- The biggest employer in Seeley Lake, Montana, is closing partly because of prices and housing points.
- An inflow of individuals to smaller cities has pushed up prices and fueled housing shortages in Montana.
- Communities all through the West are going through related points, with some locals being priced out.
The city of Seeley Lake in Western Montana is dropping its largest employer, with the corporate citing an absence of housing and an unprecedented rise in prices making it too tough to function.
Pyramid Mountain Lumber, which has been in Seeley Lake for 75 years, introduced in a press launch on Thursday it was shutting down its operations and shutting its lumber mill.
“As everybody at Pyramid is aware of, the Firm has been hit very arduous by quite a lot of circumstances which can be outdoors of its management,” the assertion stated. “Amongst different issues, labor shortages, lack of housing, unprecedented rising prices, plummeting lumber costs, and the price of dwelling in Western Montana have crippled Pyramid’s skill to function.”
Montana is amongst quite a few Western states coping with rising prices and a scarcity of housing, pushed partly by the rise in distant work, which has contributed to an inflow of individuals transferring from cities to smaller cities. Montana and Idaho had been among the many fastest-growing states from 2020 to 2022, with dwelling costs rising by 60% all through Montana from 2020 to 2023.
“Within the final 100 years, just one different mill in Montana hasn’t shut its doorways or modified possession,” Pyramid stated within the assertion.
Pyramid Mountain Lumber didn’t instantly reply to Enterprise Insider’s request for remark.
Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte and Sens. Steve Daines and Jon Tester lamented the closure in statements offered to native outlet KPAX. “That is devastating information for the Seeley Lake group and all of Montana,” Daines stated.
Communities throughout the West are feeling the pinch of rising prices in several methods. Town supervisor of Steamboat Springs, a Colorado ski city, lately instructed NBC the native authorities has been unable to fill a task with a $167,000 wage as a result of the potential candidates couldn’t discover housing.
In Driggs, Idaho, one other mountain city coping with an inflow of outsiders, many residents have “picked up and left as a result of they may not afford to stay right here,” Cindy Riegel, the chair of the board of county commissioners in Teton County, the place Driggs is positioned, beforehand instructed The Wall Road Journal.
“Many have gone from dwelling comfortably to survival mode,” she stated.
Are you a Montana resident coping with rising prices or an absence of reasonably priced housing? Do you wish to share your ideas on how transplants are reshaping Montana? Contact this reporter at kvlamis@insider.com.
