Rebekah Helzel is a founder of ARCH (Advocates for Real Community Housing), based in Ketchum.
Compassion has been the focus of this week's events and the centerpiece of His Holiness the Dalai Lama's address to our community. It is the inspiration for this op-ed piece as well.
We have an affordable housing crisis in the Wood River Valley. While recognition is growing that firefighters, teachers, nurses and police officers must be able to live in our community, there is little or no recognition of how deep the housing crisis goes and how many individuals and families are affected.
Workers often must hold two or three jobs and commute two or three hours a day. The result is the erosion of family time and the opportunity for the children of hardworking families to succeed. Hardworking people should be able to afford housing and still have enough money for groceries and other basic necessities.
In very few places in the world is the gap between the wealthy and the working people as wide as it is here. It is the disregard for this disparity that causes undesirable social consequences. In very few places in the world are the wealthy as generous as they are here—contributing to a wide range of important causes: the local hospital, the animal shelter and the arts. I am challenging our community to focus that compassion and generosity on the people, that seen or unseen, contribute greatly to the quality of our life. They too deserve some quality of life. I challenge you to support the people who support you.
For those not inspired by compassion—the economic consequences of not addressing the issue of the lack of affordable housing for our workforce is also severe. Safety- fire, health and protection- are already compromised. The services that the wealthy expect when they visit or live in the Valley are already being eroded by the lack of workforce. Many north valley businesses, where over 70% of the Valley's jobs are located, are moving, closing and cutting back on services due to the lack of people to employ. The building and real estate markets that much of our economy has come to rely on will eventually suffer as the Valley becomes a less attractive place to visit or live. The demographics of the ski industry are not growing and regardless of our love of Baldy, there are many resorts to choose from in Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, California and now also another well-publicized one in Idaho. Most of these other resort economies are aggressively managing the workforce housing issue, thereby ensuring a level of service commensurate with the price of being there. For those of you driven by monetary preservation and growth, I challenge you to step up and address your community's economic interests along with your own.
