Big Mountain Road project provides needed affordable housing

Early in December I was in bed reading, about to lose my page as I dozed off when my partner came into the room suddenly. “Oh my god… I think there’s someone yelling for help outside.”

I slipped on pants and rushed to the front door just as a woman arrived, frantically calling for help. She was bruised and scraped up, with no pants or shoes. Hands bound behind her back, and face, neck, and shoulders wrapped several times with duct tape. I’ll leave further details for upcoming court proceedings, but the important piece here is that a survivor of domestic abuse was able to escape her captor and travel down a snow-covered road to my house.

You may be wondering what this has to do with your agenda items today. I can distill it to the simple answer of “housing.” Recent discussions around housing development, particularly of the affordable, attainable, and workforce flavors, have centered around neighborhood character, runoff, the effectiveness of roundabouts, and how long it takes to get home from the ski hill on a powder day. But let’s talk about housing as a people issue.

In my capacity working with Flathead Valley teens in a nonprofit setting, the stresses and anxieties related to housing instability among the youth and families I work with are almost crippling. People are stuck in abusive situations and individuals and families are bouncing from home to home looking for some semblance of stability as their once-affordable housing situation dissolves from under them - simply because they cannot afford to go anywhere else.

We as a community continue to lose our most affordable living options while we simultaneously focus on new construction and redevelopment on the opposite side of the spectrum. The families I work with, and I presume the woman at my door, are not the people who will be living in the 56 newly-approved units adjacent to Grouse Mountain Lodge, nor are they competitive in this “red hot” seller’s market... They are more likely to be the ones seeing their apartment complex redeveloped into a hospitality complex or having a new landlord on a recently-sold house that comes with a 20%, 30%, or 40% increase in rent. These are our new realities in Whitefish.

I’ve lost some sleep in recent weeks. Yes, thinking about the woman at my door that night in December and the presence of an abusive neighbor who could do such a thing to someone, released back into his home in this community within days of the incident. But also about what the challenging (and by no means improving) housing market means for anyone who is in, or could find themselves in, unhealthy, unsafe, and insecure living situations, because that is all that is available to them.

I do applaud your work and dedication to addressing the housing challenges of this town - and I do know there are great things in motion because of your diligent and passionate care for this community. This is why I implore you to support use of all the tools in your toolbox.

The Mountain Gateway project might come with some traffic challenges (but then again, so does continued growth on Big Mountain, or six consecutive years of record-breaking season pass sales, to the tune of 10% increases annually). It might “only” give land for a fire station, not the actual structures or operating budgets (but I’d argue it’s not a developer’s job to provide city services like that). The higher density units might not fit in with the “community character” of the neighborhood, at least in the sense of what houses look like.

Again, let’s talk about housing as a people issue. I want my community character to be the people, not what the building they live in looks like. I want people to have housing options so they can more easily escape domestic violence. I want my friends not to have to worry about their rental home going on the market. I want to see more long-term rentals, and more condos and townhomes with deed restrictions for permanent affordability. I want this project, and future ones like it, to be examined for what opportunities it brings in support of the backbone of this community - the people.

But that’s just me. And love it or hate it, Mountain Gateway checks those boxes.

Ben Johnson lives in Whitefish.