Ketchum resident Rebekah Helzel is not your typical advocate for affordable housing.
She isn't looking for a new, more-affordable place to live. She isn't getting paid for her work. And her primary agenda item is making sure the town where she lives doesn't become as quietly exclusive as the one where she once lived.
Helzel, who has been a full-time resident of Ketchum for five years, is the founder and director of a new nonprofit organization called Advocates for Real Community Housing, or ARCH. She started ARCH last summer, in part because she saw Ketchum becoming more and more like the small city she left behind: Mill Valley, Calif., a well-to-do hamlet located north of San Francisco.
"I see some of the same things happening here as I did there," Helzel said. "People are disappearing or struggling to stay because of the high cost of housing. Teachers, firemen and other essential workers just can't afford to live where they work."
Helzel said she started ARCH—using her own personal savings account—out of "a concern for the community," most notably its lack of deed-restricted community housing. Today, the group has 12 associates who work toward a common mission of promoting community housing and educating the public about why it is a vital element of Western mountain towns.
"This issue needed to have more focus," Helzel said. "It's a complicated thing. A lot of residents don't really understand that the problem exists or why it exists."
The problem, Helzel said, is not only well documented, it is seemingly exacerbated every day. Exorbitant sums are paid for Ketchum and Sun Valley properties, a large percentage of them for part-time use. Prices go up, from Ketchum to Carey, and home ownership becomes out of reach for more and more workers.
Some stay but are economically stressed. Others commute to their jobs from more affordable communities far to the south. Still others—including emergency workers, hospital employees, teachers and city staffers—leave for greener pastures elsewhere.
Eventually, services critical to all residents go into decline.
"The attitude here has often been, 'So what? Let them eat cake. Let them commute from Twin Falls,'" Helzel said. "But a town that has too many part-time residents can't survive. A town can decline to the point that it no longer functions as it should. It becomes a ghost town."
The warnings are not entirely new, Helzel admitted, but are too often being ignored by leaders who could stand to bring change. Some aspects of the problem are simply by-products of the free market, she said, but "a lack of political will to make a difference" has also played a role.
"I think the intentions have been right but not enough has been done to make a real impact."
Despite the ever-increasing efforts of the Blaine-Ketchum Housing Authority—a government-subsidized organization that ARCH cooperates with—Blaine County currently has only 22 deed-restricted community-housing units, she noted. The resort area of Aspen, Colo., she said, has 2,500 affordable housing units but still struggles to maintain economic diversity.
The BKHA has succeeded in promoting 40 deed-restricted community-housing units that are now under construction and has estimated that several proposed development projects could bring 400 more in the coming years.
However, even if that best-case scenario is realized, Helzel said, Blaine County will still face a sizable deficiency in affordable units.
Once under the community's radar, ARCH has been increasingly active in recent months. Helzel has been regularly lobbying the Ketchum and Sun Valley city councils to act swiftly to build community housing or pass legislation that requires developers to do so.
"I would like to see some developers go the extra mile instead of fighting the housing issue every inch," she said.
Immediate goals of ARCH, Helzel said, include planning a "Blaine County Community Housing Week" to take place this summer and encouraging qualified community-housing applicants to add their name to the BKHA housing-candidates list.
While ARCH is operating on her funds alone, Helzel said, she hopes the organization will soon be the recipient of grants and sponsorships that could bolster the organization's budget.
To contact ARCH, call 726-4111. To contact the BKHA, call 788-6102.
Rebekah Helzel, founding director of Ketchum-based Advocates for Real Community Housing, is heading an effort to significantly boost the number of affordable-housing units offered to families and individuals in the Wood River Valley. Photo by David N. Seelig
