housing

Nationally, there’s a shortage of about 68,000 homes on tribal reservations, and on the Wind River Reservation, both the Northern Arapaho and the Eastern Shoshone tribes are hundreds of homes short. That’s led to severe overcrowding and homelessness there.

High winds in West Laramie exacerbated a fire that started around 11 Monday morning and quickly spread to multiple buildings in a mobile home park. Local officials asked residents to evacuate as they worked to extinguish the fire which destroyed nine homes. No one was injured.

Wyoming's outdated housing stock needs replacing, but resources to make that happen are limited. That's left most counties in the state in need of more low-income housing, according to a new Wyoming Business Council report. 

Each year, Wyoming is given Federal Housing and Urban Development funds to pay for various services and infrastructure improvements across the state. The Wyoming Business Council is surveying the public to help decide how to spend $3 million over the next five years.

Federal Housing and Urban Development dollars can be used towards building affordable housing, fixing streets and sewers, as well as public services like childcare, transportation, and mental health. 

Teton County residents will vote in May whether to approve $70 million in revenue collected from a Special Purpose Excise Tax, or SPET. The tax would fund local infrastructure projects, including three housing developments meant to accommodate Jackson’s far-flung workforce. Two of the projects would provide housing for seasonal town and county employees.

Wyoming is among the states with the highest proportion of people living in mobile homes, but they don’t have the same rights as other homeowners.

House Bill 56, which is now before the Senate, will fix an oversight in how mobile homes are titled.

The Housing and Urban Development Office has released a large scale study evaluating the severity of the housing crisis in Indian Country. It’s the most comprehensive research conducted on the subject and the only study of its kind in about 20 years. The study concludes there’s a need for about 68,000 new homes across tribal lands nationwide.

Teton County’s Habitat for Humanity has released design plans for twenty-four low income homes that will help address the housing shortfall in the area.  

Many of the people who work in the Jackson area can’t afford to live there, and a recent study found that a third of the county's residents spend more than thirty percent of their income on housing.

A local group hopes to build the three bedroom units over the next four years, and sell them to people who make less than eighty percent of the county’s average.

Two new housing proposals in Jackson recommend that the town pay for infrastructure improvements on behalf of private developers, as long as they limit access to those facilities to lower income renters.

Mayor Sara Flitner said private developers are usually responsible for building their infrastructure as needed. But because the cost of housing has eclipsed wages in Jackson, Flitner said the town council is considering an exchange of infrastructure improvements, such as water and sewage, for income restrictions on new development’s housing.

Wyoming Catholic College in Lander is steadily growing, and administrators say it’s been difficult to find housing for new students. 

Wyoming Catholic College President Kevin Roberts says enrollment is currently at 150 students. That’s up from 110 a few years back.

"What we’ve seen in the last 3 years is record enrollment growth," says Roberts. "Each freshman class has been larger than the previous one."

The Jackson Town Council and Teton County Board of Commissioners agreed to a draft housing action plan for the community this week, following a 3-day summit.

The 80-page plan will need to be approved by a vote at a joint meeting November 2. Under the plan, the county and town will work together on housing issues with a joint Town-County Housing Director.

The Teton County Housing Authority will be restructured to allow for joint control with the town of Jackson. It will remain a quasi-governmental agency, but its scope and focus will be significantly reduced.

An amendment that would have added gay and transgender people to a bill intended to protect Wyoming residents from housing discrimination—failed Tuesday.

Openly gay Laramie Democrat Cathy Connolly tried to add the two groups of people to the list of protected classes. Connolly, who is also a University of Wyoming Professor, says it’s a serious concern.

“I can tell you that at least once a year, a student comes to talk to me about the fear of losing his or her apartment or trailer, simply because they are gay.”

All day Wednesday, volunteers will be canvassing Wyoming’s homeless shelters and streets in an effort to come up with a sort of homeless census.  

The annual effort is what’s called a homeless ‘point-in-time’ count. The results are used by agencies like the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development to determine how much funding and assistance is needed in the state.

Brenda Lyttle with the Department of Family Services is Wyoming’s homeless coordinator. She says last year, Wyoming’s count of homeless residents was about one-thousand.

The Department of Veterans Affairs has awarded two grants of $1.4 million and $2 million to Wyoming to prevent homelessness among veterans.

Announced Monday, the grant will fund services provided by the Southwest Wyoming Recovery Access Program, or SW-WRAP, like housing counseling, legal assistance, temporary financial assistance, and childcare for veterans and their families.

Cathie Hughes, founder and CEO of SW-WRAP, said that making these services visible is one of the biggest challenges.