Mill Street is Colorado Springs’ oldest working class neighborhood, originally home to workers at the Broadmoor Hotel, servants to estates in the Old North End, and laborers at the nearby mill, and it continues to house many of the city’s essential workers to this day. Mill Street neighbors teach our city’s kids, treat our patients, bag our groceries, serve our coffee, and fight for a more just world for all. 

However, today Mill Street is at risk—historically an affordable place to live, prices in the neighborhood are rising rapidly as upscale development takes over on the south end of Downtown. In a 2022 survey of over 70 Mill Street residents, 58% said they were concerned about being displaced, and pressure has only increased since then. After decades of public disinvestment, Mill Street is now being gentrified by rapid reinvestment, featuring tax-payer supported soccer stadiums, upscale apartments, and luxury hotels. 

To ensure Mill Street can not only survive but thrive as a friendly, diverse, working-class neighborhood into the future, Mill Street neighbors need agency over the decisions affecting their future, including what gets built, where, and for whom. Mill Street neighbors and their allies, in establishing this coalition, do not seek to merely give “input” or get “a seat at the table,” but rather to build and wield real negotiating power over development decisions affecting the neighborhood, through whichever means prove most strategic in a given situation, including legally-binding Community Benefit Agreements, informal partnerships with developer groups, city ordinances, and more.