A town of neighbors or tenants?

Walk through any coffee shop or grocery store in the Flathead Valley, and the conversation is the same: housing. We all know it’s too expensive. We all know our workforce is struggling to stay here.

But in the rush to “do something,” a dangerous narrative has taken hold. We are being told that the era of the starter home is over. We are being told that to solve this crisis, we must pivot to a future of rentals — more income-based rental units, four-plexes wedged into historic neighborhoods, and nonprofit managed housing blocks on Main Street.

Having worked as a homebuilder in this community for years, I need to be blunt: This isn’t a solution; it’s a surrender.

If we settle for a housing strategy that prioritizes “units” over “homes,” we aren’t saving Kalispell. We are fundamentally changing who we are.

The push for rentals is often presented as the only “realistic” option because building homes for purchase has become too expensive. But why is it expensive? It isn’t just the price of lumber. It is the mountain of red tape, impact fees and regulatory delays that we have piled onto every new foundation. We have created a system where the government-imposed cost of a home makes the “missing middle” math impossible.

So, instead of cutting the red tape to lower costs, the prevailing wisdom is to simply stop trying to create owners and instead to start warehousing tenants.

We need to understand what we lose if we go down that road.

There is a profound, data-backed difference between a city of tenants and a community of homeowners. It isn’t just about a deed; it’s about stability.

Research from the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard confirms what we already know intuitively: homeowners stay in their homes four times longer than renters. That stability is the bedrock of a safe neighborhood. When we incentivize rentals, we invite “churn” — a transient population that doesn’t have the time to build deep community networks.

This lack of ownership has real civic costs. According to the National Association of Realtors, homeowners are 65% more likely to vote in local elections than renters. They are the ones who show up for school board meetings, join civic groups, and hold leadership accountable. Why? Because they have a financial stake in the outcome.

Economically, a rental model bleeds capital out of our community. Rent checks often flow to outside investors or management firms. In contrast, homeownership acts as a local economic engine. The National Association of Home Builders estimates that a single-family home purchase injects between $60,000 and $125,000 into the local economy in just the first year. Furthermore, home equity is the number one source of collateral for small business startups. By denying our workforce the chance to own, we are effectively decapitalizing the next generation of Kalispell entrepreneurs.

Most importantly, we have to look at our kids. Stable housing is the single biggest predictor of a child’s success. Studies show that children of homeowners are 19% more likely to graduate high school and twice as likely to attend college compared to children of renters.

We do not have to choose between high-density rentals and unaffordable mansions. There is a middle path.

We can aggressively slash the regulatory costs that strangle development. We can make it profitable again to build modest, entry-level homes that a teacher or a police officer can actually buy.

Let’s not engineer a city of tenants. Let’s do the hard work of deregulating our way back to a city of neighbors. Kalispell deserves nothing less.

Kisa Davison owns a construction company in Kalispell and is chair of the Kalispell Business Improvement District.