An Income Qualified (“IQ”) household is one in which a household whose maximum income does not exceed 80% of the area median income.
The Disproportionately Impacted (“DI”) Community is defined at the census block group scale. The Census block group scale is the smallest geographic scale of data available from the U.S. Census Bureau. Disproportionately impacted communities include:
- Low-income communities: Census block groups where more than 40% of households are at or below 200% of the federal poverty line.
- Communities of color: Census block groups where more than 40% of the population identify as anything other than non-Hispanic White.
- Housing cost-burdened communities: Census block groups where more than 50% of households spend more than 30% of their income on housing costs like rent or mortgage payments.
- Linguistically isolated communities: Census block groups where more than 20% of the population live in households where all adults speak a language other than English and speak English less than very well.
- Historically marginalized communities: Communities with a history of environmental racism created through redlining or anti-Black, anti-Hispanic, anti-immigrant, or anti-Indigenous laws, policies, or practices that continue to experience present-day environmental health disparities.
- Cumulatively impacted communities: Communities where multiple factors, including socioeconomic stressors, vulnerable populations, disproportionate environmental burdens, vulnerability to environmental degradation or climate change, and lack of public participation may act cumulatively to affect health and the environment and may contribute to persistent environmental health disparities. Cumulatively impacted communities can be presumptively identified in one of two ways:
- They are in a census block group with a Colorado EnviroScreen score above the 80th percentile; or,
- They are in a census tract that the federal Council on Environmental Quality’s Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool identifies as disadvantaged.
- Tribal lands: The Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute Reservations.
- Mobile Home Communities: Areas that meet the Department of Local Affairs’ definition of a Mobile Home Park.