RENT: Houses aren't affordable

Has anyone else noticed how rent prices for a house have escalated? It is unbelievable that our rental prices are so out of line with our average wage scale. This beautiful town environment is vastly becoming an apartment complex and losing the quality of life we all cherish — trading it for a completely different lifestyle! It is not surprising to see our moral values taking a big hit as the little house with a fenced yard for child and dog is no longer in the financial range of any single income family, so everyone is moving in together trading lifestyles in the process.

If you want a small house for under $900 you must accept the drug infested sections of town or resort to apartment and multifamily living. I know one young man who has tried to find a house for himself, one small daughter and their therapy dog, unsuccessfully, even though he makes double the minimum wage. The rent being asked for would take half his monthly income before he pays anything else — including food and gas.

Where did the days go that wage scales and rent lined up for the quality of life we love here?

Job location is also something to consider as the cost of gas to and from work and home must factor in somewhere. That young man is trying so hard to make a good environment for his daughter. SAD, sad, sad.

Our homeless numbers here continue to increase for people who actually have jobs, yet are basically unable to cover their living expenses if they have their own rental. Parents trying so hard to give their children a good environment are being defeated daily by property management groups. Those parents are becoming desperate for the safety of their children, and can no longer provide the environment they hoped for and experienced themselves playing in a fenced back yard with their dog or with the neighbors in their local yards or block.

I fail to see the good reasoning behind jacking up rents on houses until all we see now being built are apartments everywhere!

VICCI ANDERSON

Coeur d’Alene