Viewpoint: Consider housing affordability when choosing candidates

Blaine Doherty

Four years ago my neighbor and close friend was given notice that the house she had lived in for the past 30 years, a 120-year-old house in the riverfront neighborhood that had been carved into four rental units, had been bought sight unseen by a couple from Texas.

She was 85 then, living on a small fixed income, with no access to the internet, no living family who could support her, and no friends who were not also not renters who could take her. She is also a retired artist and teacher, community volunteer, voracious reader and writer, lover of trees, and resident of Missoula for the better part of 80 years. To move through Missoula with her is to move through a landscape of time I would have never known if not for her.  She is a treasure.

It took 8 months to find a new rental. In that time her health deteriorated from stress.  She became suicidal. One rental company and landlord after another denied her because she had too little income and because she had bad credit.

My friend is not alone in her story. The housing crisis in Missoula - the intense displacement of community members - is harming thousands of us.

Our friends and neighbors cannot wait for the affordable housing the city promises us is coming. Daniel Carlino understands these stakes and is fighting with an urgency and intensity that matches them. That is why I support his reelection for City Council, Ward 3.