Boulder needs affordable housing, and the National Affordable Housing Network is ready to help with that if the community wants, Barb Miller of Butte told about 15 local citizens last week. NAHN was involved in a previous affordable housing build in Boulder, constructing six houses immediately west of the elementary school.
Calling Boulder “a great little town,” Miller said finding affordable housing is a growing problem all over southwestern Montana. Sensing that the area is growing and about to be discovered, outside investors are buying up homes and turning them into rentals and waiting to rent them “at prices that no one can afford,” she said.
Those speculators can afford to wait for newcomers to fill those spaces at rates the current area residents cannot afford, she said. NAHN, a private, non-profit, has land on the west side of the previous housing project and is willing to build there if there is sufficient interest, said Miller and her construction project manager Todd Hunkler. Boulder is a great place to raise a family, said Miller, and “Young people want to look at towns like Boulder as a place to raise a family.”
