The Nation - News from July 24, 1989

Rent subsidies of more than $16 million for Denver housing projects were approved two years ago after Joseph Coors, the Colorado brewer, wrote to HUD Secretary Samuel R. Pierce Jr., a newspaper reported. The New York Times cited government documents in stating that the Denver application appeared headed for rejection before the letter from Coors, a friend of former President Ronald Reagan. Thomas T. Demery, a former official at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, in an interview with the paper, said that a HUD selection committee had been told by Pierce to give “very careful consideration (to the application).” Demery said that the panel scrapped a low-income housing proposal in Michigan to make room for the Denver application.