The Daily Inter Lake

Affordable-housing coalition to brief city

A loose-knit coalition of affordable-housing interests will brief the Kalispell City Council tonight on issues affecting the area's lack of non-expensive homes.

Documents sent to the council say that potential approaches to the lack of affordable housing in Kalispell include:

-Setting up education programs for public officials, employers and home buyers.

-Setting up programs that target families earning from 80 percent to 125 percent of the area's median income, ensuring that such families don't pay more than 30 percent of their income on their monthly house payments. Median income means 50 percent of an area's families earn more than 50 percent of that figure, and 50 percent earn less than that number.

- Governments offering breaks to developers who build affordable houses.

- Setting up Community Land Trusts, in which an nonprofit organization owns the land and leases it to the family that will then own the actual house on the land.

-Participating more in self-help home construction programs.

-Participating more in federal housing loan programs.

Also at 7 p.m. today:

- The council is scheduled to discuss a draft of the Kalispell Parks and Recreation master plan for dealing with future growth.