This project assessed the economic impact of affordable housing located in transit oriented developments (TODs) on the metro Denver economy in 2017. Similar to other studies, this approach looked only at the impact of the construction and rehabilitation of affordable units.
To assess the economic impact of the affordable housing development we applied RIMS multipliers for the construction sector and for the metro Denver region to the spending outlined above. RIMS multipliers quantify the relationship between the program spending and the full impact on the economy with respect to employment, earnings, and total regional economic activity (regional GDP).
In this analysis, we applied the multiplier for the construction sector to the spending related to building and rehabilitating affordable units. The construction multiplier quantifies the employment, earnings and regional output impact of not only the direct activity in the construction sector but also of the spending by building suppliers and other industries involved in construction, as well as the re-spending that occurs when construction sector workers spend their earnings on household needs such as food, clothing, furnishings, etc. In this way, the analysis and therefore the findings account for all of the 2017 economic activity in metro Denver as a result of the affordable housing development in TODs, not simply the activity from the directly affected sector.