City Desk

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Category: City Desk

• housing crisis
• North Missoulda Community Development Corporation
• Neighborworks Montana

By Mark Moran - Producer-Editor, Contact - News

Big Sky Connection - Montana housing advocates are taking a cooperative approach to address the housing shortage in parts of the state where supply is low and demand is high, creating unaffordability problems. Comments from Kaia (KYE-uh) Peterson, executive director of Neighborworks Montana, Brittany Palmer, executive director, North Missoula Community Development Corporation.

Click on the image above for the audio. Non-profits in Montana are using a cooperative model to address an affordable housing shortage. (Adobe Stock)

Mark Moran

August 26, 2024 - A coalition of advocates is using a novel approach to address the housing shortage in Missoula, helping renters become owners.

Prices and availability continue to be a problem in Montana.

Neighborworks Montana and the North Missoula Community Development Corporation are expanding the co-op concept in Missoula, notorious for its housing shortage.

Neigborworks Montana Executive Director Kaia Peterson said co-ops are successful because they hire the property management company that works for them.

"So, these are existing apartment buildings, and what we're doing is instead of an individual investor owning that building, we're helping the residents form a cooperative," said Peterson. "So, the residents are creating a business together - in the business form of a cooperative - and that cooperative buys and owns and operates the building."

Co-op ownership eliminates the possibility of an investor buying the building and increasing rent if the property value increases. The group hopes to replicate the model across Montana.

North Missoula Community Development Corporation's Executive Director Brittany Palmer said the co-op model also keeps the property in local hands and allows residents to decide, collectively, how to best use the money people are paying to live there.

"Them hiring the property management company that works for them, rather than for a landlord," said Palmer. "It goes towards also things like maintenance which they get to decide when and what maintenance and repairs are made."

The corporation owns the land underneath the buildings, so even if the co-op dissolves in the future, the corporation still decides what happens with the property.