Some observations regarding the current efforts in Whitefish to solve the employee housing problem: No 1. This is a valley-wide issue and not just a Whitefish issue, where the most expensive land in the valley is located. No. 2. The affordable housing question is only a part of the problem. Just because affordable housing is built in the valley does not mean that people will clamor to move from somewhere else in order to work here.
Other resorts are having a workforce problem that’s equal to ours even though many of them already have plenty of employee/affordable housing. Look at Aspen, Vail, Sun Valley, and many others.
There is one factor that is going to make it significantly harder for us to recruit employees than it is in these other communities. Our addressable pool of employees is way smaller than the others, such as Aspen – 4 hours from 5 million people (Front Range); Park City – 38 minutes away from 1.23 million people; etc. Our valley is remote and distant from any significant population center.
We need to expand the effort to the entire valley and to stop focusing only on Whitefish. This would allow us to tap into all of the resources that we have in the valley, including available land that’s way cheaper than what’s available in Whitefish and additional people resources that would have a broader and more effective perspective than just a Whitefish-centric program.
I applaud the efforts of the various ad hoc groups that are working on affordable housing in Whitefish. However, simply focusing only on Whitefish and not spending an equal amount of time developing a workforce recruiting program is going to fall way short in solving this problem.
Marshall Friedman
Whitefish