The Polis administration on Wednesday announced 13 counties are slated to receive a total of $48.8 million to either provide or preserve affordable housing. 

The grants are the third in a series of four disbursements foused on housing from the Department of Local Affairs. Funding for the grants comes from federal American Rescue Plan Act.

The largest grants of $7 million and $6 million will go to the city of Denver and Volunteers for America, respectively. The funds will go to developing Flo Senior, a 212-unit community for seniors (age 55+) and people with disabilities (age 18+) in the Sun Valley neighborhood, as well as a 60-studio room shelter in Denver that will serve families with minor children and homeless veterans.

In Colorado Springs, Catholic Charities will receive $4.4 million to convert a commercial two-story building on its Helen Hunt campus into 24 multi-sized family apartments, with rents based at no more than 30% of area median income.

Other counties that will see grants from the transformational affordable housing grant program include Routt, Eagle, San Miguel, Alamosa, Douglas, Weld and Moffat. 

Funding for the grants, with a fourth round expected later this month, was directed by HB22-1304 ($138M) and HB22-1377 ($105M), which followed the recommendations of the legislature’s Affordable Housing Transformational Task Force and the Economic Recovery and Relief Task Force. 

“This grant builds upon our ongoing work to build more housing now, and we are excited that this support will add and preserve 1,353 affordable housing units across the state. We know that there is more work to do to make sure that Coloradans have access to the housing they need to thrive, and I’m hopeful that we can further remove barriers to new housing and make Colorado a more affordable place to live,” Gov. Jared Polis said Wednesday.