Housing program plugging along

There's a new city council on the block. With councilor Tom Muri's resignation and three newly elected councilors, the makeup of the six-person body will be mostly new members this year.

And as mayor Andy Feury pointed out recently, as the seventh person sitting at the table, he only gets to vote once in a while.

A big topic right out of the starting blocks this year is affordable housing. Whitefish Housing Authority director SueAnn Grogan says she made her presentation to the council Jan. 17 to "provide information."

Those who regularly attend council sessions know there's been some misinformation passed on recently about affordable housing — Grogan's program is not struggling. WHA said they would provide eight homes last year, and they did.

The biggest problem facing Grogan is the rising cost of lots, materials and construction. Like the tragic Greek character Sisyphus — who's condemned by the gods to ceaselessly roll a boulder up a hill only to have it to roll back down again — each time the Whitefish Housing Authority figures out another way to help lower income people buy homes, the prices go up.

Grogan says she finds herself using her program's money to help families get into a house that was built to be affordable in the first place, whether it's a unit provided by a developer or one the Whitefish Housing Authority built itself. This is something the council should take a closer look at.

The reaction to this problem by some councilors has been to raise the idea of mandatory affordable housing. Mandating that developers provide affordable homes in their projects has met with considerable opposition in the past — including accusations of "socialism."

Grogan says she would prefer to "tweak" the existing voluntary system. She says it could take a few years to get a zoning ordinance for mandatory housing on the books, and she'd rather keep plugging away at providing affordable homes now.

The Whitefish Housing Authority's board has set a goal of providing eight units per year. While some may say that's not enough, Grogan says she's had to turn away about 90 applicants — most were too poor to qualify, and many had bad credit scores.

Grogan — who's a whiz with numbers —has managed to come up with some clever ways to help people get into homeownership. Her latest proposal is to put a deed restriction on homes so their prices don't go up with the marketplace. The owners could still make some money when they sell, but prices would hopefully stay "affordable."

Which raises the issue of just what is an affordable house? As Grogan points out, the applicants who couldn't qualify for her program in Whitefish also couldn't qualify in Kalispell and Columbia Falls.

There's no easy answer to providing affordable housing in Whitefish — the solution involves a wide range of issues, from economic opportunity to planning and growth. Anyone expecting a quick fix should take a closer look.