“Cities need to change,” said Monica Martinez. “Many important community projects will be risky – yet you still need to find a way to leverage resources to help your community.”
For Martinez, bridging that gap by partnering with community development financial institutions (CDFIs) like Enterprise Community Loan Fund (ECLF) has been a main goal since she became executive director of Denver’s The Fax Partnership almost a decade ago.
The Fax was founded in 2004 as a main street booster to revitalize Denver’s East Colfax community, which is largely comprised of people with lower incomes, people of color, and immigrants from a diverse array of countries. It’s an area particularly vulnerable to resident displacement, she said, because it’s one of the last affordable areas in the notoriously high-cost metro area. That requires The Fax to be intentional and strategic in their efforts.
“You don’t just flood communities of color and low-income communities with investment, but rather try to support them and build them from within,” Martinez said. “That’s a way to preserve a community.”
Martinez is focused on what she sees as the strongest tactic to prevent gentrification: supporting the development of affordable housing, largely through the acquisition and redevelopment of midcentury motels common to their stretch of East Colfax. And it’s not only serving the community well – it’s also helped The Fax grow dramatically, Martinez said.
From Motel to Affordable Home
Since the 1920’s, motels have often provided living accommodations of last resort, particularly for individuals who can’t afford a security deposit or application fee for an apartment. The units can make for unstable housing, however, and their cash-based nature can lead to tenant exploitation.
The Fax saw great potential in the aging midcentury motels dotting East Colfax, a remnant of its days as Denver’s main thoroughfare. Their plan: acquire motels to convert into shelter for the short term, followed by eventual redevelopment into safe, stable affordable housing.
One such rehabilitation project is the Sand and Sage Westerner Motels, two neighboring properties. The project will have 38 permanent supportive housing units in total, with 19 at each motel. Soon, they will offer easy access to public transportation: the city’s upcoming $250 million Bus Rapid Transit project will run along East Colfax, connecting residents to downtown Denver and the city’s east side.
“The housing-transportation combination is powerful in low-income communities. If you can lower housing costs and transportation costs, you can really stabilize families and help them generate wealth,” Martinez said.
At the same time, the transit project increases the magnitude of The Fax’s work: “We also know that public investments like these lead to gentrification and displacement. So we feel like we have this urgency right ahead of the completion of this project. We need to acquire land and build affordable housing.”
Leading with Culture
A key component of The Fax’s work is community engagement. The East Colfax region is richly diverse, with people from Ethiopia, Burma, Venezuela, and Mexico. The Fax Partnership is a Latino-led organization, and staff speak four languages. They aim to represent the whole community, a reflection of their goal to “claim the community for those who are here now.”
To that end, The Fax created “The East Colfax Cultural District,” offering resources and hosting cultural events that support and reflect the whole community, including training for small business owners, the installation of placemaking features along the corridor, all-female mariachi band performances, and a Lunar New Year celebration.
“I am working at the frontlines, and, like so many others, trying to find a way to help cities grow without having the negative impact fall on the most vulnerable,” Martinez said. “This work is really rewarding.”