Idaho

Rising rents squeeze Idaho families

Published

2 years ago

March 19, 2024

COEUR d’ALENE — Idaho continues to experience a shortage of affordable and available homes for Idahoans with modest incomes, according to a new report recently released by the National Low Income Housing Coalition and the Idaho Asset Building Network.

The report found that Idaho has 42 affordable and available rental homes for every 100 households with modest incomes, and there is a total shortage of over 21,200 affordable and available rental homes for renters earning this income.

“The number of renters with modest incomes rose while the number of units affordable to them shrank in the past five years,” said Kendra Knighten, director of Policy and Research with the Idaho Asset Building Network, in a press release.

She said that since 2019, the shortage of affordable and available homes for renters with modest incomes has increased by about 12%. Rent has shot up faster.

Two-bedroom apartments in Post Falls go for about $1,500 a month and can be even higher in Coeur d’Alene. One 952-square-foot unit in Coeur d’Alene was offered at nearly $1,800 a month. A four-bedroom home in Coeur d’Alene carried monthly rental of nearly $3,000.

“Today, seven out of 10 Idaho renters with modest incomes pay more than half of their incomes on rent, putting these families in very precarious financial situations,” Knighten said.

Maggie Lyons, executive director of the Panhandle Affordable Housing Alliance, said there is a large segment of the population in Kootenai County that needs affordable rentals, but the high cost to buy a home is equally concerning.

“My hope is we can start providing home ownership opportunities,” she said.

The median price of a single-family home in Kootenai County was at $499,500 in February, which is a problem when people earning $65,000 a year are considered low income in an area where the median income is $93,000.

A home is considered affordable when a family pays no more than 30% of their income on rent. Spending over one-third of household income on a home means little is left over for basic necessities, the release said.

With daily expenses, Lyons said it’s difficult for many to save money for a home down payment.

“New people are faced with not being able to make ends meet, and they’ve never been in that position before,” she said.

More apartments with lower rents would help, but Lyons said the high cost of land makes that prohibitive for builders.

Government assistance is necessary because projects won’t pencil out with traditional financing, Lyons said,

“There’s no way the private industry can do this,” she said.

The report released by the National Low Income Housing Coalition and the Idaho Asset Building Network agreed with Lyons.

It said long-term federal investments in affordable homes are needed to combat the underlying shortage of affordable housing to ensure that Idaho families lead stable, healthy and content lives.

“Federal policies and funding play an important role in ensuring Idahoans can live in affordable homes by alleviating the burdens caused by high rents and a shortage of affordable housing options,” a press release said.

It went on to say that “Congress must support policies that create more affordable housing, increase funding and protections for housing choice vouchers, limit the costs of evictions, and improve already existing housing that needs rehabilitation.”

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Idaho

‘Unrelenting’: Statehouse reporters recap 2026 legislative session in Idaho Falls – East Idaho News

Published

10 hours ago

April 19, 2026

Press Room

‘Unrelenting’: Statehouse reporters recap 2026 legislative session in Idaho Falls – East Idaho News

IDAHO FALLS — Two prominent Idaho Statehouse reporters say this past legislative session was “unrelenting,” chaotic, largely driven by budget cuts, and they see the Legislature getting more powerful.

Kevin Richert and Clark Corbin recapped this past legislative session at a forum on the ISU Idaho Falls Campus on Thursday.

Richert is a senior reporter at Idaho Education News, with more than 30 years of experience covering education policy and politics. Corbin is a senior reporter at the Idaho Capital Sun who has covered every Idaho legislative session, gavel to gavel, since 2011.

The event was hosted by the City Club of Idaho Falls, which “exists to sponsor and promote civil dialogue and discourse on all matters of public interest” and strives to be “nonpartisan and nonsectarian,” according to its website.

Budget cuts

Both Richert and Corbin said this session was driven by budget cuts. Corbin said this was due to a lack of revenue stemming from past income tax and the adoption of new federal tax cuts.

“Cuts for almost every state agency and state department dominated the legislative session,” Corbin said. “We’re talking about 4% budget cuts for most state agencies and departments in the current fiscal year, and we’re talking about an additional 5% budget cuts for almost all state agencies and departments starting next year — fiscal year ’27 — and continuing permanently.”

RELATED | Gov. Little signs so-called ‘crappy bill’ to cut state budget

Richert said he thought higher education was taking the brunt of budget cuts. “It’s not a question of whether tuition fees are going to go up at the universities; it’s a question of how much,” he said.

When asked what the future would hold, Corbin said the budget cuts aren’t likely to go away, and their effects will be felt over time.

“There could always be a change of leadership in the House, but they do expect the budget crunch to continue in the next year’s legislative session,” Corbin said.

‘Radiator capping’

Richert said he has one word to describe this year’s legislative session: “unrelenting.”

One thing that made it feel that way was that some bills were recycled over and over, he said. For example, Richert said the Legislature saw five different versions of a bill that proposed cuts to the Idaho Digital Learning Alliance.

“We had multiple bills that came from the dead,” he said.

The journalists said this is partly due to a tactic called “radiator capping.” The term means to replace the entire car — the bill’s text, in political terms — while only keeping the radiator cap: the bill number. By rewriting a bill on the House or Senate floor while maintaining its number, failed bills can effectively bypass the committee process.

“Those are the changes they tried to make on immigration bills, on union bills this year,” Corbin said. “It made it extremely difficult for the public to have any idea what was going on, to have any opportunity to participate in the legislative process and share their opinions.

A more powerful, more chaotic Legislature

Richert said Idaho’s annual legislative sessions are trending longer, commonly going into the early part of April, and producing a record number of bills.

“There are rumblings that this Legislature, as a body, is wanting to expand its reach over more and have even more power over the other branches of government to the point of — are we trending towards more of a full-time professional legislature?” Richert said. “We’re a long way from there.”

“The legislative branch of government, particularly the Idaho House of Representatives, is the most powerful I’ve seen it in 16 years of covering state government,” Corbin said.

He added that this year’s legislative session was unlike any he’s experienced.

“The overall temperature in the building was bad,” Corbin said. “It was divisive. It was chaotic. People were not hiding their feelings of disgust for each other. These traditional ideas of decorum and respect very much fell by the wayside.”

Richert said Gov. Brad Little vetoed very few bills that came across his desk, and the ones he did weren’t high-profile.

RELATED | Idaho Gov. Brad Little issues 5 vetoes. Here are the bills affected

“I think the governor behaved like he was very concerned about the supermajority-controlled Legislature, and I think that that Legislature, in turn, asserted itself and took control of the agenda this year,” Corbin said.

Are legislators representing Idaho?

Corbin said some bills this year also focused on the LGBTQ+ community, such as a bathroom restriction for transgender individuals, and a bill that banned the City of Boise from waving a Pride flag.

RELATED | Idaho governor signs bill to criminalize trans people using bathrooms that align with their identity

RELATED | Boise removes LGBTQ+ pride flag as Idaho governor signs bill to fine city for its display

When asked if these were what Idahoans wanted, Corbin said it doesn’t necessarily appear so to him, based on his review of Boise State University’s annual public policy survey.

“For years and years, I’ve heard concerns about affordability of housing, access to housing, managing the growth of the state of Idaho, having quality public schools available for our young people — that also generates a workforce pipeline for some of our businesses,” Corbin said. “I’ve heard about paying for wildfires. I’ve heard about having good roads, supporting access to public lands, public recreation, those are the concerns I hear from Idahoans.”

“But the Legislature spent a significant amount of time over the last two, three, four years placing additional restrictions on LGBTQ communities, placing restrictions on what teachers can and cannot teach in their classrooms, what school boards can and cannot do,” Corbin continued. “They talked about requiring a moment of silence every day to begin the public school day, where children could pray or read the Bible.”

RELATED | Gov. Brad Little signs public school ‘moment of silence’ bill into law

Corbin said it may be his own opinion, but perhaps it is easier to “make a bunch of noise about what’s going wrong and (distract) people with social issues” rather than focus on harder issues that Idaho faces.

“I think what you saw on the policy space is a reflection of the fact that you had legislators thinking about reelection, and legislators with time on their hands — and that’s not always a good combination,” Richert said.

Accountability

When asked how people can keep legislators accountable, Corbin said it can be done by following the state Legislature through trusted news sources, going to community events and voting.

“This is a great year to practice accountability, because all 105 state legislators and all statewide elected officials are up for election this year,” he said.