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your homegrown newspaper October 6, 2021
Homecoming pg. 16
No place like home Stakeholders work to offer affordable housing as prices continue to skyrocket by M.S. Sacry for the Valley Journal
Teacher of Year pg. 21
Live music pg. 24
MONTANA — Six years ago Angela Claver sold her home in Great Falls and decided to move to Polson to work in the public library. She had visited friends in the area previously and knew that finding housing wouldn’t be easy. Even then, housing was hard to come by, especially something affordable. She moved into the Lakeview Village in Polson and lived there for two years, four months. “I felt very fortunate when I got into those apartments,” she said. “I just made it work for a couple of years.” Claver lived frugally and after her stay in Lakeview Village, she was able to snag a place
SUMMER GODDARD / VALLEY JOURNAL
Angela Claver plays the piano at her new home in Polson. Through the help of friends, Claver was able to find a place to rent after she and fellow apartment tenants were given one-week eviction notices. Owners of the apartments they rented were upgrading the building and charging more for rent.
in the Lake Place Apartments. The lakefront apartments were a nice upgrade. But in May, life at the apartments with an idyllic lakefront view turned stormy, as the owners of the building decided they wanted to upgrade the building, replace the tenants living there, and charge more.
“The price they put on my unit is comparable to my classmate’s unit in Spokane,” Claver said. On May 24, Claver says that she and her neighbors were given notice that they would need to move by June 1. “Even they knew that was pretty near impossible,” Claver said. The housing mar-
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ket has boomed in the pandemic nationwide, as supply chain issues abounded for building materials including everything from lumber to appliances, causing a steep rise in prices. The Windemere Real Estate 2021 Q2 Market Update was released Aug. 9. The company says that while some Montana counties
Vol. 18, No. 3
have seen a slow down in the mad grab for property, Lake County real estate remains in demand, with the number of home sales in the second quarter of 2021 up 21.3% compared to the same quarter last year. The prices of those homes has also risen, on average 57.6% in the same time frame. Zillow lists the average price of a home in Lake County, as of August, at $383,740. Claver said she considered getting qualified to buy, but with the market and prices the way they are currently, she knew that finding an affordable, available home in the time frame given would be nearly impossible. Her search for rentals also came up empty at first. Her only solid lead was a coworker who offered a basement. She checked into finding a storage unit to store her things. “There isn’t even a storage unit to be had,” Claver said. see page 2
