Opened in 2019, Arroyo Village combines affordable workforce housing, permanent supportive housing and a 60-bed homeless shelter on a single property in Denver’s Villa Park neighborhood. FHLBank Topeka helped to fund the project. Photo by Josh Geurink
Metropolitan State University of Denver’s new Affordable Housing 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 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.
