Poorly Managed Aurora Apartments Offered Easy Target for Nonprofit-Driven Migrant ‘Takeover
Two publicly funded Denver nonprofits — ViVe Wellness and Organization Papagayo — chose to move thousands of Venezuelan migrants, including some members of the violent Tren de Aragua street gang, into run-down apartment complexes in nearby Aurora precisely because those buildings were poorly managed.
n an email to Aurora City councilwoman Danielle Jurinsky, obtained by National Review, Jessica Prosser, the director of Housing and Community Development for Aurora, says she learned that ViVe and Papagayo were moving migrants into Aurora through conversations with three city, state, and county offices, including the Colorado Office of New Americans (ONA) and the Department of Local Affairs (DOLA). The state and local officials explained that three apartment complexes run by CBZ management were chosen to house the illegal immigrants because the property managers failed to do basic due diligence on their tenants.
“No housing quality inspections were completed to check for even basic life safety concerns prior to placing individuals in apartments,” Prosser writes.
She goes on to say the CBZ apartments were chosen because they “had lower rent, lack of consistency with providing leases, and more leniency with the number of people in each unit.”
When reached for comment, Prosser referred NR to her communications department. They did not respond.
CBZ did not respond to a request for comment.
The nonprofits chose to unload the migrants in Aurora without asking permission from the city or coordinating with local officials in any way, Jurinsky told NR.
In February, Aurora reaffirmed their status as a non-sanctuary city and passed a resolution banning the transportation of migrants into city limits.
The resolution “demands that other municipalities and entities do not systematically transport migrants . . . to the city for temporary housing without the City first being given an opportunity to coordinate such assistance.”
‘That’s a Takeover’
Colorado governor Jared Polis and local progressives have tried to downplay the chaos and violence that’s descended on Aurora, pushing back on Mayor Mike Coffman’s claim that the CBZ apartments have been “taken over” by gangs. But, according to Cindy Romero, who used to live at the Edge apartments, that’s exactly what’s happened.
“They want to say there’s no takeover. I don’t know what your definition of ‘takeover’ is, but there were no managers, no owners, the housekeepers were being harassed, and these guys changed the locks to the outside of buildings.”
“I saw them breaking down doors and taking pictures, then showing the apartments to different families like they were real-estate agents.”
According to the same email, ViVe and Papagayo worked together to place “many” individuals and migrant families in the apartments dating back to spring of 2023 and provided, in some cases, the deposit and three months’ rent. The two nonprofits had placed 8,000 Venezuelan migrants across 2,000 leases in Aurora as of April, according to the Colorado Sun, though it’s unclear exactly how many of those ended up in CBZ buildings.
“That’s a takeover.”
Romero says August 18 was one of many days her calls to police went unanswered. “I called them at 7:54 a.m. to report seeing six men with three automatic weapons, and APD called me back and said they couldn’t do anything about it.”
“That was a terrible thing for them to ignore, but they said they couldn’t do anything about it until something happened.”
“Well, it did,” says Romero. “My friend is dead.”
APD confirmed that Romero’s neighbor, Oswaldo Jose Dabion Araujo, 25, died as a result of a shootout, likely killed by the very armed men Romero had reported to police. Romero says she wasn’t close with Araujo, but called him her friend.
“I used to let him go through my trash. . . . I could write a book on all the crazy things we’ve been thru [sic]. And I still helped everyone that I could. I left furniture and clothes and food for the ones with families.”
Who’s Keeping It Real with Citizens?
After a video showing armed men breaking into an apartment in Aurora went viral on social media, garnering national media attention, Aurora mayor Mike Coffman vowed to get to the bottom of the situation.
The mayor explained in an interview with a local Fox affiliate that he believed, based on his conversations with residents, that the property managers, CBZ Management, were “chased off” the property by gang members.
Coffman even speculated at the time, “Is it an agency or the federal government perhaps using some of our local nonprofit partners here as a conduit?”
Coffman has not yet come back to the public with the answers to the questions he raised. But the email obtained by NR confirms his suspicion: Nonprofit groups, funded by Denver taxpayers, are sending Venezuelan migrants into Aurora in large numbers, and many of those migrants have turned out to be members of a violent gang — a gang that is heavily involved in fentanyl trafficking, according to the DEA.
Follow the Money
According to their website, ViVe’s mission is “health equity through physical and emotional wellbeing.”
In a Facebook post from December 2023, the executive director of ViVe Wellness, Yoli Casas, called Papagayo Vive’s “right-hand.”
Papagayo’s mission is to “influence through programs that foster the development of educational, comprehensive, social and cultural development of the community in Colorado.”
According to an article by City Journal, between 2023 and 2024, the city of Denver gave ViVe and Papagayo $4.8 million and $774,000, respectively. According to public records, much of this funding came from the Migrant Support Grant, which was funded by ARPA. Then, in 2024, ViVe secured an extra $10.4 million across three contracts, while Papagayo received $2.9 million from a single contract to serve migrants; two of those five contracts were awarded to implement the Denver Asylum Seekers Program, which promised six months of rental assistance to nearly 1,000 migrants.
Neither ViVe nor Papagayo responded to requests for comment.
Drugs and Child Prostitution
Crimes and citations have more than doubled at two of the CBZ apartment complexes — Whispering Pines and Aspen Grove — since 2022, while nearly doubling at the third complex, Edge at Lowry, according to the Common Sense Institute, a non-partisan think tank.
The owner of the apartments hired a Colorado law firm to investigate the alleged gang takeover of the Whispering Pines Apartments, CBS News reported. The report concluded Tren de Aragua members committed a long list of crimes including: trespassing, unlawful firearm possession, assaults, threats of murder, extortion, strong-arm tactics, and child prostitution.
TdA now uses the formally vacant units to host “parties” where they “serve drugs and child prostitution,” according to the report. The property manager told the law-firm investigators that “minors are a good source of money.”
The report further revealed a consultant for the property manager was so severely beaten and stomped by gang members that he had to go to the hospital. And a housekeeper was threatened to give up her keys. The suspects said if she didn’t comply, they would kill her or her family.
The officer concluded his report with, “I would highly recommend you guys take two to three friends with you when responding to any calls there.”
