Our City · Our Future
We're neighbors organizing neighbors in southeast Colorado Springs — showing what the ballot decides, registering voters, building the coalition, and cultivating the leaders this community already has. One conversation, one block, one election at a time.
Who We Are
Southside Leads is a community organization founded by and for the people of the Southside of Colorado Springs. Our neighborhoods are home to more Black and Brown families than any other part of the city — and year after year, they cast fewer ballots than any other part of the city.
That's not an accident. And it's not permanent. When the Southside votes, the Southside shows its power — on schools, on housing, on streets and parks and public safety. Our job is to make sure every neighbor has a reason to vote, a plan to vote, and a community behind them when they do.
Why This Work
of southeast voters (City Council District 4) cast a ballot in the April 2025 city election — barely half the citywide rate of about 24%.
total votes decided who represents the entire southeast on City Council that spring.
Roughly half the neighbors in 80910 and 80916 are Hispanic or Black — about double the citywide share.
And the ballot box isn't the only gap.
gap between the median household income in 80910 and the city as a whole ($61,969 vs. $84,818).
Life expectancy in parts of the southeast runs up to 16 years shorter than elsewhere in Colorado Springs.
hotter on summer days than the rest of the city — less tree cover, more pavement.
of southeast children live in poverty, versus 18% citywide. Two of every five poor children in Colorado Springs live here.
The pattern repeats wherever you look. The southeast is a federally designated food desert — for many neighbors, the nearest full supermarket is a twenty-minute drive. Finishing high school here matches the rest of the city, but adults on the Southside are far less likely to hold a four-year degree — a gap of opportunity, not of talent.
None of this is permanent. A recent $9 million federal forestry grant is putting more than 12,000 new trees into southeast neighborhoods — proof that when the Southside gets attention, investment follows. Lower turnout is not apathy; it is what happens when a community is asked for its vote but never shown its power. Every conversation about the issues, every vote, every Southsider walking the halls of government breaks that cycle and starts a new one.
Sources: City of Colorado Springs, certified 2025 election results · U.S. Census Bureau ACS via Colorado Demographics (80910, 80916) and Census Reporter · Income by Zip Code (ACS) · El Paso County Public Health via KRDO · Colorado College heat study via KOAA · The Gazette · Colorado Public Radio
The Vision
Ask a neighbor who's been here thirty years and they'll tell you: the Southside used to have more. Not wealth — but more of what makes a place a place. Family restaurants. Shops with an owner's name on them. Somewhere to be on a Friday night without leaving the neighborhood.
A lot of that has thinned out. When storefronts close and so many neighbors are stationed here just a few years at a time, shared identity takes real work — it doesn't happen on its own. What's missing isn't pride. It's the places and the names to hang it on.
So here's what victory looks like to us: streets where Southside families own the businesses. Development that serves the people and their prosperity. Landmarks our kids point to. A neighborhood people are from — and come back to. A Southside that leads the city in voter turnout instead of trailing it, with people from our community holding office at every level of government. A Southside that decides its own future.
You know things the numbers don't. If you remember what the Southside had — or you're living what it lacks — tell us. What neighbors share is what shapes this vision and our priorities, and your story stays yours: we don't publish a word of it, or your name, without asking you.
Share Your StoryWhat We Do
A ballot is abstract. The rent isn't. Our messaging campaigns start from daily life — schools, housing, streets, the grocery store that closed — and show exactly which lines on the ballot decide each one. The stakes were always real. Our job is to make them visible.
We meet neighbors where they are — at the door, at church, at the cookout — to register new voters, share what's on the ballot, and make sure everyone has a plan to cast it. Every cycle, more of the Southside votes than the cycle before.
Churches, schools, small businesses, community organizations, neighborhood associations, families who've been here for generations and military families just putting down roots — the Southside is strongest when we move together. We connect the people already doing the work.
The Southside deserves representatives who know these streets because they live on them. The leaders are already here — our job is to find them, give them what they need, and put them on a path to lead their community, their city, their state, and their country.
The Long Game
We're not a campaign. Campaigns end in November; we'll still be building the infrastructure for power in December. Southside Leads measures progress in years and election cycles, not news cycles — a few more voters each time, a few more partners at the table, a few more leaders empowered to step up.
We're not waiting for a wave. We're building one.
Get Involved
It takes two things to build this: time and money. Bring whichever you have — there's a place for you here.
Email Us: info@southsideleads.org