Housing shortages limit community building in rural counties

Key Takeaways

Building housing in rural areas can be costly, but when housing supply doesn’t meet local needs, persistent but less-measurable costs emerge that weaken the local networks and undermine the qualities that make communities attractive to year-round residents and visitors alike.

In Valley County, Idaho, nearly 80% of housing is identified as a second home. Priced out of the local housing market, local employees drive roughly an hour to and from work, which ends up being common among rural resort gateway counties. That time in the car is time that’s not available for local civic engagement and involvement.

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NACo's Housing Affordability Resource Hub

NACo Housing Task Force Final Report

“We lose people who are willing to run for the school board, for our county positions, people who actually want to participate in their community but can’t because they’re commuting,” said Commissioner Sherry Maupin, who served as co-chair of NACo’s National Housing Affordability Task Force. “People can’t volunteer at our local nonprofit because they live so far away.” They spend time commuting instead of volunteering, she said, “so you lose people who want to serve on local boards.” 

John Peters sees the same things happening in Mono County, Calif., where he is a county supervisor.

“A lot of people work in Mono County but live in Bishop, in Inyo County,” he said. “In the northern part of the county, they live in Nevada. The majority of our public sector workers, our sheriff’s deputies, our forest service, our highway patrol, they live out of the county, out of the state. Those people aren’t going to be a member of a Mono County organization because they don’t live here at the end of the day.”

That affects school enrollment, with numbers of students and resources for those schools, trending downward. The talent pool, both academically and in terms of participation in extracurricular activities, also shrinks, leaving a less-dynamic atmosphere.

In one of those neighboring counties, Inyo County, Calif., Supervisor Jen Roeser said that the residents who moved to the county to work remotely were not showing up in community groups, especially in volunteer positions.

“It’s not overwhelming, but it’s an issue in some of the communities in our far-flung county,” she said.

Patricia Robertson, Mono County’s housing management analyst, said prolific volunteers create an unsustainable solution. 

“People wear so many hats — they lead a nonprofit, they’re a volunteer firefighter, they’re on the school board,” she said. “They are involved in everything, and it’s great to have people that want to be involved. But if they get burned out or there’s conflicts of interest, the bench isn’t as deep.”

Mono County’s volunteer fire departments identify housing as their biggest challenge. 

“You need your firefighters to be close by,” she said. “Emergency preparedness is severely impacted if volunteers don’t live where you need them.”

Teton County, Wyo. relaxed its search and rescue team requirements, allowing Teton County, Idaho residents to join. April Norton, the county’s housing director, said that regional approach works in that case, but her housing board doesn’t have the same leeway. Members must be registered to vote in Teton County, which eliminates many second-home owners. Norton also served on NACo's task force.

“Even if you have the most engaged second-home owner, most of them aren’t going to change their voter registration from their primary residence just so they can serve on the housing board,” she said.

Norton and her husband serve on the local Rotary Club, and they’ve seen their peer organizations suffer from lack of participation. They also coach youth sports, which are hurting for coaches and in some cases, players. 

“The Lions Club just went away,” she said. “The decline in participation has been real. There are fewer people who are living here year-round and are plugged into the community. 

“We’re seeing the community ties start to fray — you need all three strands for the rope to be strong — you’re starting to lose the local working-class population because they can’t afford to be here. All of a sudden, your rope is less strong, your community is less strong.”