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Affordable housing with Shelter WF · A New Angle

0:09
SPEAKER_02: This is a new angle, a show about cool people doing awesome things in and around Montana.
0:15
SPEAKER_02: I'm your host, Justin.
0:17
SPEAKER_02: This show is supported by first security bank,
0:20
SPEAKER_02: Blackfoot communications and the university of Montana college of business.
0:26
SPEAKER_02: Hey folks, welcome back and thanks for tuning in.
0:29
SPEAKER_02: Today,
0:29
SPEAKER_02: I am speaking with Mallory Phillips and Nathan Dugan of Shelter Whitefish,
0:33
SPEAKER_02: an organization dedicated to creating housing options for low to middle income earners.
0:39
SPEAKER_00: Community is important.
0:41
SPEAKER_00: And so the way that we build housing impacts that.
0:45
SPEAKER_02: Mallory and Nathan co-founded Shelter Whitefish in 2022.
0:49
SPEAKER_02: Mallory, Nathan, thanks for joining me today.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having us.
0:52
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, thanks for having us.
0:53
SPEAKER_02: So tell us, where did you grow up and what did your parents do?
0:56
SPEAKER_02: Mallory, let's start with you.
0:57
SPEAKER_00: All right.
0:57
SPEAKER_00: So I am actually, uh, was raised in Whitefish.
1:01
SPEAKER_00: Um, and my mom did a lot of eclectic things.
1:05
SPEAKER_00: She was, uh, she's a reflexologist.
1:08
SPEAKER_00: She, uh,
1:09
SPEAKER_02: What's a reflexologist?
1:10
SPEAKER_02: I have to ask.
1:11
SPEAKER_00: So it's a foot massage.
1:14
SPEAKER_00: And it's the idea that your body is mapped out on the bottom of your feet almost.
1:19
SPEAKER_00: And then my stepdad, he is a construction consultant analysis.
1:24
SPEAKER_00: So it's like if something goes wrong in a construction project, he gets called in.
1:29
SPEAKER_01: Nathan, how about you?
1:31
SPEAKER_01: Yes, I grew up in Northeast Ohio in a city called Warren, which is 45 minutes or so away from Cleveland.
1:38
SPEAKER_01: Moved out to Whitefish after physical therapy school in 2015.
1:42
SPEAKER_01: My parents, my mom was a kindergarten teacher for most of my life.
1:46
SPEAKER_01: And then my dad,
1:47
SPEAKER_01: before my life,
1:48
SPEAKER_01: he was in the Air Force,
1:49
SPEAKER_01: but then he was an over-the-road truck driver for most of my life growing up.
1:53
SPEAKER_02: So the two of you are the co-founders of Shelter Whitefish.
1:57
SPEAKER_02: Let's just start with what is the organization and why did you start it?
2:01
SPEAKER_02: Mallory, you want to jump in on that?
2:03
SPEAKER_00: Sure, so we are a 501c4 pro-housing nonprofit.
2:10
SPEAKER_00: So what that means for a 501c4, for those who don't know, is that we can do a lot more lobbying.
2:16
SPEAKER_00: If you donate to us, it's not tax deductible.
2:20
SPEAKER_00: But part of the reason we went that route is a little more freedom.
2:23
SPEAKER_00: We are not beholden to donors.
2:26
SPEAKER_00: And the reason we started it,
2:27
SPEAKER_00: Nathan and I lived in Kellogg,
2:28
SPEAKER_00: Idaho for three years and moved back to Whitefish in 2021.
2:33
SPEAKER_00: And we really saw how much Whitefish had changed.
2:37
SPEAKER_00: A lot of the people that I had become close with after graduating college and
2:41
SPEAKER_00: people I grew up with were being displaced left and right from rental houses,
2:46
SPEAKER_00: many people leaving the Flathead Valley altogether.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: And we just didn't see a lot of people coming to city council meetings to talk
2:56
SPEAKER_00: about housing that actually needed housing.
2:58
SPEAKER_00: And so we formed as a way to,
3:01
SPEAKER_00: originally we formed as a way to like build collective power to get more voices in
3:06
SPEAKER_00: the room around housing.
3:08
SPEAKER_02: Nathan,
3:08
SPEAKER_02: why don't you give us the state of play for housing in the Flathead Valley and
3:13
SPEAKER_02: Whitefish in particular?
3:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think before we started, um, it was pretty hard to build housing in Whitefish.
3:20
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
3:21
SPEAKER_01: Um,
3:21
SPEAKER_01: specifically if you're talking about something like an apartment complex or an
3:25
SPEAKER_01: apartment building,
3:26
SPEAKER_01: um,
3:27
SPEAKER_01: Or I mean anything really that's kind of more dense than single family homes.
3:31
SPEAKER_01: Back in 2013,
3:33
SPEAKER_01: one of the local developers proposed to build something and it was going to be
3:36
SPEAKER_01: partially single family homes,
3:37
SPEAKER_01: partially town homes,
3:39
SPEAKER_01: condos,
3:39
SPEAKER_01: partially apartments.
3:42
SPEAKER_01: And they came through four or five iterations over the course of a year or two.
3:46
SPEAKER_01: And at every meeting they just whittled the apartments down.
3:50
SPEAKER_01: They started off with like a hundred and then 70, 50, 30, and then they just scrapped it all together.
3:55
SPEAKER_01: And the interesting thing was that last meeting when they got rid of the apartments,
3:59
SPEAKER_01: there was no opposition at all to that.
4:01
SPEAKER_01: And now
4:02
SPEAKER_01: given the state of real estate in Whitefish,
4:05
SPEAKER_01: it is,
4:06
SPEAKER_01: uh,
4:06
SPEAKER_01: those houses in there are probably a million dollars or so,
4:09
SPEAKER_01: $2 million.
4:10
SPEAKER_01: Whitefish is building a little bit more housing,
4:13
SPEAKER_01: you know,
4:13
SPEAKER_01: still not as much as,
4:14
SPEAKER_01: as we'd like to see,
4:15
SPEAKER_01: but there haven't been a lot of projects that have come through to be honest.
4:18
SPEAKER_01: Um, Cal spells building just a ton of housing everywhere.
4:21
SPEAKER_01: And that's got its own problems with just like urban suburban sprawl.
4:25
SPEAKER_01: Um, and then Columbia falls is doing a little bit as well.
4:28
SPEAKER_01: Uh, probably a little bit less than Whitefish at this point.
4:32
SPEAKER_02: Your organization is focused on,
4:33
SPEAKER_02: in my understanding,
4:35
SPEAKER_02: a particular type of housing,
4:36
SPEAKER_02: a segment of the market,
4:38
SPEAKER_02: low to middle income earners,
4:40
SPEAKER_02: right?
4:41
SPEAKER_02: So these are folks that are priced out of the market.
4:43
SPEAKER_02: And it sounds like if a single family home is unaffordable,
4:47
SPEAKER_02: there's not much in terms of more dense housing options.
4:51
SPEAKER_02: Mallory, is that an accurate state of affairs?
4:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
4:54
SPEAKER_00: so in Whitefish specifically,
4:56
SPEAKER_00: really there's single family homes and then a limited amount of condos and apartments,
5:02
SPEAKER_00: and there's not much in between.
5:04
SPEAKER_00: And in Whitefish, there aren't a lot of options unless you're in a single family home or an apartment.
5:11
SPEAKER_00: And so that's,
5:12
SPEAKER_00: and we think that apartments are important too,
5:13
SPEAKER_00: that's an important part of the housing stock,
5:15
SPEAKER_00: but there's also very few options for people that don't want to live in those two
5:21
SPEAKER_00: things or maybe can't live in a single family home,
5:24
SPEAKER_00: but don't want to live in an apartment.
5:26
SPEAKER_02: And what does that look like for folks in that part of the income distribution?
5:33
SPEAKER_02: I mean, are they leaving the community because they can't find housing?
5:37
SPEAKER_02: Are they ending up unhoused?
5:39
SPEAKER_02: Is there a shortage of the sorts of folks that would fill the sorts of jobs that
5:44
SPEAKER_02: that swath of the income distribution would occupy?
5:47
SPEAKER_02: What are the pressures on those people as they're living through this moment?
5:52
SPEAKER_00: During the housing needs assessment of,
5:55
SPEAKER_00: I think,
5:56
SPEAKER_00: last year,
5:57
SPEAKER_00: they found that over 57% of Whitefish's workforce now lives outside of Whitefish.
6:03
SPEAKER_00: And as someone who grew up in Whitefish, I mean, it's, you know, economically challenging in the valley.
6:08
SPEAKER_00: It has been for a long time.
6:09
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know what the stats were before,
6:13
SPEAKER_00: but,
6:13
SPEAKER_00: you know,
6:14
SPEAKER_00: a lot of times if you worked in Whitefish,
6:16
SPEAKER_00: you could live in Whitefish.
6:17
SPEAKER_00: It may have been challenging.
6:19
SPEAKER_00: You may have been stretched thin, but you could do it.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: And now a lot of people who work in Whitefish,
6:24
SPEAKER_00: there's just no way with the wages versus the cost of living that unless you're
6:29
SPEAKER_00: living in overcrowded housing,
6:31
SPEAKER_00: it's pretty hard to do.
6:32
SPEAKER_02: So you're describing a situation that feels sort of stuck.
6:36
SPEAKER_02: I mean, the whitefish growth policy I saw on your website, it hasn't been updated since 2007.
6:41
SPEAKER_02: So trying to get multifamily,
6:43
SPEAKER_02: trying to introduce some density,
6:46
SPEAKER_02: some new construction at the price point that would support this type of housing,
6:51
SPEAKER_02: it seemed to be very difficult.
6:53
SPEAKER_02: What are some of the barriers to that?
6:56
SPEAKER_02: Like what is causing this stuckness from a development standpoint?
7:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think it's certainly not a lack of investment dollars or a lack of people wanting to develop.
7:06
SPEAKER_01: It's more kind of on the community and the council and how they kind of view things.
7:11
SPEAKER_01: And I think that 2007 growth policy is a major impediment.
7:15
SPEAKER_01: It's an easy thing to cite,
7:16
SPEAKER_01: and it's not very open to rentals,
7:22
SPEAKER_01: renters,
7:23
SPEAKER_01: to apartments,
7:24
SPEAKER_01: to things of that nature.
7:26
SPEAKER_01: kind of anywhere in Whitefish.
7:27
SPEAKER_01: And I guess that's a lot of the discourse that we've heard in city council and that
7:32
SPEAKER_01: kind of caused us to start an organization in the first place is just the
7:36
SPEAKER_01: anti-renter discord and no apartment building.
7:41
SPEAKER_01: No matter what the affordability is at that time, it's changed a little bit now.
7:46
SPEAKER_01: We're making a little progress.
7:47
SPEAKER_01: But at that time, like none of this stuff met the character of Whitefish.
7:51
SPEAKER_01: And so,
7:52
SPEAKER_01: you know,
7:52
SPEAKER_01: take that to mean that that's like the character of Kalispell or Columbia Falls,
7:55
SPEAKER_01: but it's not what we want in Whitefish.
7:56
SPEAKER_02: Nathan, you served on the Governor's Housing Task Force, started in 2022.
8:01
SPEAKER_02: In the last legislative session,
8:03
SPEAKER_02: several bills that were considered to be bipartisan and pro-housing were passed.
8:10
SPEAKER_02: Now there is a lawsuit trying to stop the implementation of those laws.
8:16
SPEAKER_02: Explain the state of affairs here.
8:18
SPEAKER_02: Maybe we'll start with the legislation first.
8:20
SPEAKER_02: So some laws were passed.
8:22
SPEAKER_02: Your organization views those laws as good things.
8:26
SPEAKER_02: What are they designed to do?
8:27
SPEAKER_02: Why are they good?
8:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
8:29
SPEAKER_01: so the bills that kind of passed through this last legislative session here in
8:32
SPEAKER_01: Montana that got a lot of recognition throughout the country,
8:36
SPEAKER_01: just because no other state has been able to pass a suite of bills covering so many
8:42
SPEAKER_01: zoning issues all at once,
8:45
SPEAKER_01: were four major bills.
8:48
SPEAKER_01: And those are the bills that are currently being challenged,
8:50
SPEAKER_01: the laws that are currently being challenged,
8:51
SPEAKER_01: because they were all signed into law by the governor.
8:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
8:53
SPEAKER_01: SB 245, which is a bill that we actually were able to write and kind of find a sponsor for and get that.
9:00
SPEAKER_01: This permits mixed use and multifamily development in commercial areas throughout
9:05
SPEAKER_01: the state,
9:05
SPEAKER_01: commercial zones.
9:07
SPEAKER_01: That was already allowed, I think, in places like Missoula and some other cities.
9:11
SPEAKER_02: So an adaptation of existing zoning policy, essentially.
9:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
9:15
SPEAKER_01: And that bill had a parking limitation on it as well.
9:18
SPEAKER_01: So you can't require more than one parking space per unit.
9:22
SPEAKER_01: which a lot of cities, including Whitefish, were requiring that for those types of buildings.
9:26
SPEAKER_01: So that was a win there.
9:27
SPEAKER_02: Which is sometimes it's an unappreciated blockade to building sometimes is the
9:32
SPEAKER_02: number of parking spaces required.
9:34
SPEAKER_02: And sometimes those requirements don't make a lot of sense.
9:39
SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of allowed a couple of developments to kind of progress in Whitefish that were –
9:43
SPEAKER_01: stuck or not brought forward yet since that bill passed.
9:47
SPEAKER_01: So that's been a good one in Whitefish for sure.
9:50
SPEAKER_01: Second bill in that suite of bills is SB 323,
9:53
SPEAKER_01: which is a duplex bill that applies to certain cities over a population threshold.
9:59
SPEAKER_01: SB 382,
10:00
SPEAKER_01: which is one that people are really concerned about,
10:03
SPEAKER_01: it's called the Montana Land Use Planning Act.
10:05
SPEAKER_01: And it's just a rewrite of the planning statutes in Montana.
10:09
SPEAKER_01: aims to kind of make cities quantify their housing need based on projected
10:13
SPEAKER_01: population growth over the next 20 years and then create a plan through a growth
10:18
SPEAKER_01: policy to accomplish that and say where you're going to put that housing to meet
10:23
SPEAKER_01: that population growth should that come,
10:26
SPEAKER_01: adjust your zoning,
10:27
SPEAKER_01: that sort of thing.
10:28
SPEAKER_01: It shifts a lot of that process towards that growth policy phase,
10:31
SPEAKER_01: so towards the front end,
10:32
SPEAKER_01: and then if a developer comes in with a development that meets the rules on the
10:35
SPEAKER_01: back end,
10:36
SPEAKER_01: then it'll just get approved,
10:38
SPEAKER_01: which is,
10:38
SPEAKER_01: you know,
10:39
SPEAKER_01: we set the rules and we agree as a community generally,
10:42
SPEAKER_01: like this is where we wanna see housing.
10:44
SPEAKER_01: We think that's a good thing rather than this neighborhood is on average wealthier
10:50
SPEAKER_01: and has more time to come to meetings and they're gonna shut down anything near them.
10:53
SPEAKER_01: And this neighborhood is not,
10:54
SPEAKER_01: so everything's going to get built over here,
10:56
SPEAKER_01: which is what we see happen in Whitefish,
10:58
SPEAKER_01: and I'm sure it happens in other areas of the state.
11:00
SPEAKER_01: And then the last bill,
11:01
SPEAKER_01: which shocks me that it's so controversial,
11:04
SPEAKER_01: I don't really understand why,
11:06
SPEAKER_01: but it's SB 528.
11:08
SPEAKER_01: It's a bill that legalized accessory dwelling units throughout the entire state.
11:12
SPEAKER_01: So accessory dwelling unit, also known as like a granny flat or a mother-in-law suite.
11:16
SPEAKER_01: Sure, yep.
11:18
SPEAKER_01: Apartment above the garage, something like that.
11:19
SPEAKER_01: Or even in place of the garage in the backyard.
11:22
SPEAKER_01: Could be attached to the house, could be in the basement, that sort of thing.
11:25
SPEAKER_01: So just allows people to build a smaller home on land that they already own that
11:31
SPEAKER_01: maybe they're not really using to house their family or to make a little bit of
11:34
SPEAKER_01: extra income by renting it out to somebody locally or to just use as extra space.
11:41
SPEAKER_01: And what you see with accessory dwelling units is that they change uses over time.
11:47
SPEAKER_02: So those laws are being challenged in court by an organization called Montanans
11:52
SPEAKER_02: Against Irresponsible Densification.
11:55
SPEAKER_02: So in their name sort of is the premise like we don't want more density in our communities.
12:00
SPEAKER_02: But beyond that, like what is the most charitable case against these laws?
12:05
SPEAKER_02: Like what is the primary argument they're making here?
12:09
SPEAKER_01: So the primary legal argument they're making, in my opinion, is an equal protection argument.
12:15
SPEAKER_01: Basically says that there are some people that have,
12:18
SPEAKER_01: live in HOAs,
12:19
SPEAKER_01: homeowners associations,
12:21
SPEAKER_01: and have private covenants that don't permit an ADU to be built or a duplex or whatever.
12:28
SPEAKER_01: Whereas those of us,
12:29
SPEAKER_01: myself included,
12:30
SPEAKER_01: who live in a city and don't exist within an HOA,
12:34
SPEAKER_01: now are subject to these laws.
12:35
SPEAKER_01: And so they're making an argument about equal protection
12:39
SPEAKER_01: there.
12:41
SPEAKER_01: You know, we think that's a pretty weak argument and is not really applicable.
12:45
SPEAKER_01: And there's a lot of reasons for that,
12:46
SPEAKER_01: one of which it's hard to enforce a contract that you're not a party to.
12:51
SPEAKER_01: And it would be hard to survey every single private covenant that exists throughout
12:54
SPEAKER_01: the state of Montana to determine that that is actually the case.
12:59
SPEAKER_02: We'll be back to my conversation with Mallory Phillips and Nathan Dugan after this short break.
13:08
SPEAKER_02: A New Angle is proudly presented by First Security Bank,
13:11
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13:12
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13:15
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13:18
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13:31
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13:38
SPEAKER_01: Hey, this is John Wicks from Deaf Charlie, and you are listening to A New Angle.
13:46
SPEAKER_02: Welcome back to A New Angle.
13:48
SPEAKER_02: I'm speaking with Mallory Phillips and Nathan Dugan of Shelter Whitefish.
13:52
SPEAKER_02: Mallory, what is your take on this?
13:54
SPEAKER_02: It's sounding like folks don't want density.
13:59
SPEAKER_02: They just want to keep things the way they are.
14:02
SPEAKER_02: As somebody who grew up in Whitefish and now has had a hard time finding your own
14:07
SPEAKER_02: housing there,
14:09
SPEAKER_02: how do you feel about that?
14:11
SPEAKER_00: So I think what's really important when we talk about housing issues,
14:15
SPEAKER_00: especially zoning,
14:16
SPEAKER_00: is we can't ignore the history of zoning.
14:19
SPEAKER_00: And so for me personally,
14:20
SPEAKER_00: that was like a really pivotal place for me to start looking at housing in a
14:25
SPEAKER_00: different way,
14:26
SPEAKER_00: especially growing up in Whitefish.
14:27
SPEAKER_00: Because when you grow up in Whitefish,
14:29
SPEAKER_00: There is this mentality that things are going to stay the same and any threat to
14:35
SPEAKER_00: things staying the same,
14:38
SPEAKER_00: you come at in a really like anti-outsider perspective.
14:42
SPEAKER_00: And that in turn, like people don't like density.
14:45
SPEAKER_00: They don't like all sorts of things if they feel that it's a perceived threat to things staying the same.
14:51
SPEAKER_00: And so that's kind of the mindset I grew up with.
14:54
SPEAKER_00: But when we lived in Kellogg, Idaho, there was a lot of poverty, but most people had homes.
15:00
SPEAKER_00: The cost of living was just so much lower.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: And moving back to Whitefish was shocking.
15:05
SPEAKER_00: And so when we started going to council meetings,
15:08
SPEAKER_00: we started reading books,
15:10
SPEAKER_00: and I read the book called The Color of Law.
15:12
SPEAKER_00: And it really breaks down the history of housing and how once it was no longer
15:18
SPEAKER_00: legal to segregate by race,
15:21
SPEAKER_00: things like zoning laws were used as a weapon to segregate by class,
15:27
SPEAKER_00: which in turn segregated by race.
15:30
SPEAKER_00: And so in Whitefish,
15:32
SPEAKER_00: it has been even more apparent in the last few years as Whitefish has become really
15:37
SPEAKER_00: wealthy
15:38
SPEAKER_00: But it's definitely becoming a weapon of keeping people of lower economic status out.
15:46
SPEAKER_00: I think that communities need to have a conversation about that.
15:51
SPEAKER_00: And Whitefish was a historically blue-collar community that was economically very integrated.
15:56
SPEAKER_00: And...
15:59
SPEAKER_00: when they talk about the character of the neighborhood,
16:01
SPEAKER_00: which is a term that comes up a lot,
16:03
SPEAKER_00: the history of that term is very gross and has some pretty classist and racist history.
16:11
SPEAKER_00: In my opinion,
16:12
SPEAKER_00: the character of Whitefish historically has been that economic integration and
16:18
SPEAKER_00: vibrant neighborhoods in which you know your neighbor and they may not live the
16:22
SPEAKER_00: same life as you,
16:23
SPEAKER_00: but you get exposed to people living different lives.
16:27
SPEAKER_00: And so that's really where I come at housing it and why I think it's so important
16:32
SPEAKER_00: that we re-examine how we build our neighborhoods.
16:37
SPEAKER_02: It's interesting how these debates play out in various areas of Montana.
16:42
SPEAKER_02: I mean, zoning and code are four-letter words in much of the state.
16:49
SPEAKER_02: And in the case of Whitefish, as you're describing it, it is let's keep it the way it is.
16:56
SPEAKER_02: And in other parts of the state, it is don't tell me what to do.
17:00
SPEAKER_02: I'm going to build whatever I want, wherever I want, however I want.
17:05
SPEAKER_02: Yet there seems to be sort of a political disposition that unites those two positions.
17:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
17:14
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
17:14
SPEAKER_01: I think that thing that unites that position,
17:17
SPEAKER_01: no matter like what your political affiliation is,
17:21
SPEAKER_01: is that Montana is one of the last states in the union to really see a lot of growth.
17:26
SPEAKER_01: And so there's a lot of open space and a lot of rural space.
17:28
SPEAKER_01: And even our cities are fairly rural or historically have been.
17:32
SPEAKER_01: And so that's just something that people value is just that limiting sprawl.
17:37
SPEAKER_01: It's a difficult question to navigate, right?
17:39
SPEAKER_02: Because as you add people, it makes those amenities come under more pressure.
17:45
SPEAKER_02: And there are questions as to like, what is the right amount of people to have in the state?
17:50
SPEAKER_02: And that gets into really tricky terrain about equity and justice and all sorts of things.
17:55
SPEAKER_01: You often hear an anti-density argument against density and against changing zoning
18:01
SPEAKER_01: to allow for more density that is environmental.
18:04
SPEAKER_01: But from our perspective, the environmentally responsible thing to do is to develop
18:11
SPEAKER_01: fairly densely on the infrastructure that we already have where people can walk or bike,
18:16
SPEAKER_01: um,
18:16
SPEAKER_01: or public transportation networks can be built that actually work.
18:20
SPEAKER_01: Um, we build our cities backwards in a lot of cases throughout the country.
18:23
SPEAKER_01: And, uh, you know, it makes sense.
18:25
SPEAKER_01: The city starts out very small and everybody's got a single family home.
18:27
SPEAKER_01: There's not a lot of demand.
18:29
SPEAKER_01: But then those people that are there never want that to change.
18:32
SPEAKER_01: And so the city grows outward and then you see outer belts pop up 10 miles outside
18:40
SPEAKER_01: of downtown and then the apartments start getting built there.
18:43
SPEAKER_01: And so you put all these people where they have to drive to get to the places that
18:47
SPEAKER_01: they need to be rather than doing it the other way around.
18:50
SPEAKER_02: So aside from making a legal case and sort of advocating for your organization's
18:57
SPEAKER_02: objectives through that legal mechanism,
19:00
SPEAKER_02: where are the areas that you feel your organization sort of gains the most traction?
19:05
SPEAKER_02: What are the arguments that you feel bring people into the conversation and they say,
19:11
SPEAKER_02: oh,
19:11
SPEAKER_02: yeah,
19:11
SPEAKER_02: you know,
19:11
SPEAKER_02: you're kind of right.
19:12
SPEAKER_02: Like maybe I should be thinking differently about this.
19:16
SPEAKER_00: I just think for us, a lot of our work in housing comes back to community.
19:21
SPEAKER_00: I just think that some of the changes that we've seen in Montana and like the
19:27
SPEAKER_00: Flathead Valley is that we are more disconnected.
19:31
SPEAKER_00: We're living farther from each other.
19:33
SPEAKER_00: We're spending a lot more time in cars and we're not walking as much,
19:37
SPEAKER_00: specifically in Whitefish because it is a fairly walkable community,
19:41
SPEAKER_00: so is Missoula.
19:43
SPEAKER_00: There's just less opportunities to connect with one another.
19:46
SPEAKER_00: And I think that that's another shared value that people,
19:50
SPEAKER_00: regardless of your political spectrum,
19:54
SPEAKER_00: that you share when you live in Montana,
19:56
SPEAKER_00: whether you're new here or you've grown up here,
19:59
SPEAKER_00: is that community is important.
20:01
SPEAKER_00: And so the way that we build housing impacts that.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: And so we've been able to get people,
20:08
SPEAKER_00: including my mother,
20:09
SPEAKER_00: who was pretty resistant to this stuff when we first started talking to her about it,
20:14
SPEAKER_00: that if you build in a way that kind of gates off parts of a community or a
20:21
SPEAKER_00: community as a whole,
20:23
SPEAKER_00: You lose something so vital in like trusting your neighbors and,
20:30
SPEAKER_00: you know,
20:30
SPEAKER_00: when times get tough,
20:31
SPEAKER_00: you're going to help them out because you've built these connections.
20:36
SPEAKER_00: And so design of new developments are really important.
20:40
SPEAKER_00: And so that's been a really cool way to talk to people about this in a really human way,
20:45
SPEAKER_00: which I think sometimes when it comes to housing and policy,
20:49
SPEAKER_00: we kind of get disconnected from the people.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: And so I think that's an element that we bring to these city council meetings and
20:56
SPEAKER_00: community housing meetings is we try,
20:58
SPEAKER_00: one,
20:59
SPEAKER_00: we try to get people who are experiencing housing insecurity to tell their stories.
21:04
SPEAKER_00: Because some people on these boards and on these committees haven't had to rent in 30 years.
21:11
SPEAKER_00: And so they're pretty disconnected on some level from what it means to actually
21:15
SPEAKER_00: have to navigate this housing crisis.
21:18
SPEAKER_00: But I think there's a lot of people who have moved from other places that have
21:21
SPEAKER_00: never lived in community this way.
21:24
SPEAKER_00: And they may not know how.
21:26
SPEAKER_00: And so the more that you can show people that where you live and how you design the cities
21:33
SPEAKER_00: has a mass impact on all of us.
21:37
SPEAKER_00: I see it, you know, in the entire flathead, there is becoming this like distrust of other people.
21:44
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know that housing design is the only reason I think it's more complex than that.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: But I do think it's an important element.
21:51
SPEAKER_02: So Nathan, back to the court cases, what are the state?
21:54
SPEAKER_02: What's the state of play right now?
21:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
21:57
SPEAKER_01: so we filed to intervene in that case in Gallatin County District Court a few
22:02
SPEAKER_01: months ago in support of all of those bills and still waiting on a decision on that one.
22:08
SPEAKER_01: Two of those at the end of last year were enjoined by the district court,
22:12
SPEAKER_01: and so SB 323,
22:13
SPEAKER_01: the duplex bill,
22:14
SPEAKER_01: and SB 528,
22:16
SPEAKER_01: the ADU bill,
22:17
SPEAKER_01: which were scheduled to take effect on January 1st.
22:20
SPEAKER_01: Whitefish and I think some other cities had already changed their ordinances to be
22:24
SPEAKER_01: compliant with those bills,
22:25
SPEAKER_01: and so...
22:26
SPEAKER_01: In those cities that have kept those ordinances around,
22:31
SPEAKER_01: the bills are still in effect for all intents and purposes.
22:35
SPEAKER_01: But everywhere else, it's not.
22:36
SPEAKER_01: The state law for those two bills doesn't really apply.
22:39
SPEAKER_01: The state appealed that to the Supreme Court.
22:43
SPEAKER_01: We filed to intervene there as well.
22:45
SPEAKER_01: The Supreme Court pretty quickly denied that motion, but they did allow us to file an amicus brief.
22:51
SPEAKER_01: there.
22:53
SPEAKER_01: Just last week or two weeks ago,
22:55
SPEAKER_01: the district court judge made had requested that they stay the district court case
23:00
SPEAKER_01: pending the outcome of the appeal on the preliminary injunction at the Supreme Court.
23:05
SPEAKER_01: And he did rule to to stay that case.
23:09
SPEAKER_01: So nothing's happening in the district court case right now,
23:11
SPEAKER_01: pending that appeal at the Supreme Court of SB 323 and SB 528.
23:16
SPEAKER_02: Let's pull the lens back just a moment.
23:19
SPEAKER_02: Nate, we'll start with you.
23:20
SPEAKER_02: You served on the Governor's Housing Task Force.
23:23
SPEAKER_01: Yes, I still do.
23:25
SPEAKER_02: And you're currently a student here in our Masters of Business Administration program.
23:30
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
23:31
SPEAKER_02: Talk about the learning that you've gone through in this process of being an activist,
23:37
SPEAKER_02: interfacing with government.
23:39
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if I'm really a good activist.
23:41
SPEAKER_01: I am a good lobbyist or I'm good at forming policy.
23:44
SPEAKER_01: And we actually have a paid lobbyist in Helena, so he does all that lobbying down there.
23:48
SPEAKER_01: But we lobby our city council, so try not to be inflammatory anymore.
23:52
SPEAKER_01: We started off that way for sure.
23:53
SPEAKER_01: And a lot of activism can get into being a little bit more inflammatory and making
23:58
SPEAKER_01: people that you want to make a decision angry.
24:01
SPEAKER_01: And we certainly value that and we need that perspective in City Hall as well,
24:05
SPEAKER_01: because that provides a little bit more pressure than we're able to give as an organization.
24:11
SPEAKER_01: everything that we've done has been totally brand new uh to us so forming a
24:16
SPEAKER_01: non-profit i never did that before yeah never done a state legislative session
24:20
SPEAKER_01: before so that was all new and just kind of learning all the nuances that exist
24:25
SPEAKER_01: there as well as it finally intervene in the court case so just kind of learning a
24:31
SPEAKER_01: lot from our our attorney uh there when he sends updates and uh through reading
24:36
SPEAKER_01: those those legal filings which can be quite long and difficult to read but
24:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's interesting.
24:42
SPEAKER_01: I guess if I just break it down,
24:43
SPEAKER_01: I'm building like competence in this area without really realizing it just by the exposure.
24:51
SPEAKER_02: A lot of transferable skills developing right now.
24:54
SPEAKER_02: Mallory, reflect on your time.
24:56
SPEAKER_02: What are your key learnings?
24:57
SPEAKER_00: Well, so it's been interesting through this process.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: I've also been obtaining a master's in social work.
25:04
SPEAKER_00: And so a lot of it has been connected to what I'm learning about organizing and
25:13
SPEAKER_00: about how you design a nonprofit organization.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: that actually represents the people that you're trying to represent.
25:22
SPEAKER_00: And so what I mean by that is we are working to get housing that is more affordable
25:30
SPEAKER_00: for low and middle income people.
25:32
SPEAKER_00: And so it's been really important for us to ensure that we have renters on our board.
25:36
SPEAKER_00: And so I just think that one of the biggest takeaways I've learned is that it's an evolution of
25:44
SPEAKER_00: The way that we started, I think, worked for the time.
25:47
SPEAKER_00: You know, we were pissed off and that helped fire us up and get organized.
25:52
SPEAKER_00: And then I think also I learned,
25:55
SPEAKER_00: because sometimes I can be a very black and white thinker,
25:57
SPEAKER_00: is that in order to get policy made and crafted...
26:02
SPEAKER_00: you have to be willing to listen to people that you might not normally,
26:07
SPEAKER_00: and build bridges with people you might not normally.
26:10
SPEAKER_00: And then you start to,
26:11
SPEAKER_00: I think the really cool thing about policymaking,
26:13
SPEAKER_00: and this is why I think more people should be involved in policymaking,
26:17
SPEAKER_00: is that I think it makes you see other people with different perspectives in a more
26:23
SPEAKER_00: human perspective.
26:25
SPEAKER_00: Because a lot of the rhetoric around all of these issues is very us versus them and
26:30
SPEAKER_00: you stop viewing them as people that have reasons for believing what they believe.
26:36
SPEAKER_00: And even within Whitefish where I sometimes get upset with some of the rhetoric
26:43
SPEAKER_00: that I hear,
26:44
SPEAKER_00: they're coming from a place,
26:46
SPEAKER_00: right?
26:46
SPEAKER_00: And I have to understand what that perspective is in order to try to create an
26:51
SPEAKER_00: argument that they can understand.
26:54
SPEAKER_02: Activism is an important lever in our society, and I applaud a lot of activists.
27:03
SPEAKER_02: However, the work of policy is actually where is our system for solving problems.
27:10
SPEAKER_00: Well,
27:11
SPEAKER_00: and I would even say something that we've talked a lot about is we need activists
27:16
SPEAKER_00: for the work that we do.
27:18
SPEAKER_00: We see them as a really important part of fighting to change things is because we
27:25
SPEAKER_00: have this grand vision of what we want to see and they're able to push for it in a
27:31
SPEAKER_00: way that helps us to work on the inside of the system to try to make change.
27:37
SPEAKER_00: And I think a lot of times when it comes to different topics such as housing,
27:41
SPEAKER_00: there is a within the same goals that people have.
27:47
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes activists and people working on the inside see each other as the enemy
27:51
SPEAKER_00: when we really see activists as a really important asset.
27:56
SPEAKER_00: part of this.
27:57
SPEAKER_00: And we're not going to be able to do the policy work that we want to do without activism.
28:03
SPEAKER_00: And so I think,
28:04
SPEAKER_00: again,
28:05
SPEAKER_00: it doesn't have to be one way or the other,
28:07
SPEAKER_00: that those two things can work in tandem.
28:11
SPEAKER_02: Just enjoyed speaking with the two of you.
28:13
SPEAKER_02: I wish you the best of luck, not only in your studies, but in this work as well.
28:16
SPEAKER_02: And as you sort of develop your life and livelihoods in the whitefish community.
28:21
SPEAKER_02: Thanks for joining us today and telling your story.
28:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thank you.
28:25
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having us.
28:32
SPEAKER_02: Thanks for listening to A New Angle.
28:34
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28:42
SPEAKER_02: A New Angle is recorded at Studio 49, a generous gift from UM alums Michelle and Lauren Hansen.
28:49
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28:52
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28:53
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28:56
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28:58
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29:00
SPEAKER_02: VTO Jeff Ament and John Wicks made our music.
29:03
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29:07
SPEAKER_02: Thanks a lot and see you next time.