17 November 2021 — 1125 mst

Can affordable housing be provided in the Flathead
without a significant transfer of wealth from rich to poor?

I doubt that it can — and I doubt that question will arise during this evening’s panel discussion on affordable housing this evening up in Whitefish (when, where).

“Affordable housing” is a catch all phrase for housing that workers with incomes low relative to housing costs in their communities can afford. It’s hard and getting harder to find these days in the Flathead.

Who are these workers? Some are the usual suspects: busboys, waiters, cooks, and bartenders; motel maids and night auditors; carpenters not making union wages; receptionists. Others are not: nurses, dental technicians, teachers, social workers, entry level constables and firefighters.

What’s happening is no secret. The Flathead is a beautiful place to live that’s caught the fancy of hundreds if not thousands of Americans with deep pockets and portable professions. They’re fleeing the cities and settling here, bidding up real estate prices to levels that regular Joes and Janes cannot afford.

Even if developers can be persuaded to build less pretentious dwellings, which means accepting less profit, or profit is removed from the cost of construction by setting up a not for profit government blessed housing authority, the cost of materials and land still puts the price of new construction out of Joe’s and Jane’s reach. So does the skyrocketing price of older housing and rentals.

Unless we’re going to tolerate slums of tents and tarpaper shacks on the outskirts of towns — and we’re not — we’re left with only one way to bridge the gap to affordability: substantial transfers of wealth from the rich to the new poor to finance government subsidies for housing. That’s a rational and reasonable solution — probably the only effective solution — but it’s a solution that will meet close to deranged resistance from developers, theologians of priviate enterprise, and the Republican Party, which wants those who need affordable housing to staff their stores and schools but does not want to pay a living wage.

That’s the dilemma. It should be discussed tonight. But will it be discussed? If you attend, let me know what happens.