- The biggest employer in Seeley Lake, Montana, is closing partly on account 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 dealing with 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 a scarcity of housing and an unprecedented rise in prices making it too troublesome 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 a wide range of circumstances which are outdoors of its management,” the assertion mentioned. “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 capacity 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 house 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 mentioned 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 supplied to native outlet KPAX. “That is devastating information for the Seeley Lake group and all of Montana,” Daines mentioned.
Communities throughout the West are feeling the pinch of rising prices in numerous methods. The town supervisor of Steamboat Springs, a Colorado ski city, lately advised 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 might not afford to reside right here,” Cindy Riegel, the chair of the board of county commissioners in Teton County, the place Driggs is situated, beforehand advised The Wall Avenue Journal.
“Many have gone from dwelling comfortably to survival mode,” she mentioned.
Are you a Montana resident coping with rising prices or a scarcity of reasonably priced housing? Do you need to share your ideas on how transplants are reshaping Montana? Contact this reporter at kvlamis@insider.com.
