Mayor Davis on Housing and What's Ahead

This week the commissioners welcome Missoula Mayor Andrea Davis back to the podcast to talk about a topic that affects all city and county residents: housing. What role does local government play in addressing this complex and difficult issue? What is the City of Missoula doing right now to help more residents continue to call Missoula their home?  Tune in for a thoughtful discussion about current and future solutions.

Thank you to Missoula's Community Media Resource for podcast recording support!

Transcript

Juanita Vero: [00:00:10] Welcome back to the agenda with the Missoula County Commissioners. I'm Juanita Vero and I'm here with my friends and fellow commissioners Josh Slotnick and Dave Strohmaier. And today we're lucky enough to be joined by our Missoula mayor, Andrea Davis.

Andrea Davis: [00:00:23] Hi. Hey.

Josh Slotnick: [00:00:24] Welcome.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:00:24] Welcome, Mayor Davis.

Andrea Davis: [00:00:25] Great to be here.

Josh Slotnick: [00:00:25] Great to have you.

Andrea Davis: [00:00:26] Thanks.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:00:27] You were here about a year ago. Is that right? So over the past year, since you last joined us, anything particularly surprising about this job as mayor or. That's a great question. Or I'll just leave it at that.

Andrea Davis: [00:00:42] Yeah, I'm surprised, and I shouldn't be. How often I get that question. Seriously, I get that question.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:00:47] Oh, I thought I was being unique.

Andrea Davis: [00:00:49] I'm sorry, I know, I know, but it's a good question. It's a really good question. Well, give us.

Juanita Vero: [00:00:52] An answer that you haven't given. Yes.

Andrea Davis: [00:00:55] Oh, gosh. Right. Exactly. I mean, what's what is surprising is just how many things there are out there to work on. I mean, honestly, it is, and I shouldn't be surprised by that. There's no surprise there, right? This is a community with a lot of different things happening. Priorities, of course, that I want to focus on as a mayor going forward. And then some of the items that you have to work on that are gifts from the past. That just is a reality. I think gifts from the past that I'm sure you're in that situation too. As elected.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:01:20] Officials, we've seen a few of those.

Andrea Davis: [00:01:22] And yeah, that's kind of the, you know, what you're helping to navigate and, you know, steer the ship on for the community. I think, you know, a lot of these things are behind the scenes that maybe so many constituents don't even really think about, or maybe even care about, just came out of a conversation around a project that we're working on together as a city in the county, and bids came in high. And, you know, part of it is that we have stream consultants that we really want to be part of this project, that unfortunately where their numbers came in or we're working on how to address this, and we're working with private property owners in this case, and then two governments, city and the county, coming to an agreement on what we can do to make something work. Where are the times that you might have to color outside the lines? You know, the whole point is that we try to provide consistency as much as possible. Often these situations are their own deal, right? We find ourselves in these places where it's like, wow, this is a really unique situation. And it is. And so it's like, how do you balance that need to be consistent and need to be able to try to treat everything with pretty much a standardized approach as much as possible, and then the need to be flexible and innovative when you need to be and.

Juanita Vero: [00:02:20] And responsive.

Andrea Davis: [00:02:21] Responsive. You try to balance those things.

Josh Slotnick: [00:02:22] A little bugaboo I've run into in this job, and I feel like our jobs are similar. Is this question of precedent then, when faced with a specific situation, there's a criticism that, well, you can't do X because if you do it that way, you're going to have to do it that way for everyone. And I feel like that's just not accurate. We should believe in ourselves. And what I mean by that is our ability to understand the specificities of any one context, and use our powers of judgment and discernment to do the right thing in that context, not to attempt to make one decision for all time, and then smear it everywhere in ignorance and blindness of context. And I believe context is everything. That's really anti precedent.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:02:59] I like that.

Josh Slotnick: [00:03:00] Pro context anti precedent.

Andrea Davis: [00:03:02] Yeah I mean that's really well said. And I think I think as long as it's manageable and for our staff the precedent.

Josh Slotnick: [00:03:08] The precedent should be our values. Things like fairness and transparency. That's the precedent. And then the context should guide us in our decisions.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:03:15] I think you're right. I don't know how many times I have heard folks almost paralyzed with worry that something could be precedent setting. So we it's a slippery slope concern.

Josh Slotnick: [00:03:27] We couldn't possibly be smart enough to understand that one thing is different than another.

Juanita Vero: [00:03:31] Put your yaktrax.

Josh Slotnick: [00:03:32] On. Yeah, I like it, I like it.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:03:35] There we go. Great.

Josh Slotnick: [00:03:35] Okay, next time we hear that whiny, slippery slope thing, I would say put your mattress.

Juanita Vero: [00:03:41] That's good. That's good.

Andrea Davis: [00:03:42] Yeah, I like it. That's a good way to think about it. Thank you I appreciate that.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:03:45] And you were recently in Mexico City? Yes. Is that correct? That is right. Would you mind telling us a little bit about that trip?

Andrea Davis: [00:03:51] Yeah, I'd be happy to. I've been really fortunate to be part of the scholarship program for development. And of me as a mayor and also of city leadership and initiatives through the Bloomberg Philanthropies program. So it's a program that they work in concert with Harvard University, and it's really their city leadership initiatives that they have there. They hold an annual meeting in a different global city every year. So last year it was in Washington, DC, but this year it was in Mexico City. And so amazing and generous about that is that it doesn't cost the taxpayers of Missoula any money. It is a scholarship program. I'm able to go and convene with other mayors and other leaders from other communities worldwide communities. And, you know, you are able to work with one another to talk about the issues, emerging issues and challenges of the day. You swap ideas and you basically help spark creativity and innovation where it is needed most. They bring in folks from all over to be covering topics like you name it, it was it was talked about there, but a lot of it is around inspiring folks in the room, mayors in the room, and people that are working alongside local governments and to continue to address and not only address our constituents needs, but like figuring out how are we going to do things differently than we maybe have in the past, and how are we in terms of approaching some of the most challenging issues of our time? You know, one person there was presenting, there was a host of different housing options, for example, that you know, and like, what are some really quick build opportunities for people that are living on the streets and houseless? What are some different ways I will tell you housing was a theme again across the globe.

Juanita Vero: [00:05:23] Where was this presenter from quick build strategies.

Andrea Davis: [00:05:25] Oh gosh, that one was Atlanta, Georgia. In that case, they were utilizing railroad cars and they have different climate needs than we do up here.

Juanita Vero: [00:05:32] Yeah.

Andrea Davis: [00:05:32] That's so it's always one of those things where you're like, where are you in the on the globe, and how does that work for your particular kind of climate?

Josh Slotnick: [00:05:39] Got a railroad car in Atlanta could become a solar box cooker.

Andrea Davis: [00:05:42] Oh my goodness. No kidding. You really got to think about how you're going to cool that down.

Josh Slotnick: [00:05:44] So you said housing was a commonality. Any other commonalities across places? Also, given that even within the United States, local governments are managed really differently? Some places, being a mayor means one thing and another places means something totally different.

Andrea Davis: [00:05:56] The main focus actually for the Monday, the session was Monday through Wednesday and Monday it was a it's a mayor's only lab, they call it, and it was all around communications and it was all around the challenge that we have as local governments. But also this is everybody and I mean, I mean big businesses and not small nonprofits and institutions in general around how it is that you are able to basically connect with the public with your message and information, given the changing dynamics of the information landscape and the general trust or distrust of institutions that is actually global. It is a quickly changing environment. And so really rethinking about how you are connecting with your constituents in a in a much different and broader way. This podcast is a really good example.

Josh Slotnick: [00:06:42] There it is. This is kind of a meta moment here. You're talking about this. Well, we're in in the act of communicating in what in terms of local governments is a nontraditional way. Instead of reaching out to the media source, we're sort of being our own media source. Are you hearing that other local governments out there are taking the reins like that? I think it.

Andrea Davis: [00:06:58] Varies depending on what their capacity is to do that and where they're at. But yeah, I think a lot of people are definitely opening up the curtains. Like, what are our options here? How are we connecting with with folks differently? How do people get information differently? It's not even just getting information. It's like how are people connecting with their local elected officials, the people that work in their government and the work that we are doing as city and county government, for example, how do people relate to that feel like they're engaged with that work? And then honestly trust government? I mean, it is a thing that is just an underlying issue. I mean, there's so much that builds up to this. We could do a podcast on this just separately because of the just fascinating data that's out there. When you take a look at what has led us to this point. I think trust in government. Yeah. And just about information where people are getting their information. I mean, we talk about this a lot in my office that we heard an NPR report where 11% of Americans pay for their news, which means that they're getting their information in some other source. And I think that we can all say like, well, that's good that there's free news out there. But in reality, if we think back in time, you know, you got free network TV through your antenna. But other than that, you probably always paid for a newspaper or radio is often free. But where are people getting their information? It's often word of mouth, which then you say, okay.

Juanita Vero: [00:08:14] From your friends and families and associates, or your the your favorite podcast or your favorite podcast, and then it's just and that can be varied.

Andrea Davis: [00:08:22] In terms of factual.

Juanita Vero: [00:08:23] It's totally varied and the veracity of what people are hearing. And then whether or not they want it drives me crazy.

Josh Slotnick: [00:08:29] 11% are paying. And I'm thinking paying means you're paying a newspaper. Maybe you're reading online, but you're paying a newspaper. You're paying through some.

Andrea Davis: [00:08:37] That's an example. Yes, exactly.

Josh Slotnick: [00:08:39] That 89% then are getting I'm going to guess on social media because there's no cost.

Andrea Davis: [00:08:44] That's a big part of it.

Josh Slotnick: [00:08:45] Paid there.

Andrea Davis: [00:08:45] That's a big part of it. And when you know that the driving fact and force behind social media is really to sell advertisements, then you, know, you think about, well, what information are people consuming in ways that actually are the.

Josh Slotnick: [00:08:57] Driving forces to sell you? Andre Davis advertising. So there's an there's an algorithm that looks at what stories do you are you interested in. And then the algorithm obviously is going to feed you more of those stories. And the more you keep engaging, the more ads you see. So you may get news that's different than Dave or Juan or anybody else, which means we're out there in the world operating with different set of facts, and we're doing facts and quotes. It's just really different than back in the old, old days of three major networks. And the fact part was pretty much mutually agreed upon, where right now it really feels like we're in. We have multiple different universes coexisting as to what actually is real and what isn't makes conversation, not to mention decision making really difficult.

Juanita Vero: [00:09:36] So. Well said.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:09:37] So based on some of what you've heard from other fellow mayors in Mexico City, was there anything that really captured your imagination in terms of, we've got to try this at the city of Missoula, or still a work in progress for you.

Andrea Davis: [00:09:53] It's a work in progress because we haven't yet really been able to sit down and say we have this hatched out new approach and agenda, but I think it's also going to be organic as we go. You know, one of the ways that we're talking about, how do we continue to enhance the work that we have through our Office of Neighborhoods to better connect to residents before a project starts, like a project that gets initiated by a particular department? Let's say it's a public works department. Maybe there's a way in which that we can actually utilize our office of neighborhoods in a way that helps connect with the residents, to help inform the background and the context by which we're making this decision. Because the reality is, is that we've all been inundated with a lot more information, and our attention is diffused more than it ever has been before. So ways in which we've done this work, even five years ago, it's more challenging today to be able to kind of stay on somebody's radar like, hey, remember that neighborhood meeting we had two years ago? Remember the the feedback that you gave us? Remember the the why, why we're doing this project? Well, it's just you're not on their radar, like.

Andrea Davis: [00:10:44] Like maybe you used to. So that's one example. You know, I think there's doing different modes of communication. Like what we're doing here as far as like how do you get to people differently. Right. And like part of this is that I appreciate this podcast very much because you just kind of look behind the curtains a little bit for local government in the way that elected leaders are thinking and like, what are some of the issues that people are managing, or how do we think about taking on some of these really challenging or interesting opportunities as a community? And that connection is actually what people are seeking. They're not necessarily just seeking the factual information that gives you the black and white. Here are the facts, ma'am. It is how am I actually connecting with this person that has been elected to lead this community? How does that person see me as a constituent, and how do I see them as so? It's like this different relationship that people have continually thinking about how to be more effective.

Josh Slotnick: [00:11:35] I talked about the lack of trust and all the type of different information out there. I think the more we work to have real relationships with people that we serve, the more likelihood we get to receive some trust and then some belief in the information that we put out there. That relationship seems to come first. Yeah.

Juanita Vero: [00:11:51] It takes time. It takes time to build an honest, true relationship. And our perceptions of time are a little wonky or skewed right now. Like, we need things so quick and relationships aren't built super quick.

Josh Slotnick: [00:12:05] What an interesting thing that we need both of these. If we need relationship and trust and everything has to happen right now. And those things butt up against each other.

Andrea Davis: [00:12:12] Yeah.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:12:13] Well, for instance, in the face of this seeming lack of trust and assumption of the absolute worst from others, especially elected officials, one thing that we started trying this last year here in Missoula County was a ride along with the commissioners. Yeah, it's been fun. And this this is based on what sometimes happens in the world of law enforcement, where a citizen or interested member of the public wants to ride along with a police officer for a shift to just see what's going on. And using the same principle, we thought, okay, in the face of folks who think that we show up here in the morning every day, putting our best intellects to the task of figuring out how to screw people over, which is actually actually not the case. Giving folks a glimpse into what it is that we are trying to accomplish. And that's a good idea.

Josh Slotnick: [00:13:01] It's been fun. Yeah. So they come and hang with us for a group meetings, and then they might go off with an individual one on one with Juan or Dave to spend the day.

Juanita Vero: [00:13:09] We have that experience. We did. Yep, yep. All right. We did it. We went to the mayors.

Josh Slotnick: [00:13:14] We've had really good reports back on this.

Andrea Davis: [00:13:16] Well, thanks for sharing that. I hope you don't mind if we might borrow some.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:13:18] You can borrow it. And consider this a local government act of voyeurism, seeing what we're doing here. We did.

Josh Slotnick: [00:13:25] We did do one. And at the end of the day, I asked this guy, so how was it? And he kind of shook his head and goes, wow. And I could tell he was a little disappointed. He's like, well, you're not a jerk. Like he wanted me to be a jerk, you know what I mean? Because it would it would kind of rhyme with his sense of how government.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:13:38] How did you conceal that so well?

Josh Slotnick: [00:13:41] It was medication. It was.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:13:44] Well.

Josh Slotnick: [00:13:45] Even though we never came. We didn't come any more closer to agreement on philosophy at the end of the day. But it did change things. And now when I see him, he's way more friendly. Wow.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:13:53] That's great. Andre, you mentioned in Mexico City, going back to that, that one of the common themes globally was housing. Yes. So why don't we just spend a few minutes talking about housing? And one of the events that I believe you recently participated in was related to the Wheeler Center for Public Policy. That did, of which I know nothing. So could you maybe fill us in a little bit on that organization and also your participation in a statewide housing conference related to that?

Andrea Davis: [00:14:24] You bet. The Burton Kay Wheeler Foundation is located in Bozeman. It's located on the Montana State University campus, and they are a nonpartisan or bipartisan, you could say, organization that is dedicated to taking large issues that are multifaceted and complex, and raising up the conversation Session across a whole spectrum of different perspectives to allow there to. Be emerging policy decisions that could come from those, you know, it could be anything like health care. They might talk about actually like, you know, the value of Medicaid, for example. Or they might have a conversation. Recently, they held another conference on the emerging technologies and realities of artificial intelligence. And, you know, what does that mean for, you know, for society? And in this case, the topic was Montana's housing crisis and can supply meet demand. And so.

Josh Slotnick: [00:15:20] Good question.

Andrea Davis: [00:15:20] Yeah. And that is it is because it's not necessarily these like yes or no. Check the box questions. I mean there are these larger complex. But what did you call it. The cone. Where the.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:15:31] The cone.

Andrea Davis: [00:15:32] The you had this.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:15:34] You.

Andrea Davis: [00:15:34] Had this reference a while back Josh, about these issues that are not necessarily it's not a simple answer. You have this you hold this question around.

Josh Slotnick: [00:15:41] Can this cone a Cohen. Yeah.

Andrea Davis: [00:15:43] Cohen. Yeah, yeah. That cone right.

Speaker5: [00:15:45] Got it. Yeah.

Juanita Vero: [00:15:47] Oh. Thank you. I kept watching your hands, like, in the triangle. And I was like, there's no real answer. There's no real answer.

Andrea Davis: [00:15:54] To some of these questions. And that is true around some of the more challenging societal.

Juanita Vero: [00:15:58] What's the what's the what's a, uh, good, uh, kind of Buddhist cone to like the classic.

Josh Slotnick: [00:16:03] Tree falls in the forest. Do you know the next part? Right? Does it still make a sound?

Juanita Vero: [00:16:06] Does it still make a sound? Yeah. Okay, so around housing, then, what are the highlights?

Andrea Davis: [00:16:11] Well, so the I was the keynote speaker. The conference. Congratulations. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. So we kicked off the conference on Monday evening with my keynote speech. And then the following day was, um, a host of speakers that were everywhere from somebody from the Federal Reserve. We're in the Minneapolis district of the Federal Reserve. And so there was somebody from their research arm there to present on really good factual data, which is always really helpful to counter some of the perceptions and things that we're assuming are happening within our market. In writing the keynote, I took a look at the entire agenda and said, let me tee off this conversation. I'm trying to basically set At the table here for this discussion. And it was I started the conversation with, you know, here's Missoula here's how we got here. And so took a look back in time in history and took a look at some of our land use decisions and other things that we know have that have helped lead us to where we are today in terms of affordability and the type of homes that are being built and those kinds of things, and then presented some hard data in terms of in the last ten years, where our rental rates have have have grown to where our homeownership rates have grown, to give some comparison information for our local earned wages, for example, and and looked at some of the, the delta on that, you know, if folks are earning on average if Missoula's median homeowner income is 88,000.

Andrea Davis: [00:17:27] But to meet the actual affordability of our current median home sales price, you would need to earn $150,000. And so the average renters wage is something like 46,000, which is interesting because the average renters wage has actually gone up significantly in the last several years. So looking at that data has been interesting to a couple of stories there. Well, you know, wages have increased. And we know that that to be true. And more people are in rentals than they were in home ownership because it's harder to get into home ownership, because if your average or your median renter wage is $46,000, but you need $146,000 to buy a house, that's a big old gap. That kind of data really, I think, underscores some of the challenges that we hear about every day. Right. As elected officials around folks trying to find their first home. So I was really just trying to shape the picture here so people could understand what we were managing.

Juanita Vero: [00:18:17] And it's not just this one thing either. I mean, you know, you have like the housing stock, the straight up, just in addition to the. Yeah.

Josh Slotnick: [00:18:22] Just ask you another question. This is not it's not just one thing. Housing is part of a much larger economic puzzle that makes up our whole country. And I wonder right now if we see less churn, less turnover in the real estate market, especially people jumping from first homes to second homes. I don't mean cabin or something. I mean starter home to a home where they maybe have a larger household. Yeah. Is that the first one they bought was most likely with a pretty darn low interest rate. So right now, with a much more historically normal, but over the last ten years looking looks like a high interest rate. It's really hard to go from two bedroom, one bath to three bedroom, two bath and a new loan where the interest alone is going to be hundreds of dollars more per month. Yeah, I just wonder how much that has slowed the churn and made our market feel smaller than it actually is.

Andrea Davis: [00:19:09] Well, it most definitely is a major issue all over the United States. And so it's really causing the stagnation within the housing continuum. The general notion on when you add homes into the entire market, you are adding mobility, even even at the upper end. And this is counterintuitive sometimes to affordability. But what we have seen and know in doing the work, and then what was backed up by the Federal Reserve's data the following morning, this was really interesting. For every 100 apartments that are built, there are 70 more rentals within the housing market that are freed up. So 100 people move in, or 100 households move into that apartment and they're going to be moving from the existing market. You're going to have some people that move from out of town, for example, like I'll illustrate like, well, who's that? Well, maybe you have somebody that actually moved from Florence to Missoula because their job has been here this whole time, but they've never been able to afford to live where they work. And now this available apartment complex comes up. They move into that. So out of that 100 apartments, you have some people that move in from out of the market.

Andrea Davis: [00:20:05] You have most people moving from the existing market, which means now that you have freed up all of these other homes within the existing market. So there's movement and that happens. That's one part of it. But then, Commissioner Josh Slotnick, like you were saying, with interest rates where they are, you have a stagnation in the homeownership market and that people are just not selling and buying homes, whether it be to step down into a smaller home or whether it be to step up into a larger home. Either way, because you have basically somebody that bought their house many years ago at 3% interest, and to borrow at 7% or 6.7% right now is so unaffordable, it's not worth it to move. So that compresses it. I always like to think about the real estate market like an accordion. And the more variety and diversity and options we have stretching out that accordion. But when it gets compressed and that's where we're at right now, it's in particularly compressed for the lower end of the market. And of course that's where we see.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:20:57] So is there a threshold in terms of home prices that would actually free up? So the scenario I'm thinking of is if we're talking multimillion dollar homes coming onto the market, does that have the same effect of kind of creating space at the lower end of the housing spectrum that a lower priced home, not a starter home, but a higher priced home that is not a starter home would have on the market?

Andrea Davis: [00:21:25] I would say that they both will free up other homes, but there are fewer people that are going to afford that multi-million dollar home. So if you're freeing up a home that is, you know, lower to moderate priced, let's just say right now a 350,000 or a $400,000 home, there's a whole heck of a lot more people within that income tier that can afford that. So you're going to have more demand, but you're also going to free up that option. I mean, there's there's more demand there. I would say that there's in using your I think your question is, is that more impactful? Possibly because you're, you know, there's more people that are eligible for it.

Josh Slotnick: [00:21:54] Supply and demand question. Could we ever meet the demand when wondering about this thinking? The demand is national and the supply is local and our localness is really hemmed in. 72% of our county is public land. So it feels to me like the answer is no. Yeah.

Andrea Davis: [00:22:09] I mean, I think this is the cone, you know, because I mean, that's what my answer to that is maybe hopefully really because we have as local government and, you know, the county updated your zoning regulations just last year or so. And we're in the process of doing that. The land use plan will go in front of City council for its adoption this evening. We've gone through the public, yeah, gone through the public hearing process, gotten some great feedback and support from the community, lots of community engagement. And that land use plan, as you know, is basically like our growth plan. It's replacing our growth plan. And that's according to the new state law. You call your growth plan now a land use plan. And the land use plan is it is informed by an incredible amount of data. And it is a 20 year outlook on your population trends. And that includes the who you know and what their incomes are and also your worker demographics. There's a community profile and you are trying to plan. How do we have enough places for people that are living here, no matter if they're retiring, learning, working here, how do we plan for that? Local government can set the stage right. We create basically the land uses and then all of our development codes that make it possible to build the homes, the streets, the parks and places of doing business. We set that table, and we're hoping that the private sector then can build more homes, preserve more homes, obviously always in partnership with the city one way or the other, or the county one way or the other, or the federal government in one way or the other.

Andrea Davis: [00:23:30] I mean, I joke a little bit when people say, well, government has nothing to do with housing. And I say, well, if yeah, it's I hate to say that's just absolutely not true. Because the reality is, if you've ever borrowed a loan, if you've ever lived in a house that's actually went through a building permit, the government did have something to do with housing, of course. But the question really comes down to, Will we have enough homes to find that equilibrium of affordability? And we used to talk in my field prior to becoming mayor is doing affordable housing. Work is about a 5% vacancy in the rental market is generally what is the litmus test for a good vacancy rate? And we've gotten to the point with the cost of rentals that we're now talking about 7% and even 8% as a more normalizing factor. Now, it's a lot to think about. Talk to somebody that has a mortgage on a fourplex and say, yeah, and you say, well, 8% is what's going to make that person owning that property is going to say, I don't think so. But of course, we're talking about the larger market here. And what I mean by that is that when you have a vacancy rate of of some number, let's say it's 5 to 8%.

Juanita Vero: [00:24:31] And this is specific to the city of Missoula know, this is this is general. This is nationwide.

Andrea Davis: [00:24:35] Yep. Nationwide.

Josh Slotnick: [00:24:36] That's generally I was used to thinking it was 5.5%. Yeah. That's like healthy.

Andrea Davis: [00:24:40] Healthy, exactly. But you're.

Juanita Vero: [00:24:42] Saying 8%.

Andrea Davis: [00:24:43] Well, that's what that's what we're starting to see that that number ratchet up with some housing economists. But let's for argument's sake, let's just say it's 5%. That means that when you have a vacancy rate of 5%, renters have more ability to be in a more negotiable point with the landlords that rents start to come down, for example. And generally that's been true over time. So a lot of the conversation was just helping folks understand the economics, the housing economics, and, and, and what I was there to articulate at the, at the Wheeler Foundation was demonstrating what Missoula has done as a city to work on different strategies and policies to address this issue, to actually help demand and supply be more of an equilibrium there. So can again, can supply me to band. Well, here's how we're trying to address that. So I was walking people through our land use plan. I was walking people through our a place to call home Missoula's housing strategy. And so then I gave examples of some of the housing strategies that the city has done over time. Our housing strategy has been in place since 2019, and I was articulating what some of those strategies are and using examples of things that we've done. And the point being is to say, yes, we have this big challenging issue. It can be measurable. We can measure what these things are. You know, local government can address the conditions or the land use and development codes.

Andrea Davis: [00:25:54] And then we can also put some policies in place that incentivize the kinds of development and homes that are affordable to a lot of those folks that really are challenged with competing in the marketplace. But that, as we have deemed to understand over the last several years, are essential workers that are folks that are making our beautiful community work. So a lot of these things that we talked about were different kinds of policies. The city has, like our Affordable Housing Trust fund. Some of the projects that we've helped preserve as affordable, helped rehabilitate and make sure that they continue to stay good, safe places to live. Some of the other things that we've done in terms of voluntary incentives, like when we basically traded right of way a public value to a private developer, and when we did that, we were able to make sure that a few of those homes in that project were affordable to people that were earning their wages, like folks in this building that could afford to buy a home there. Things like relaxing accessory dwelling unit or what we call granny flat or alley house regulations. So those could be built easier, for example, because the point being is that this is a multifaceted and complex problem, and we have to have multiple solutions to address those. I was giving examples of things that we've done using our tax increment financing district, and the recent legislation that allows us to fund workforce housing.

Josh Slotnick: [00:27:08] We benefited from that as well.

Andrea Davis: [00:27:09] Yeah. Excellent. Excellent.

Josh Slotnick: [00:27:11] Right.

Andrea Davis: [00:27:11] So yeah. And your Ted's so like bricks and mortar. We can now use tax increment financing to, to create permanently affordable housing. And that's what we're doing with the Scott Street project. So really partnering with the private sector in that case to obtain our housing goals, which are, again, our community led goals to create more affordable and attainable options for all people in Missoula.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:27:31] So one one question our listeners might be asking is this is all well and good talking about the economics of housing supply and demand and how that relates to housing prices and what local government can also do to contribute to addressing the high cost of housing. But alongside of all of that is the authenticity of a place, the quality of life in a place. And how does that factor into all of these discussions? Because without throwing any other communities under the bus, I have heard that maybe the community where the Wheeler Center is located might be challenged also in a way, in terms of having more so than Missoula or Missoula County, begun to lose some of its soul in a way that is is not in keeping with what this place used to be. And I think that's not what we want to strive for as a community, as a county here in Missoula County. But how is the how have you in your work here with the city of Missoula as part of these housing discussions, wrestled with what it means to be a distinct place that at least has some continuity with the reason why we have loved it in our entire lives.

Josh Slotnick: [00:28:48] This distinct place, like how do we how do we develop.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:28:51] This place here.

Josh Slotnick: [00:28:51] Without losing Missoula and allowing for growth and change?

Andrea Davis: [00:28:54] Yeah. I mean, I think this again, is one of the questions that we have. I remember going to a presentation by Bryce Ward, who's a local economist, and you might have seen.

Josh Slotnick: [00:29:04] He has been in this on this very chair.

Juanita Vero: [00:29:06] And he's so fun to.

Andrea Davis: [00:29:07] Talk with. And one of the slides that he had up on his presentation was a tombstone. And he said, I just want to have a moment together to grieve. What was the community that we thought was going to be Missoula and where we are today? Because really, I think we all knew that, hey, you know, Missoula I mean, we've all lived here long enough to know that more and more people are discovering a place that was, you know, which can be great because if you're not growing, you're dying. I mean, there's there's a reality there too, but there's challenges that come along with growth. And in the last couple of years, we saw when our housing prices went up from $385,000 to $585,000 in two years. That is like an unimaginable challenge. And so what I think we can do is we have to be able to be very intentional about what we want to see happen, and then we also have to embrace and facilitate change.

Juanita Vero: [00:29:55] Change. What does that.

Andrea Davis: [00:29:56] Mean? And that is a big part of what we need to do as a community, because there is, you know, change is going to happen whether we want it or not. And are we going to make sure that that change is actually welcoming for all kinds of different people, or is it only going to be for people that have the resources to want that? And in Missoula, I think we really I mean, our land use plan is something that is acknowledges this is a place that's made up of its people, of its landscapes, of its culture. And the issue plans that help inform the land use plan actually can help us continue to create the goals by which we will strive to obtain the way that we're going to make sure that we're still a community, that people that create. So artists, this is a community that really is an artist community. It has been for a long time. We've seen a lot of people that have been artists that have come here and said, I can actually make a career here. It's harder today to do that than ever. However, if we work together to say that's a goal that we have, we want to make sure that people that are creating here can still call this place home, because we want them to be part of this community. Then we need to find those ways to make that happen. And that might be building smaller homes on smaller lots, that might be creating more live work spaces. So people can have these opportunities. But we have to be able to go after those things and make sure it happens.

Josh Slotnick: [00:31:08] A handful of years ago, I think it was probably five years ago. We worked with a consulting group from Portland called Econ Northwest, and they did our housing plan and one of the Take Homes takeaways from that was that unless we figured out how to intervene in the market, we would not see the market deliver affordability and an affordability that would maintain the character of what had been, which means making a space for people who can get by without earning a lot of money, knowing that those same folks contribute tremendously culturally and economically, and that people's response to them is economic as well it is as well as cultural. That's super difficult. How to intervene? And just to add to this and think about culture and economy, I believe our culture is our economic engine. Our culture and our easy access to beautiful public land and public water. People make a choice to be here because it is a certain kind of place, and they make a livelihood or bring their livelihood here. And if we and you asked that question really well, Dave, if we decide to develop at all costs, we kill that golden goose. If we look like Akron, Ohio, but with hills, no shade to Akron. Right? People aren't going to come here the way they have been coming here, either to move or to visit or even just to do business. So it's a it's a tricky one. And even mentioning intervene in the market, I'm sure hackles go up all over the dozens and dozens of our listeners. Like, how could you do something like that?

Andrea Davis: [00:32:22] Yeah, I mean, as you know, Josh, being on the Missoula Economic Partnership board, we as an entity. And Dave, this is when you were on the board there. We worked on the Comprehensive Economic Development strategy, and that was so the ceds and it's dry, but what it enables us to do, as you know now, Missoula County has an economic development strategy, and it is really super interesting because it actually takes into account quality of life. It actually takes into account what you're saying, which is this pride of place that we have as folks that live in this area. And how is it that you can work on intentional economic opportunities for all kinds of different Missoulians and still maintain a very special place by which people are drawn to live here, feel welcome and included. And that, to me is an example of how intentional our community is like. It was a wonderful thing to see that an economic development strategy, which has been kind of a dry document over the last however many decades, held out one of the major aspects of of supporting our workforce was addressing the housing so attainable homes and affordable homes and childcare. You know, for a long time, like those things were considered the social service that was done over here and that economic development was done over here. But no, there's actually a really firm recognition that these things are the same because you have to be able to support your people.

Josh Slotnick: [00:33:44] Have one without the.

Andrea Davis: [00:33:45] Other. You can't have one without the other. You know, one of the interventions that is a great way to, I think, illustrate some of the creativity and innovation that's happening here in Missoula. Is there was an older property that was purchased last year. It's called the Wolf Avenue Collective. And this is a really good example of how are we going to provide homeownership opportunities for people that are wanting to buy their first home. And the reality is development is so expensive. I mean, there's all these different issues the cost of land, the cost of labor, the cost of supplies, the cost of of borrowing money. You know, all these different complexities, the legal side. Right. You know, the zoning side. What if it's not properly zoned? Then you have to go through that expensive process. Right. Which again, is what we're trying to address when we're updating our development codes and land use plan. But we need to find different ways that people can enter into homeownership opportunities, and a cooperative is one of them. So this was where, you know, a patient buyer purchased this existing older apartment complex because it went on the market. And the reality was that the people that were living there likely would have been displaced because these were older. It's an older apartment complex. People have been living there for years, and these are the folks we're talking about in our community. At the end of the day, a lot of great organizations came together, including several nonprofits. The city lent some money as well.

Josh Slotnick: [00:34:56] And Neighborworks.

Andrea Davis: [00:34:57] Project and Neighborworks project and North Missoula Community Development Corporation and the land the city gave money out of our housing trust fund to buy the land. So now the land is taken out of the economics of it because basically it's held in trust, a community land trust. And then those renters became cooperative owners. It's a co-op, just like a food co-op, or just like a traditional co-op where you're basically a shareholder in this home. So these folks basically converted from being renters into being homeowners, and they have the security of owning their own home and building equity and eventually being able to then move up through that whole housing continuum. Those kinds of approaches are the things that we need to do when we say intervening in the market. It's those kinds of things that enable us to actually have housing affordability. Infrastructure is how I like to think about it. We need that in order to make sure that people of all walks of life are actually part of our community, and not just commuting in to serve those that have resources.

Josh Slotnick: [00:35:49] So we're we're headed towards another legislative session. Anything on housing you'd like to see happen there?

Andrea Davis: [00:35:55] Oh my gosh, so much. I mean, there's a lot of great work that's done with the Montana Housing Coalition. So the three initiatives that they're working on are getting the state housing tax credit passed again. What does that mean? The state housing credit would help augment the federal housing credit, which our community has developers that utilize today. So a couple of projects that just got built are the Bellagio and the Trinity Project.

Josh Slotnick: [00:36:14] Just toss something out here because for laypeople, I don't think that makes sense. But I'm going to give it a shot. Okay, correct me if I'm wrong. Basically, this means organizations like Homeward or Ncdcc or Neighborworks can sell tax credits. So if you. You can spend $0.88 and get a dollar's worth of tax credits for $0.88, you get a buck off your taxes. But if you do this on the tune of millions of dollars, you save a whole lot of money. And remember I said it was homeward and CDC or Neighborworks buying these things. So these tax credits are a way for these organizations to get cash with which to do housing projects.

Andrea Davis: [00:36:48] I mean, we don't want to go down the this the rabbit hole of complexity because it is that's.

Josh Slotnick: [00:36:52] That's the external sketch.

Andrea Davis: [00:36:54] That's external sketch. And those organizations that you mentioned are really the nonprofit sponsor or developer, but there's actually a for profit part of this. That's the whole point because you are buying tax credits, which means you have taxes to offset. So you have an investor in the deal. That's the structure behind this whole project. You've got a developer like you could have a for profit or a nonprofit developer, and you compete for these tax credits by saying, we're going to build this project that's going to be affordable into the future. And those investors basically buy those tax credits from you, and that cash helps you build the project.

Josh Slotnick: [00:37:25] You said compete. That sounds pretty tough.

Andrea Davis: [00:37:27] Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's just a reality that that we face. And if the state creates a housing tax credit, then those housing state credits would basically help build more projects or preserve more existing projects like Wolf Avenue. We could make sure that these affordable apartments don't slip into a high end conventional.

Josh Slotnick: [00:37:45] What's the connection between the feds and the state in terms of low income housing tax credits?

Andrea Davis: [00:37:49] Really, there's not any. This would be a state credit. So you'd have to have the investor would have to have tax obligation to the state.

Josh Slotnick: [00:37:55] So right now there are federal low income housing tax credits. But it goes through the state. Right.

Andrea Davis: [00:38:00] If the state was to pass a policy it would go through the state Department of Revenue.

Josh Slotnick: [00:38:03] So right now how does it work?

Andrea Davis: [00:38:05] So the federal housing credit is a program through the IRS and flows through the Montana Board of Housing.

Josh Slotnick: [00:38:09] So it does go through the state.

Andrea Davis: [00:38:11] Yeah. So it does go through the state. The Board of Housing or the finance Agency administers that program. And they would for the state credit.

Josh Slotnick: [00:38:16] This is what I was trying to get at. So right now there's federal money that goes to the state. But what you're talking about is new is new state money. Yes. And that doesn't exist. Yeah.

Andrea Davis: [00:38:25] So really, that's what I want to make it as simple is that we would advocate for more capital from the state either housing credits. We also want to see the state fund, the state of Montana's housing trust fund. The state has had a housing trust fund since 1999, but we don't put any money into it.

Juanita Vero: [00:38:42] Ha! Well, it doesn't work that way. It doesn't really work exactly.

Andrea Davis: [00:38:45] But what could they do with that? They could make low interest loans. They could make low interest loans to do the project I just talked about the Wolf Avenue Collective only worked because there was low interest financing and a patient seller. You do that kind of stuff when you have more what you call patient capital, meaning low interest money or even grant money, potentially that type of stuff is what we can do to. I think what we need to do is make sure that we are addressing some of our most immediate housing needs now, while we're also addressing the market approach through our development codes and development plans that I talked about earlier. So we are looking forward to protecting Senate Bill 382 that just passed, which is the Montana Comprehensive Land Use Act. That is exactly what the city of Missoula is responding to. As we developed our updated growth policy or land use plan that is responding to the 2023 legislature and legislative mandates, we've already done some things that were required as part of that legislation, and we want to make sure that cities around the state have a chance to actually get that done. So right now, the timeline is that they have through 2026, we're hopeful that the legislature will recognize that a lot of communities need some time. Missoula is out in front of it because we were already working on it, and.

Juanita Vero: [00:39:50] We'll have the grown up zoning.

Andrea Davis: [00:39:52] This is the grown up zoning. Yeah, exactly. We'd like to see more capital. And then, you know, the other part of this always is cost of living and affordability. And we have to address our property tax structure, as you very well know. So we really hope to see that get across. But some of the other things that we're really hoping to see is that the state recognizes, hopefully through some of their opportunities with surplus funds, that we really need to start leaning into more resources, into supporting our people. And that's through behavioral health support. And largely, that is the money that we lost many years ago to case management. Now we know we saw that last session with the 300 million that was established. Yeah, we call the Keenan Mini and the and the commission there. But we're going to continue to advocate for more and close coordination with the state. You know, we really want to see our state agencies like the Department of Corrections and Health and Human Services, when folks leave the penitentiary system, when folks leave the state hospital, we really need coordination and housing, a transition plan from those entities. When those folks are seeking relocation to a community like Missoula, we're talking about real vulnerable people that need some help. And the homeless shelters here are are doing the yeoman's work of so much, and they really need to be adequately supported when it comes to case management and helping people that are living in crisis.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:41:02] So more to come on the legislative session in the months to come.

Andrea Davis: [00:41:06] So the city is a participant in the built for zero program, which is a nationwide movement funded by the nonprofit Community Solutions. And the idea behind it is that you are narrowing down your approach to addressing how do you measure a houseless population and figure out a way to make meaningful impact. Our community selected houseless veterans. Veterans of war. That we could say, okay, how do we get these folks into housing and keep them there? And we are currently in what we call housed for the holidays, which is a housing sprint. We are competing with a few other communities in the nation, and we are aiming to house 15 military veterans by December 31st. There are six communities in the northwest that are participating, and we are in the lead at this point with having housed five. Nice job.

Juanita Vero: [00:41:52] Oh, fantastic.

Andrea Davis: [00:41:53] So we have a grant funded program, $30,000 as part of this grant. And we are using that to basically help people get housed. But that means that we have somebody that is out there knocking on doors of landlords every day and working with folks to try to work to reduce barriers, to get people into that home. And so it's very exciting. The idea behind this is that, again, this is a larger policy opportunity for us as a community, because if we can get this right for homeless veterans, then we can take a look at then, all right. How do we get focused on another population and scale it. All right. Let's talk about post foster youth. Let's talk about single women that are domestic violence survivors. How do you get focused on that so you can get greater outcomes.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:42:27] Fantastic.

Josh Slotnick: [00:42:28] Okay last question with the minute or so left. So in the recent past, have you run across some nugget of culture that you feel like was worth talking about anything?

Andrea Davis: [00:42:37] Yeah, we had the opportunity and I say we because there was more than one of us at this table that attended the presentation by Doris Kearns Goodwin at the Mansfield Center. And she is a presidential historian, and she's a woman of 81 wise years who has just a tremendous amount of information and perspective to share. A couple of things I thought about. She had said that history tells us or teaches us lessons, perspective and hope. It's so incredible to make sure that we are paying attention to our history. And then what? Another thing that she said that really stuck with me is what we expect of government. We should expect of ourselves because we are government.

Josh Slotnick: [00:43:11] I love that, that's good. That's very.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:43:13] Good. Well, thanks, Andrea, for joining us.

Andrea Davis: [00:43:15] You're welcome.

Juanita Vero: [00:43:17] We'll do it again.

Andrea Davis: [00:43:17] The opportunity we always have much to talk about.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:43:19] We do.

Juanita Vero: [00:43:20] So good.

Josh Slotnick: [00:43:21] Thanks for listening to the agenda. If you enjoy these conversations, it would mean a lot if you would rate and review the show on whichever podcast app you use.

Juanita Vero: [00:43:29] And if you know a friend who would like to keep up with what's happening in local government, be sure to recommend this podcast to them.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:43:35] The agenda with the Missoula County Commissioners is made possible with support from Missoula Community Access Television, better known as MCAT, and our staff in the Missoula County Communications Division.

Josh Slotnick: [00:43:47] If you have a question or a topic you'd like us to discuss on a future episode, email it to communications@missoulacounty.us.

Juanita Vero: [00:43:55] To find out other ways to stay up to date with what's happening in Missoula County, go to Missoula.co/countyupdates. Thanks for.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:44:03] Listening.