Affordable housing funds on commissioners’ agenda

Flathead County Commissioners have added House Bill 819 to the agenda for the Dec. 31 meeting at 8:45 a.m. The hearing will be on the third floor of the Old Courthouse at 800 South Main in Kalispell. The public is welcome to attend and comment. 

The Montana Legislature passed House Bill 819 in 2023. The bill allocated $50 million to counties for home ownership assistance programs. Flathead County’s share of those funds is $4.5 million.  

To receive the money, each county requires a Community Reinvestment Organization (CRO) to come up with a one-to-one match.  

“Potentially, there are $9 million to be used for housing in Flathead County but the county commissioners need to choose a CRO to work with and they need to approve it and they need to do so by the end of this year,” Kim Morisaki, executive director of the Northwest Montana Community Land Trust, said at a recent Whitefish City Council meeting.  

Morisaki said NeighborWorks Montana is the proposed organization to serve as the CRO. She said they have 25 years of housing finance experience. They would run it as a nonprofit and get the matching funds from private investors.  

The funds would help people under 140% area median income.