Hispanic Coloradans were more likely than the general population to consider the cost of housing, crime, drug use and undocumented immigration to be major problems, according to data released from a poll taken this spring.
The annual Pulse poll, sponsored by the Colorado Health Foundation, asked about 2,400 adult Coloradans, including about 500 Latinos, about their personal and financial wellbeing, and how serious they considered a range of problems in the state.
People who are Hispanic have ancestry in any Spanish-speaking part of the world, while Latinos trace their families to Latin America. Since the vast majority of Colorado’s Hispanic population is of Latin American descent, the pollsters used the two terms interchangeably. Both groups can include people of any race or combination of races.
Latinos’ top concerns were largely the same as the general population’s, with the cost of housing and cost of living overall leading the list. More than nine in 10 Latino Coloradans reported the cost of housing is an “extremely serious” or “very serious” problem, and 100% of respondents over 75 in that group agreed. Overall, 89% of Coloradans agreed the problem was extremely or very serious.
“The cost of housing dwarfs everything else,” said Lori Weigel, principal at New Bridge Strategy, which does polling for Republican candidates. The foundation contracts with a Republican-aligned and a Democratic-aligned firm to do its polling.
A few years ago, concern about the cost of housing mostly came from mountain towns, but now even people in traditionally lower-cost areas like the Eastern Plains are worried about it, she said.
In some cases, Hispanic Coloradans were more likely than the general population to report that a problem was extremely or very serious. About 59% of all Coloradans thought that crime, in general, rose to that level of concern, but 72% of Latinos thought the same.
Interestingly, Hispanic people who preferred to answer questions in English drove that disparity. Those who took the poll in Spanish labeled general crime a serious problem at the same rate as all Coloradans. The subgroups include smaller numbers of people, Weigel said, so she was reluctant to say it represented a real difference in how people see the state.
The difference between Latinos and the general population was smaller when it came to crime in their neighborhoods, with about one-third of Latinos and one-quarter of all Coloradans calling it an extremely or very serious problem. People’s views of crime in general tend to be influenced more by incidents they see in the news or on social media, making them feel less safe even when violent crime isn’t common, Weigel said.
The feeling “takes time to dissipate,” she said.
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Latinos also were more likely than the general population to label drug overdoses, and drug and alcohol misuse in general, as serious problems. More than 70% of Latinos deemed each of those problems extremely or very serious. About two-thirds of the general population thought overdoses rose to that level of seriousness, but just under half believed general drug and alcohol misuse did.
Colorado is one of only a handful of states where Hispanic people are more likely to die prematurely than white people who don’t identify as Hispanic, and alcohol-related liver disease and drug overdoses are major contributors.
Latinos also were more likely to say illegal immigration was a problem, with 59% calling it extremely or very serious. About 53% of the whole population said the same thing.
“It’s significant, but it’s more modest,” Weigel said.
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