Renters are worried a pandemic-caused eviction crisis is about to hit Colorado

A statewide ban on evictions has expired, and an order giving tenants more time to pay the rent is running out.

Mireya Marquez sits in the shade at the Highland motel where she's been living. April 28, 2020. (Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite)
Mireya Marquez sits in the shade at the Highland motel where she's been living. April 28, 2020. (Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite)

Mireya Marquez turned to a tenants’ rights lawyer after she became convinced her landlord wanted her out because she couldn’t pay her rent.

Marquez’s landlord denied he was trying to use means other than eviction to force her out. But texts she saved from him indicate he was pressing her to leave within days after a leak was discovered to have done serious damage at the duplex she had been renting for several years just off Federal in Valverde.

Marquez was able to stay through the end of her lease, which ran through May. She’s now staying with a friend and searching for a job and stable housing.

“That is, I think, close to as good as I could do for her,” said her attorney, Jason Legg. “But it doesn’t feel just or satisfying.

After a temporary statewide ban on evictions expired June 13, Gov. Jared Polis issued an order that allows landlords to begin the eviction process.

Read more of the story on Denverite.

Donna Bryson is Denverite's housing and hunger reporter, and a Denver-based author. Her new book, Home of the Brave, recounts how a small American town took on the big challenge of helping military veterans reintegrate into civilian life. Bryson is also the author of It’s a Black White Thing, which explores racial attitudes amongst young South Africans and won first place in the non-fiction book category of the National Federation of Press Women’s 2015 Communications Contest.