Colorado Renter ‘Cash Back’ Program Rewards On-Time Rent Payments

A Colorado state program helps renters build equity for paying their rent on time. As Roshan Abraham reports in Next City, the program gives renters a cash stipend that amounts to roughly 2 percent of their rent every time they pay rent. The stipend accumulates in a card and can be transferred to a checking account.

The program is part of a 2022 state affordable housing package, Proposition 123, that included “a unique program that would allow tenants of new affordable housing financed by the initiative to be paid the ‘equity’ for the homes they rent, in theory giving them some of the financial benefits a homeowner might get.”

Colorado’s Tenant Equity Vehicle Program, which has not been fully developed, aims to help renters build equity and save up emergency funds. “Under the plan, the state provides cheap loans to developers to build affordable housing. As developers pay back the interest on those loans, the state forgoes profits, instead routing some of the interest payments directly to tenants. In theory, this means the often-predatory element of private debt has been removed from the equation.” So far, smaller, private pilot programs are underway in the state, which could serve as a model for the statewide program.