Montana housing crisis continues, but possible solutions arise

Montana continues to face a housing shortage as more and more people and families choose to make the state their home and economists and policy experts from around the state are looking for possible solutions.

Among them is Abigail St. Lawrence, a Butte attorney who’s spent her career practicing in water rights and natural resources as well as environmental and administrative law, who has extensive experience in government relations and policy.

St. Lawrence spoke by video at last month’s 2022 Economic Outlook Seminar talking about her 18 years of experience and what she thinks Montana needs to do to solve the housing crisis, though she admitted some of her perspectives may be unpopular.

She said the current housing crisis has been a long time coming and is the result of a number of factors, but the most significant factors are not a result of the state’s failures, but its successes.

She said people are living longer and staying in the own homes longer, a good thing to be sure, but one of the consequences of that is less housing availability.

St. Lawrence also said families tend to be smaller that they used to be, which means even if the state wasn’t seeing a population increase the population is spread out over more households.

On the subject of population, she said Montana’s rose 10 percent between the 2010 and 2020 censuses and in the past year it has risen by 1.6 percent and a big part of this population growth, especially recently, is people moving in from other states.

She said Montana is one of only six states to see more people come than leave during the pandemic.

She said the state has always been popular for vacations, but since the pandemic has made it clear that remote work is more viable for many businesses than previously thought many are deciding to make their favorite vacation spot their new home.

St. Lawrence said Montana has long touted itself as a great place and people, herself included, take great pride in the state, and while some may be uncomfortable with so many people from out of state moving in, its just the natural consequence of Montana’s success as a state.

“We all know Montana is a great place to build a life and a home, and a lot of other people are realizing that too,” she said. “ ... So we can’t be surprised.”

However, she said, the state’s population growth has not been kept up with by housing, as housing between the 2010 and 2020 censuses has only risen 7 percent compared to the 10 percent rise in population.

She said this is a complex problem, but she believes there are solutions, though some may be uncomfortable.

Montana and change

St. Lawrence said Montanans often jokingly say that people are welcome to come to Montana to spend their money on tourism and vacation but need to go home and leave them alone when they’re done.

She said that needs to change, because Montana is changing.

She said the people of the state are proud of their state’s rural qualities, as they should be, but newcomers to the state are arriving and they should embrace them and the different perspectives they can bring to the state, including when it comes to housing.

Let them be part of the solution, she said.

St. Lawrence said by embracing change Montanans can control the direction of the state far better than if they simply resist it, because change, as uncomfortable as it is, is inevitable.

She said Montanans staying true to their values and embracing change are not mutually exclusive and she believes the people of the state are strong enough to do both and be be better for it, drawing strength from the new perspectives people bring to the state.

“If we embrace it rather than fight it, we’ll have the chance to shape it in the direction we want to go,” she said.

Diverse new housing, zoning regulations and trades education

St. Lawrence said another uncomfortable truth Montanans have to come to terms with is that part of the solution to the problem is building new housing, at all price points and of all kinds, including housing supported by vouchers and subsidies as well as housing trusts and low-income housing.

She said there are, of course, many ways to solve the problem, but part of it has to be new housing, especially within urban areas.

“We have to build,” she said. “It’s not the only solution, but we do have to build.”

She said larger cities need to have more housing within their borders, or else the new housing will have to expand further into Montana’s open spaces and she doesn’t think many Montanan’s want that.

The third big thing Montanans need to do is to start saying yes to specific projects, St. Lawrence said.

All too often, she said, she’ll hear Montanan’s say “I support housing, but ...” and this “not in my backyard” attitude is something that needs to change.

“Somehow, it is never the right place, the right time, the right way to do new housing, and that attitude has caught up with us, and put us where we are now,” she said.

St. Lawrence said Montanans need to be open not just to new housing, but to people with different housing needs.

She said she so frequently hears people making uninformed generalizations about people that live in multi-family housing and people who rent, often from people who should know better, many of them probably having once rented themselves.

“I don’t know about you, but I didn’t start out as a home owner,” she said.

St. Lawrence also said state and local zoning regulations are, more often than not, used as a way to deny new housing, however, she wants to make clear she’s not advocating getting rid of zoning rules.

She said a lot of people in the political sphere of Montana have been advocating radical deregulation when it comes to zoning, which she said is nonsensical and dangerously misinformed, however, she does believe these regulations are often used to say no to new housing, which needs to change.

Another attitude shift she said she’s like to see is toward people learning trades.

St. Lawrence said she believes the trades have become culturally devalued in recent times and institutions need to work at getting more students into trades.

“The world doesn’t need more attorneys, as much as I’d like to think otherwise,” she said.

She specifically pointed to Montana State University-Northern as a great example of a school that knows the value of trades and works hard to support students with programs tailored to those who want to learn them.

St. Lawrence said she understands that some of what she is proposing will make Montanans uncomfortable, and understandably so.

She said places like north-central Montana especially have endured a great deal of change in the energy economy, the ups and downs of the agriculture sector and more, but she believes the changes she’s proposing will help solve the crisis at hand and prepare Montana for what’s to come.

“We cannot meet future needs with current resources and we cannot build the resources to deal with our future needs without some change,” she said.