Out-of-staters to blame for rising housing costs

The week before last J. Bailey wrote a letter to the editor, "There's too much hype about the have-nots." Mr. Bailey's contention is that the 65 percent of our community who can no longer afford to own a house should become entrepreneurs or further their education. Up until 1990 affordable housing in Whitefish wasn't a problem. An older house on Columbia or Dakota sold for $50,000 and you could find a house in the railroad district for $20,000 or $25,000. Those same houses now sell for four times as much. Meanwhile, Montana was last in the nation in personal income a few years ago and is now 47th.

The reason housing sells for four times as much today is because Flathead County's population has doubled in the past 20 years. All those out-of-staters who have moved to Whitefish from states like California, Texas, Florida, etc., many with personal incomes in the top 10, not at the bottom 50. There's the problem Mr. Bailey. Local housing costs are no longer related to local income but are related to out-of-staters' income and housing costs, and our housing is still inexpensive compared to California. Also, a study done in 1998 reports that each new out-of-stater costs the Whitefish community $15,224 above what they contribute in taxes, which is why many locals are being taxed off their property.

An obvious solution to the problem would be to not let out-of-staters move in. Demand would slacken and housing prices would come down, sprawl development would stop, farm land would remain farm land, state lands would remain forest, and workers' wages would increase since there won't be five people waiting to take our jobs. So, let's stop immigration.

Or we can acknowledge the fact that working folks in Whitefish cannot compete with the vast sums of the trickle down out-of-state money. Aspen and Vail (Colorado) have affordable housing programs, albeit too little, too late. Unfortunately, the majority of our present City Council has blinders on and refuses to look at how other communities are addressing the issue. City Council insists that developers should provide affordable housing voluntarily. Two years ago this coming November the development community told the Affordable Housing Committee and the Whitefish Planning Board that they would provide 10 percent of new development as affordable housing, voluntarily. That would have been around 35 units. None have been built to date. But, hey, the development community has three months left to live up to their end of the bargain. And because of this our young families are moving to Columbia Falls and Kalispell where housing is more affordable. That's more highway traffic and air pollution that affects rich and poor. Our four new Whitefish police officers all live outside our community; makes all us gray heads feel safer, right?

As for DePratu Ford needing to give our gas-hog F-350 Power Stroke diesels, there's plenty of smaller cars around at affordable prices that are much cheaper to operate. Owning a car isn't the problem, affordable housing and immigration are.

Ward B. McCartney, III

Whitefish