Frantic tenants losing hope. Land prices up 250%. Inside Boise’s affordability crisis
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Affording Boise: Rental housing
Soaring rents. Skyrocketing home prices. The double-digit rates of increase in the costs of Boise-area housing create increasingly urgent problems for low-income, working-class and even moderate-income Idahoans who need places to live. Affording Boise is a series of Idaho Statesman special reports on housing. This collection focuses on rental homes, including apartments. A separate collection focuses on homeownership.
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Deanna Watson says she understands how people feel when they’re desperate to find a place to live or to keep from getting priced out of a rental.
Watson, the executive director of the Boise City/Ada County Housing Authorities, told an online forum that her daughter has been battling a life-threatening condition that requires Watson to pay thousands of dollars every month for prescription drugs that aren’t fully covered by insurance.
“She needs to survive,” Watson said. “And what that has done to me and for me, a person who has a decent job and a decent income, is to begin to really internalize what it’s like to live life in that fight-or-flight mode all the time.”
Watson joined Boise City Council member Lisa Sanchez and Boise developer Clay Carley in the Thursday forum about the Treasure Valley’s housing problem. The forum was organized by The Idaho Statesman as part of Affording Boise, a continuing series about the effects the area’s rapidly escalating housing prices are having on a once-affordable community.
When the wind blows, Watson said, she worries a tree may topple and damage her home. She wonders what she’ll do if her car breaks down. It’s made her realize what it’s like to live a life without having enough.
“I see that in the people that we serve,” Watson said. “When they are struggling so hard, they can’t pick their head up. It’s hard for them to advocate for themselves, because their stress level is so high and their fear level is so high and their loss of hope runs so deep.”
Boise-area apartments $1,200+ a month, houses $550,000
The problem has been caused by the area’s explosive growth and a lack of available houses and apartments, panel members said. The median rent is now $1,038 a month for a one-bedroom apartment and $1,232 for a two-bedroom apartment, with apartment rents rising 35.6% since March 2020, according to Apartment List, a leasing platform.
The median price of a house in Ada County rose from $366,950 in March 2020 to $549,900 in February, according to the Intermountain Multiple Listing Service.
Ada County’s population has grown from 392,396 in 2000 to 518,300 last year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau and the Community Planning Association of Southwest Idaho.
“We have seen kind of a perfect storm happen to Boise,” Watson said. “Between 2017 and 2019, all the different publications rated Boise as the best city to live in. I saw where 194% more people moved in than moved out over the last couple of years.”
Carley said land prices in the Treasure Valley have increased by 250% in the past decade. Construction costs have risen 40% in the last five years.
“And the replacement cost for new product is extremely expensive,” Carley said. “That means that anybody looking for a place to live is going to be paying close to 100% more than they would 10 years ago.”
Developer: Affordable-apartment construction requires big subsidy
The average apartment unit costs $350,000 to build, Carley said. That means rents have to be “extraordinarily high,” he said. For rents to be reasonable for individuals and families making low to moderate incomes, 40% of the cost would have to be subsidized by government or foundation grants that would not have to be paid back, he said.
He said Vienna, Austria, has a $600 million annual budget for affordable housing, in a city of 1.8 million people. Idaho, with a similar population, created a one-time, $50 million fund for workhouse housing. There’s also $5 million to $6 million available through federal tax credits.
“I’m not saying we should be Vienna, but we are so under-supported financially,” Carley said. “And we need a tool to allow each community in our state to go to voters and decide through sales tax whether they want to support more affordable housing.”
Sanchez said much of the new construction has targeted buyers and renters with higher incomes. That includes luxury apartments and condominiums in downtown Boise and housing projects throughout town that are out of reach of first-time buyers.
“That’s why states and municipalities have to ensure that we have affordable housing for those folks who do not have the income to meet those higher rates,” said Sanchez who rents half of a duplex north of State Street. “It’s unfortunate that Idaho is a state that has very low incomes and has not kept pace with the increased costs of living in our state.”
Sanchez, Carley: Legislature should keep hands off Boise rental-fee cap
Sanchez and Carley were critical of the Idaho Legislature for considering a bill to repeal a Boise ordinance that limits the amount of money landlords can charge prospective tenants in application fees. The ordinance limits application fees to $30 or actual costs, whichever is lower.
The bill passed in the House but did not get a Senate hearing, meaning “we are saved for at least another year in being able to offer that tool for our renters,” Sanchez said.
Carley said it’s a difficult balancing act to provide adequate housing while maintaining the desirability of neighborhoods as a comfortable and safe place where people want to live. Urban sprawl is not desirable, but many people don’t want to see higher density either, he said.
Yet density is essential to curb sprawl, he said. Effective local-government planning and quality development are the keys to overcoming not-in-my-backyard opposition, Carley said.
“Certain neighborhoods love to oppose new developments,” he said. “But if developers try to build somewhere and uncertain on the outcome, then the cost go up and the product deteriorates. So a good zoning process will yield good development and proper higher density that that our community will really enjoy.”
This story was originally published April 1, 2022 at 4:00 AM.
