Thank you for sharing your story in the context of a big picture we should all care deeply about. I remember someone, a friend, commenting on the absurdity of the workforce housing project in the center of Ketchum when it was just a proposal. “That’s not a good use of such expensive land,” she said. “They can live elsewhere - Hailey or Shoshone.” My response, not very gentle, I admit, was “Why does it have to be that way? Don’t we get to decide, as a community, who and what we want to be? Would a better use of the land be more multi-million dollar condos that sit empty most of the time?” I prefer to live in a community where we want everyone to thrive. One that is rich in diversity of backgrounds and experiences. Where the people who work the hardest can walk to work - or at least not have to drive two hours. It’s shameful that anyone in this country should be forced to lived in their cars or on the street. Shame on us.
Thank you Jan for sharing Ian’s story with your readers. As a Canadian I am reluctant to comment. Housing (and health care and education) are basic human rights. Every country can do better.
There are very few of us who are not one major life event like a lost job, spouse issue, heart attack, etc from economic disaster. I gave a long speech about this, using my mom and siblings being left in Iowa with no way to live another week when my biological father abandoned us.
Excellent Jan, and the premise of your story is applicable to many of life’s conditions. Medical care is rapidly moving from “not for profit” to “for profit” types of entities. The principal purpose of all medical care has been to serve the patient. The patient has now been replaced by the stock holder as the principal reason to operate. This change has degraded medical service in significant ways, much to the dismay of people in the delivery of medical services. They are tired, overworked, not appreciated by their employers, they are no longer loved for their service to the infirm, they are defiled for their supposed excesses. No longer can a physician, or any staff, be contacted by telephone. Doctors are limited in time spent with patients in the pursuit of seeing more paying patients rather than expending all means to serve those in need. An old boss of mine, when presented with aggressive cost cutting ideas, told me that it didn’t serve the corporation to squeeze the lemon to dry. I recently had a revered nurse who had served her clinic for 22 years tell me that they had become 4 nurses short, that her administrator had refused to replace them, thereby reducing payroll, purportedly enriching the stock holder. She sighed, put her head in her hands saying she had been working there 22 years, that it was not going to be 23, and there were 3 other nurses like her.
This is not a doctor/nurse problem, it has become a system that rewards the hierarchy of administrators with substantial bonuses for consistent increases in net income.
They, administrators, can’t raise prices because prices for medical services are dictated by the insurance industry and Medicare; many if not most inefficiencies have already been addressed; reducing payroll is the last opportunity to preserve and increase bonus income. Employees are asked to assume ever increasing burdens, and patients are suffering from limited care and communication blackouts. These conditions are unsustainable. The myth that the marketplace is king grows as congress refuses to regulate in deference to the belief that imposed efficiency in search of ever increasing profits is the answer to the improvement of all endeavor. We are in a crisis in medicine now, it is only now that we are beginning to understand that patients being replaced by stockholders as the prime purpose of the delivery of medical services is seriously eroding public confidence in medicine. Large organizational policy is rarely changed from within, it has inertia. These disastrous trends will only be changed by failure of medical institutions or outside pressure through political action. It’s going to be a bumpy ride for sometime.
Powerful post Jan- the writing is emphatic and the message is of great relevance. We are caught in a trap- of paying a high mortgage, and fearing that if we move, we will be worse off- so we keeping working, and working and budgeting, living modestly, and hoping things will change for the better for everyone- but we do have a home, a shelter- more fortunate than many others. It breaks my heart to think of those who sleep in cars and shelters.
Thanks, Jan, for addressing this serious and worsening problem. Here are my two cents: FUCK Airbnb. Ketchum, Idaho, home of the rich and the famous and their second, third and fourth homes, and a population of what... 4000? 4500 now, courtesy of the Covid migration? In 2022 (the last time I checked) it had 760 short term rentals - 760! - according to the Mountain Express, and I suspect that things have gotten even worse since then. At the same time, it has pages of unfilled job opportunities, good job opportunities, that can't be filled because there's no affordable place to live for those who wish to live and work here, who wish to become part of the community. Imagine that we didn't have Airbnb and VRBO - sons-of-bitches - and those 760 short term rentals were available to working people, to folks who contribute more to this community than their tourist dollars, to people whose hard work makes all of those tourist dollars POSSIBLE, to people whose presence strengthens neighborhoods rather than fragmenting them, to people who care about their neighbors. Imagine folks not being seduced by the prospect of big bucks for weekend rentals to folks who can well afford a hotel room but choose instead to suck up a nice guest house, mother-in-law, apartment, or single-family home for the weekend, because... why? Because they deserve to have a weekend home of their own? Because their own home isn't enough? Because hotels are SO yesterday? They have to deprive someone else of a home just so that they can have a pleasing long weekend away? Stay in a fucking hotel! That's what they're there for! And it's not just Ketchum. Far from it. It's worldwide. It's everywhere. Greed and opportunism have no geographical bounds. Homelessness is skyrocketing while corporate investors swoop in with big cash and buy up available housing for the short-term rental market. Garage apartments, once an affordable long-term option, have become short-term cash cows. Single family homes are no longer homes, no longer an essential part of the community, no longer where neighbor knows neighbor, but investments, businesses. Why rent long-term to someone who actually needs a place to live when you can make three or four times as much catering to the weekend festival goer, the hipster vacationer, the digital nomad? And look what it's done to rental prices, not to mention purchase prices. We have to look beyond the vicissitudes of the real estate market and the virtues of capitalism. This is about people's lives, the hard reality of the lack of affordable housing and its wide-ranging ripple effects on those who work for every dollar and can no longer afford a decent roof over their heads. So I say, FUCK AIRBNB! You are NOT making the world a better place. Just more greedy.
I was president of our local YMCA for a while, and then helped raise funds. People asked me all the time why I had such a strong affection for the Y, and I gave this story as to why we all should be willing to help those in need. Our Y branches were in two of the poorest areas of town, and in a very middle class area.
The tie in is that my mom moved back to Chicago with the three of us, into her moms home (like your story) and learned who to be a secretary at the Irving Park Y. Her mom worked there and got her a job at the front desk as a greeter.
Two things about my mom from that. One, she met my dad at that Y, he was a resident there. The Irving Park Y housed a lot of single men, like how they started a hundred years ago, but few have apartments like that any more.
Two, my mom learned everything at that Y, shorthand, dictation, typing, phones, etc. It let her get a job at the Kraft world headquarters downtown on Peshtigo Court. Her last few years she was the secretary to O E Swain, the president of Kraft Foods. She worked along side SalliAnne Kraft, the last heir of the Kraft family.
This is really well done. Thank you, Jan. There but for the grace, as you say, I am stably housed. But I'm very aware that due to not being able to refinance my house before the interest rate started adjusting annually because of a pandemic layoff, my monthly mortgage payment has gone up over $500 since 2020. That is only sustainable because I have a housemate who pays me under the table and a son, who also pays me a small amount of rent.
I'm hoping to finally refinance this coming summer, but ultimately, until the interest rates come down at least another percentage point, it's not worth the effort. But as long as I don't do it I can't actually afford my house as a single mom by myself. I told myself when my last live-in relationship tanked that I would never cohabitate with a partner for financial reasons, but the reality is that I have to cohabitate with somebody because I can't afford this place otherwise. But also, I'm paying less than half what this house would go for if I had to pay market rent for it.
Thanks for putting housing front and center! As you know, I always rented our two houses in Hailey there for significantly under market value. Sometimes by $500 to $1000 under. Sometimes I would adjust the rate down per their income on the application. But summer of 2023, the weirdest thing happened. Both the houses had been vacated so we ran ads in the local paper and online, for under market value. CRICKETS. No one called! I ran the ads again and dropped the price. Crickets. Also, after having the last THREE local tenants destroy BOTH the houses, I tried to get a property manager. But the property managers who responded were not interested in managing that neighborhood. I had even reached out to the local non-profits to see if their people needed housing. Nope. We called a single mom who had an ad looking for housing but she did not want to slum it in “that” neighborhood. So in the absence of any local applicants, I sold the one, and converted the other to short term VRBO. That made it easy to get a very good property manager because they also don’t want to deal with the destruction that had become the norm of our “local” tenants over the last five years. But I was just really surprised, when for the first time in 20 years, no one local responded at all to the two of only 3 total listings for a very nice 3 bedroom house in Hailey, that was underpriced. It was just so unexpected.
Super interesting and important post, Jan— you always bring the point "home", if you'll pardon the pun of sorts! I also appreciate the mention, particularly alongside Jeremy Ney's important statistical work. The comments are so heartfelt and on point, too.
I have a roof over my head only through the generosity of a friend now, and other good friends in the past. I am still waiting for a contract for a federal job I was hired for in September (and then de-activated from) that would pull me out of poverty. I don't think I'm being melodramatic when I wonder whether I'll live to see the contract or my first paycheck...
And, honestly, as a landlord, I’m totally in favor of rent control. Bring it on. At a minimum, it would make housing less palatable to investors, as a commodity. Might also throw a wrench in AirBNB.
Thank you for sharing your story in the context of a big picture we should all care deeply about. I remember someone, a friend, commenting on the absurdity of the workforce housing project in the center of Ketchum when it was just a proposal. “That’s not a good use of such expensive land,” she said. “They can live elsewhere - Hailey or Shoshone.” My response, not very gentle, I admit, was “Why does it have to be that way? Don’t we get to decide, as a community, who and what we want to be? Would a better use of the land be more multi-million dollar condos that sit empty most of the time?” I prefer to live in a community where we want everyone to thrive. One that is rich in diversity of backgrounds and experiences. Where the people who work the hardest can walk to work - or at least not have to drive two hours. It’s shameful that anyone in this country should be forced to lived in their cars or on the street. Shame on us.
Thank you Jan for sharing Ian’s story with your readers. As a Canadian I am reluctant to comment. Housing (and health care and education) are basic human rights. Every country can do better.
There are very few of us who are not one major life event like a lost job, spouse issue, heart attack, etc from economic disaster. I gave a long speech about this, using my mom and siblings being left in Iowa with no way to live another week when my biological father abandoned us.
💕 Jan, you address the realities of life, shared by so many.
We all want upward progress in life, decisions, hope for the future!
The sharing of your experiences challenges all of us to do deeper into our own experiences.
Thank you my friend for helping each of us reflect deeper into our own past, and present so that we can create a positive future for life.
I thank God for letting our “paths” cross.
You are in my thoughts and prayers. Pat
Excellent Jan, and the premise of your story is applicable to many of life’s conditions. Medical care is rapidly moving from “not for profit” to “for profit” types of entities. The principal purpose of all medical care has been to serve the patient. The patient has now been replaced by the stock holder as the principal reason to operate. This change has degraded medical service in significant ways, much to the dismay of people in the delivery of medical services. They are tired, overworked, not appreciated by their employers, they are no longer loved for their service to the infirm, they are defiled for their supposed excesses. No longer can a physician, or any staff, be contacted by telephone. Doctors are limited in time spent with patients in the pursuit of seeing more paying patients rather than expending all means to serve those in need. An old boss of mine, when presented with aggressive cost cutting ideas, told me that it didn’t serve the corporation to squeeze the lemon to dry. I recently had a revered nurse who had served her clinic for 22 years tell me that they had become 4 nurses short, that her administrator had refused to replace them, thereby reducing payroll, purportedly enriching the stock holder. She sighed, put her head in her hands saying she had been working there 22 years, that it was not going to be 23, and there were 3 other nurses like her.
This is not a doctor/nurse problem, it has become a system that rewards the hierarchy of administrators with substantial bonuses for consistent increases in net income.
They, administrators, can’t raise prices because prices for medical services are dictated by the insurance industry and Medicare; many if not most inefficiencies have already been addressed; reducing payroll is the last opportunity to preserve and increase bonus income. Employees are asked to assume ever increasing burdens, and patients are suffering from limited care and communication blackouts. These conditions are unsustainable. The myth that the marketplace is king grows as congress refuses to regulate in deference to the belief that imposed efficiency in search of ever increasing profits is the answer to the improvement of all endeavor. We are in a crisis in medicine now, it is only now that we are beginning to understand that patients being replaced by stockholders as the prime purpose of the delivery of medical services is seriously eroding public confidence in medicine. Large organizational policy is rarely changed from within, it has inertia. These disastrous trends will only be changed by failure of medical institutions or outside pressure through political action. It’s going to be a bumpy ride for sometime.
Your admirer:
Captain
Powerful post Jan- the writing is emphatic and the message is of great relevance. We are caught in a trap- of paying a high mortgage, and fearing that if we move, we will be worse off- so we keeping working, and working and budgeting, living modestly, and hoping things will change for the better for everyone- but we do have a home, a shelter- more fortunate than many others. It breaks my heart to think of those who sleep in cars and shelters.
Thanks, Jan, for addressing this serious and worsening problem. Here are my two cents: FUCK Airbnb. Ketchum, Idaho, home of the rich and the famous and their second, third and fourth homes, and a population of what... 4000? 4500 now, courtesy of the Covid migration? In 2022 (the last time I checked) it had 760 short term rentals - 760! - according to the Mountain Express, and I suspect that things have gotten even worse since then. At the same time, it has pages of unfilled job opportunities, good job opportunities, that can't be filled because there's no affordable place to live for those who wish to live and work here, who wish to become part of the community. Imagine that we didn't have Airbnb and VRBO - sons-of-bitches - and those 760 short term rentals were available to working people, to folks who contribute more to this community than their tourist dollars, to people whose hard work makes all of those tourist dollars POSSIBLE, to people whose presence strengthens neighborhoods rather than fragmenting them, to people who care about their neighbors. Imagine folks not being seduced by the prospect of big bucks for weekend rentals to folks who can well afford a hotel room but choose instead to suck up a nice guest house, mother-in-law, apartment, or single-family home for the weekend, because... why? Because they deserve to have a weekend home of their own? Because their own home isn't enough? Because hotels are SO yesterday? They have to deprive someone else of a home just so that they can have a pleasing long weekend away? Stay in a fucking hotel! That's what they're there for! And it's not just Ketchum. Far from it. It's worldwide. It's everywhere. Greed and opportunism have no geographical bounds. Homelessness is skyrocketing while corporate investors swoop in with big cash and buy up available housing for the short-term rental market. Garage apartments, once an affordable long-term option, have become short-term cash cows. Single family homes are no longer homes, no longer an essential part of the community, no longer where neighbor knows neighbor, but investments, businesses. Why rent long-term to someone who actually needs a place to live when you can make three or four times as much catering to the weekend festival goer, the hipster vacationer, the digital nomad? And look what it's done to rental prices, not to mention purchase prices. We have to look beyond the vicissitudes of the real estate market and the virtues of capitalism. This is about people's lives, the hard reality of the lack of affordable housing and its wide-ranging ripple effects on those who work for every dollar and can no longer afford a decent roof over their heads. So I say, FUCK AIRBNB! You are NOT making the world a better place. Just more greedy.
I was president of our local YMCA for a while, and then helped raise funds. People asked me all the time why I had such a strong affection for the Y, and I gave this story as to why we all should be willing to help those in need. Our Y branches were in two of the poorest areas of town, and in a very middle class area.
The tie in is that my mom moved back to Chicago with the three of us, into her moms home (like your story) and learned who to be a secretary at the Irving Park Y. Her mom worked there and got her a job at the front desk as a greeter.
Two things about my mom from that. One, she met my dad at that Y, he was a resident there. The Irving Park Y housed a lot of single men, like how they started a hundred years ago, but few have apartments like that any more.
Two, my mom learned everything at that Y, shorthand, dictation, typing, phones, etc. It let her get a job at the Kraft world headquarters downtown on Peshtigo Court. Her last few years she was the secretary to O E Swain, the president of Kraft Foods. She worked along side SalliAnne Kraft, the last heir of the Kraft family.
This is really well done. Thank you, Jan. There but for the grace, as you say, I am stably housed. But I'm very aware that due to not being able to refinance my house before the interest rate started adjusting annually because of a pandemic layoff, my monthly mortgage payment has gone up over $500 since 2020. That is only sustainable because I have a housemate who pays me under the table and a son, who also pays me a small amount of rent.
I'm hoping to finally refinance this coming summer, but ultimately, until the interest rates come down at least another percentage point, it's not worth the effort. But as long as I don't do it I can't actually afford my house as a single mom by myself. I told myself when my last live-in relationship tanked that I would never cohabitate with a partner for financial reasons, but the reality is that I have to cohabitate with somebody because I can't afford this place otherwise. But also, I'm paying less than half what this house would go for if I had to pay market rent for it.
Thanks for putting housing front and center! As you know, I always rented our two houses in Hailey there for significantly under market value. Sometimes by $500 to $1000 under. Sometimes I would adjust the rate down per their income on the application. But summer of 2023, the weirdest thing happened. Both the houses had been vacated so we ran ads in the local paper and online, for under market value. CRICKETS. No one called! I ran the ads again and dropped the price. Crickets. Also, after having the last THREE local tenants destroy BOTH the houses, I tried to get a property manager. But the property managers who responded were not interested in managing that neighborhood. I had even reached out to the local non-profits to see if their people needed housing. Nope. We called a single mom who had an ad looking for housing but she did not want to slum it in “that” neighborhood. So in the absence of any local applicants, I sold the one, and converted the other to short term VRBO. That made it easy to get a very good property manager because they also don’t want to deal with the destruction that had become the norm of our “local” tenants over the last five years. But I was just really surprised, when for the first time in 20 years, no one local responded at all to the two of only 3 total listings for a very nice 3 bedroom house in Hailey, that was underpriced. It was just so unexpected.
Super interesting and important post, Jan— you always bring the point "home", if you'll pardon the pun of sorts! I also appreciate the mention, particularly alongside Jeremy Ney's important statistical work. The comments are so heartfelt and on point, too.
I have a roof over my head only through the generosity of a friend now, and other good friends in the past. I am still waiting for a contract for a federal job I was hired for in September (and then de-activated from) that would pull me out of poverty. I don't think I'm being melodramatic when I wonder whether I'll live to see the contract or my first paycheck...
And, honestly, as a landlord, I’m totally in favor of rent control. Bring it on. At a minimum, it would make housing less palatable to investors, as a commodity. Might also throw a wrench in AirBNB.