Denver’s housing market is red hot, but it’s one “responding to the greatest return on investment, not to the greatest needs of our people,” Denver Mayor Michael Hancock said during his annual “State of the City” address this week.

In recent years, many have found themselves priced out of the housing market or unable to make rent which has perpetually risen for years.

“Our economics must be accompanied by an empathy and compassion,” Hancock said in the speech at the Hiawatha Davis Jr. Recreation Center in Denver’s Park Hill neighborhood. “Where profits and people carry equal weight.”

During the address, Hancock announced the city would launch a pilot program to convert 400 existing vacant apartments into affordable housing for low-to-moderate income resident.

“We have apartments sitting vacant because there’s a gap between what it costs and what people can afford,” Hancock said.

The city will partner with the Housing Authority, local businesses and apartment owners to help bridge that gap in housing affordability through the program, Hancock said.

Hancock said the city is securing vacant sites for future affordable housing, and a mortgage tax credit for first-time home buyers among others was re-upped this year.

The city has already helped create 3,000 units of affordable housing over the past four years, one year under their estimate. Hancock said another 1,000 units are under construction and an additional 1,500 should get underway next year. Hancock also noted the 250 supportive housing units, with health services, the city is building to help the working homeless.

Find the full transcript of Hancock’s speech, including Hancock’s plan for transportation and mobility, increased parks and recreation access and his comments on the Paris climate agreement and undocumented immigrants in Denver.