Affordable housing crisis: Missoula looks to $10M federal grant

The metrics and anecdotes surrounding Missoula’s affordable housing crisis are dire, city housing policy specialist Emily Harris-Shears told city council members this month as she prepares to apply for a $10 million federal grant to help alleviate the problem.

For example, the median home sales price in Missoula rose 158% from 2012 to 2022, while the Area Median Income increased only 59% in that same time. The daily struggle of thousands of Missoulians can be explained in that one statistic.

Also, the rental vacancy rate in Missoula hasn’t been over 2% since the end of 2020 or above 4% since the first part of 2018. A healthy market, where landlords must drop prices to be competitive for renters, would be 5-10%.

Yvonne Perrigo, a resident of Travois Village mobile home park, was given a six-month eviction notice by the owner of Skyview Trailer Park in 2017 alongside occupants of 33 other mobile homes in the park. Perrigo spoke with Hermina Harold, who was then working for the North Missoula Community Development Corporation and helped Perrigo come up with the money she needed to move to the Travois Village mobile

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