By Rev. Andrew Daugherty and Rev. Nicole Lamarche

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For nearly 60 years, San Lazaro families have made Boulder home. Neighbors who arrived as strangers have learned each other’s languages. They have shared meals. They have looked after each other’s children. They have built bonds of trust and collective memory that make not just a home, but a life.

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The challenge now is whether we will help them keep it.

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San Lazaro is home to more than 800 people in 213 households. The residents own their homes, but they do not own the land they sit on. This leaves them vulnerable to rising rents and displacement. They know the cost of what they stand to lose. The rest of us need to understand that cost, too.

The longstanding San Lazaro community faces the threat of being priced out of the community they created. An anonymous buyer has offered $42.5 million for the land their homes sit on. Families have until Dec. 3 to submit a counteroffer.

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The residents of San Lazaro have organized to protect what they have built and to buy the land themselves through a resident cooperative. They have turned out at public hearings, held garage sales and set up lemonade stands. They organized a community food fundraiser and navigated complex real estate financing. As pastors and neighbors, we believe we have a responsibility to do our part.

 

Without the need for a consultant or a costly new development plan, or a zoning battle, we already have the kind of community Boulder says it wants to build.

This goes to the heart of what it means to be neighbors. Most of San Lazaro’s 140 children attend Boulder Valley schools. Seventy-one percent of households include someone who works in the city of Boulder. Families should not be uprooted and expected to build their lives somewhere else.

There are encouraging signs that show the daring, progressive “Be Boulder” we see on signs around our city. Boulder County commissioners voted unanimously in September to commit $11 million in grant funding. The City of Boulder has offered a $1.3 million loan with annexation conditions that raise cost concerns for residents. Community pledges and philanthropy have raised roughly $360,000.

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That still leaves nearly $30 million to secure before the Dec. 3 deadline.

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We have the resources. What we need now is the will to use them.

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Faith communities like the ones we lead have begun to respond. Community United Church of Christ committed $40,000, and Pine Street Church pledged $21,000 with a matching gift campaign underway. These gifts are modest against a $42.5 million purchase. We made them anyway, because we believe our neighbors’ future is our responsibility, too. San Lazaro resident and steering committee member Marcus Christopher said it best. “We belong to one another … I think we forget that sometimes.”

Boulder is known as inclusive and progressive. The city’s vision is, “Service excellence for an inspired future.” San Lazaro gives us an opportunity to live up to this vision and inspire one another to be who we say we are. Boulder has no shortage of generous people and creative minds, especially in a time of hyper-local change.

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The families of San Lazaro have shown what people can accomplish together. Now the rest of us have a chance, too.

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Before Dec. 3, we hope more of Boulder will find a way to take part. Some can give directly to the residents’ purchase fund. Others can bring neighbors together to hear from San Lazaro residents. Those with greater financial resources have an important opportunity to help.

Listen to someone who lives there. Hannah Craven has lived in San Lazaro for seven years. She told Boulder County commissioners back in May, “This has been the safest community I have ever lived in, and amidst this soul-crushing housing crisis, I have found my faith in humanity restored consistently in this community.”

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The people of San Lazaro have built a life in Boulder. They deserve to keep it.

Rev. Andrew Daugherty is the senior pastor of Pine Street Church in Boulder.

Rev. Nicole Lamarche is the lead pastor of Community United Church of Christ in Boulder.