What’s the Solution?
Sandpoint for work. She questions why it’s so difficult even for natives with jobs. “Those of us who are born and raised here PHOTO BY EMY LOU MCNOSKY still can’t afford to live GOOD-PAYING JOBS here without being completely house-poor,” Thali Munoz is from Sandpoint but still she said. “The cost of living versus wages is can’t afford to live here. She said people need pretty outrageous, period.” a job before they move here. “The issue from THE LONG HAUL my point of view is people fall in love with it Jeannine Prince, a native, wrote that the only here, move here and then go ‘Oh crap.’ It’s way her family can afford living here is because expensive to live here and the pay isn’t that her husband is a long-haul trucker, on the road great,” she wrote. an average of 330 days a year. Debra Townsend lives in Priest River be“My grandparents came here in the early cause it’s less expensive, and commutes to
TRAILER LOVE
Tim Groenig doesn’t think there is necessarily a housing problem. “Some of us chose to live in trailers or home-built cabins ... that’s why we moved to North Idaho!”
ESTATE
It’s complicated, but planners must identify the specific problem. Sandpoint’s Planning and Economic Development Director Aaron Qualls is working to do just that. “This really is one of the biggest challenges the city has right now,” Qualls said, explaining there are several factors that play into the erosion of affordable housing in Sandpoint. He lists a combination of out-of-state retirees; an uptick in the economy that sparks job growth; an increase in second-home buyers; a significant increase in manufacturing jobs; and people purchasing rentals and converting them to vacation rentals. From an economic development perspective, the housing mar-
REAL
“The wages and market just don’t go hand in hand,” he said. Tara Ames Turner sold her house in Spokane with the dream of building on her family’s property in Dover, where she grew up and wanted to raise her son. Yet after Turner and husband Wayne tallied Dover’s hookup costs for water, sewer and power, they decided it didn’t make financial sense. For the same amount as hookups, the family can buy nearly 20 acres near Elmira. “It’s more than Spokane,” Turner said about Dover’s reincarnation as a resort town. Her family has lived there for four generations, but now they can’t afford to build on their own land. “It’s just sad,” she said.
1900s, and my mom and her brothers and sisters were born here, but all left to find work, but one, who was a logger.” Ireta Remsburg wrote that property owners think their rentals are “worth gold. They won’t bend and be flexible enough to allow a lot of lower-income people to rent,” she wrote. “If you do find a rental it costs as much as a frigging down payment. And if you have animals? Well, forget it. That is why we had to buy a dump, but we have some of our dogs, horses and chickens.”
Local resources for home seekers: Sandpoint Yard Sale on Facebook www.SandpointClassifieds.com www.SandpointRentals.com
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