Meridian City Council wonders what its role is in housing-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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Facing an affordable housing shortage and rising cost of homes, the city of Meridian is grappling with its role in the crisis.
Over the last few years, the city of Boise has launched a handful of programs to try to address the city’s affordable housing crisis. These programs include setting aside city-owned land for affordable housing projects and a zoning code rewrite to allow for higher density housing.
The affordable housing crisis spilled over from Idaho’s biggest city into its second, Meridian. Jesse Tree, the homelessness and eviction prevention organization, told the Meridian City Council in June that it helps about 40 families in the city each month with rental assistance and eviction support.
At that meeting, Jesse Tree asked the city for funding to help keep the nonprofit afloat. The request launched the council into a philosophical discussion about its role in providing affordable housing and offering homelessness solutions.
One City Council member decided to take on the question. Jessica Perrault, who served on the Meridian Planning and Zoning Commission before being elected to the council in 2020, and is a real estate agent and member of Boise Regional Realtors.
Earlier this month, Perrault made a presentation to her fellow council members and Meridian Mayor Robert Simison. She said she found “a very significant need” for housing in the city.
Spurred by Jesse Tree’s request and another request from The Housing Co., a nonprofit developer and property manager created by the Idaho Housing and Finance Association, for money for an affordable housing project, Perrault started doing research to figure out where the city could help.
“I don’t think that the requests that we received this year are going to slow down,” Perrault said. “So in my mind, it would be wise for the city to put together some sort of guidelines for how we’ll respond to those requests in the future.”
Perrault first asked the other council members if they saw any role for the city in solving the crisis.
“We have a lack of affordable housing in the city,” said Councilwoman Liz Strader. “It is a nationwide problem that is not unique to our city. And it is a huge need. It’s like an ocean of need, but the main drivers of the price of housing are not within the control of the city of Meridian.”
Councilman Joe Borton agreed. He said the city supports affordable housing in indirect ways like long-term planning, encouraging diverse housing options and providing guidelines for the development community to follow.
Strader disagreed with Boise’s direct funding of affordable housing, she said. But she said she would support a homelessness prevention fund.
Borton said he would support a housing retention program.
“Housing retention is much higher on my list than anything else,” he said, “to try to assist our residents to retain and remain in Meridian.”
The council members and Mayor Robert Simison asked that Perrault bring them data on the shortage of affordable housing is in Meridian and what the shortage is projected to be over the next several years. They also asked for data on who is facing homelessness in Meridian.
Perrault said she would seek data from Boise State University and existing studies from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
This story was originally published September 19, 2022 at 4:00 AM.
