strength of the panel’s Democratic members.

So did the second stimulus bill of the day, which focused on incentivizing local governments to promote affordable housing.

House Bill 21-1271, which has cleared the House and is being carried by Gonzales in the Senate, would send DOLA $13 million for three grant programs, including:

• $9.3 million for a program that makes grants available for local governments that adopt least three measures from a variety laid out in the bill to spur the creation of affordable housing;

• $2.1 million for local governments to assess housing needs or make changes or change local policies; and

• $1.6 million for an affordable housing guided toolkit to help local governments develop and implement an affordable housing plan.

Much like the hearing on SB 242, the committee’s Democrats and the slate of witnesses testifying on the bill were strongly supportive while Kirkmeyer and Liston raised concerns and voted against it.

Kirkmeyer said she opposed the bill because she felt much of the legislation called for things that are within DOLA’S purview. But as with SB 242, HB 1271 passed out of committee on a 3-2 party line vote.

Both bills head to the Senate Appropriations Committee.