Colorado Housing and Finance Authority wants comments on where they distribute housing money. Media omissions and confusion about ICE.
Colorado Housing and Finance Authority wants comments on where they distribute housing money
I do a weekly sweep of public notices for my town and often share them. This one actually applies to the whole state, so I'm sharing it as a full on post.
Before looking at what this is in friendlier, language, I want to share the full text of my local public notice is (quoting with links intact):
"Colorado Housing and Finance Authority Announcement of Public Hearing for the 2027-2028 Housing Tax Credit Qualified Allocation Plan Colorado Housing and Finance Authority (CHFA) will hold three public hearings in Colorado regarding the 2027-2028 Housing Tax Credit Qualified Allocation Plan (the QAP). The purpose of the public hearings is to receive input on the QAP for 2027-2028. A draft of the 2027-2028 QAP and Summary of Changes are available on CHFA's website: chfainfo.com/qap. The first hearing will be held on Tuesday, July 14, 2026, at 11:00am via Zoom. The second hearing will be held on Thursday, July 16, 2026, at 1:00pm via Zoom. The third hearing will be held on Wednesday, August 26, 2026, at 10:00am via Zoom. To attend the hearings, please visit chfainfo.com/qap-hearing to access Zoom registration links. If you are unable to attend the hearings, written comments will be accepted up to August 14, 2026, and should be submitted to Kathryn Grosscup at kgrosscup@chfainfo.com. This meeting will be recorded by the presenter. If you do not want to participate in a recorded presentation, please log off of the call. With respect to its programs, services, activities, and employment practices, Colorado Housing and Finance Authority prohibits unlawful discrimination against applicants or employees on the basis of age 40 years and over, race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, color, creed, religion, national origin, ancestry, disability, military status, genetic information, marital status or any other status protected by applicable federal, state or local law. Requests for reasonable accommodation, the provision of auxiliary aids, or any complaints alleging violation of this nondiscrimination policy should be directed to the Nondiscrimination Coordinator, 1.800.877.2432, TDD/TTY 800.659.2656, CHFA, 1981 Blake Street, Denver, Colorado 80202-1272, available weekdays 8:00am to 5:00pm MT. Published: South Platte Sentinel July 2, 2026-2175834"
I have written about CHFA before, they are (among other things) one of the gatekeepers that decides how to award tax credits, etc. to developers who want to get taxpayer money to build affordable housing. The Qualified Allocation Plan (QAP) mentioned above is the blueprint for how this is done.
The first link below is to the draft QAP for the upcoming period. You can go through the original, but if your time is short, the Summary of Changes is a good place to start.
I found it helpful, also, to start at the summary and then jump to the full report for more detail.
As an example, consider the following from the summary (quoting):
"[This new version of the QAP] Added that projects with capture rates that exceed 85 percent will not be accepted without additional data to support demand"
Going from this to the full report and searching for the words "capture rates", something I was unfamiliar with, led to some interesting tidbits which I gathered into a collage and attach as screenshots 1a and 1b. Even if you don't understand it all, consider the amount of thought that went into this plan, the amount of fluff an applicant can stuff in their application, and the sciency sheen this whole play act adds to the process.
Note: any text underlined in red font is new text in this year's QAP.
I'll end here. Private Activity Bonds are mentioned in the full QAP along with the summary. These are worth a quick mention because hiding under that fun name is another government scheme to offer incentives to someone which you get to fund.
If you want to learn up on those, I put a couple resources for you. The Second link below is to an earlier newsletter detailing what these bonds are and a lawsuit over their use out of the Springs. The third link is to CHFA's own site on these bonds and their use for affordable housing.
https://www.chfainfo.com/rental-housing/housing-credit/qualified-allocation-plan
https://coloradoaccountabilityproject.substack.com/p/co-springs-sued-over-alleged-constitutional?utm_source=publication-search
https://www.chfainfo.com/rental-housing/private-activity-bonds/pab-overview-guide-for-local-communities
Media omissions and confusion about ICE
Let's start off with some basic facts. The CBS article linked first below does a pretty decent job of outlining a road rage incident on HWY 36 between Boulder and Denver. Proceeding from there, the two suspects succeeded in bonding out of the Boulder County jail. They have been picked up by ICE and are facing deportation.
That's the skeleton of the story. How the flesh gets layered on from here depends on which outlet you read and who you choose to believe from among the various government agencies involved--the Boulder DA, ICE, the Boulder sheriff.
ICE came out swinging on July 1st with the tweet you see linked second below. Quoting:
"ICE Denver arrested Fabio Escobar-Munguia and Yerlin Menguia-Hernandez, both criminal aliens from Honduras. They have pending charges for 2 counts of felony homicide, 2x felony assault, firing a weapon in Boulder Co. After they were arrested Boulder Co. released them on bond!"
In one of the replies, ICE continued: "ICE had to pick them up in YOUR community as immigration detainers were not honored! ESCOBAR will be deported and MENGUIA will remain in custody pending immigration proceedings."
These tweets prompted a vigorous response from the Boulder DA and Sheriff's Office. You'll find them in the third and fourth link below (a CPR and 9News story respectively); ample space was given to the DA and Sheriff in both. I attached a collage of responses by them in the CPR and 9News story as screenshot 1.
Interestingly, amid all the back and forth between Boulder and ICE, the media themselves seem to be a little confused (or they're intentionally hiding things--from what I've seen it could be either).
Screenshot 2 sets up what I mean. It's the relevant bits from the two stories. Let's go in the order of the links.
The CPR reporter here is correct (ignoring her editorializing about the content) in saying that ICE made a mistake. You saw the tweet here. ICE was wrong. No homicide occurred.
However, further down, when she says that ICE didn't address their error, she is flat wrong. They did. The fifth link at bottom shows the tweet where ICE corrected it.
Now, the timing here is critical, so I want to cover that. ICE's incorrect first tweet was at 11 AM on 7/1. They corrected their error at about noon on 7/2. The CPR article was published on 7/2 at about 4 PM. Approximately 4.5 hours passed between ICE's correction and CPR's article.
I realize that sometimes the timing doesn't work out and that publishing doesn't always coincide with writing, but as of this writing the CPR article did not have a correction or update (see screenshot 3). An email to the CPR reporter and their top two news editors showing them the corrected tweet, asking about the article, and asking about an update/their policy on same was not returned as of this writing.
Turning now to the 9News article, I point you back to the second picture and the wording there. This particular confusion--about the meaning of a civil detainer--seems unique to 9News because in my reading (including CPR's article) I do not see the same issue.
The 9News reporter here seems to be confused about what civil detainers are. Boulder does not (repeat DOES NOT) request detainers. ICE does. What Boulder seems to have done is to notify ICE of the impending release of one of these two people arrested and, upon being told that ICE couldn't pick him up, released him anyway.
This would be consistent with what Boulder and Denver have both done in the past regarding releasing people arrested who might also face deportation. As sanctuary jurisdictions, they do not hold people for ICE to come and pick up.
As with CPR, an email went to the 9News reporter to ask him about his meaning as well as to ask for the entire email exchange between ICE and the Boulder Sheriff.
And that brings me to my final point. Is ICE lying? Is Boulder? Is either spinning this story to their benefit?
Yes. Yes they are.
Putting aside the (indeed corrected Ms. Sherry) mistake ICE made on the charges, I think they're both lying and spinning about the release of these two in order to make the other look bad.
I have reached out to the Boulder Sheriff and the ICE media contact to try and get the full email exchange. I think that is the best way in which you and I can get to the actual truth here, by seeing who said what, when, and to whom. As of this writing, I have not gotten a response, but if and when I do, I'll update. I will withhold further comment on the situation until then.
In the meantime, I wish the media's zest to get articles out about ICE would be tempered by a desire to give a complete and accurate account of the situation.
If ICE was hasty here in their first tweet, and Boulder is trying to cover it's ass with their response, 9News and CPR here are both equally hasty and untruthful in their reporting, with mistakes that would take 5 minutes to fix but which they bafflingly have chosen to let stand.
https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/suspects-arrested-boulder-county-road-rage-shooting-u-s-36/
https://www.cpr.org/2026/07/02/boulder-ice-road-rage/
https://www.9news.com/article/news/crime/ice-issues-correction-about-boulder-post-and-even-the-correction-needs-more-context/73-323f64b0-30fd-4f81-82fb-99dbbed6fac1
Related:
I wanted to share the howler below. It's quoted from the same CPR article I reference in the post above, quoted here with link intact:
"The controversy occurs amid a backdrop of Colorado prosecutors and judges being frustrated by ICE deportations of people with pending charges in the state. The removals deprive victims of closure and turn potentially dangerous people loose in their home countries without supervision or so much as a warning to their communities."
Once more to highlight: "The removals deprive victims of closure and turn potentially dangerous people loose in their home countries without supervision or so much as a warning to their communities."
Hmmmm.
I wonder how many times CPR, or their "journalist" Ms. Sherry wondered about potentially dangerous people being loose in the US.
Without supervision.
And/or without so much as a warning to their communities.
Good article on CHAFA. I remember CHAFA as making mortgages and down payments more affordable for first time homebuyers. I see it has been morphed into subsidizing new slumlords....
Oh, speaking of 9News, I found some massive errors in their story on the speed cameras.