TOURISM: North Idaho families tired of negative impacts

The Coeur d’Alene Press gives a one-sided view of tourism in North Idaho, as if were all unicorns and rainbows, with no downsides. Well here’s a little secret for the editors: Most working families in North Idaho are sick of tourism, and struggle with its negative impacts on a daily basis.

Sure, tourism creates jobs, but they are overwhelmingly seasonal, minimum wage jobs. They don’t provide health care, so workers depend on public sector benefits, which the rest of us end up subsidizing. This influx of uninsured into our hospital has created financial pressure that makes it hard to even keep the doors open. You can’t build an economy on poverty level wages!

Tourism has turned our downtown into the epicenter of drunken debauchery. Residents end up picking up the tab for increased demand on law enforcement, all while losing access to the core of our town, since it’s no longer a family friendly environment.

Another “benefit” of tourism is sky-high housing prices (and property taxes), when those who come to visit decide to stay. This increased demand on housing has crushed the pocket books of working families, and made it impossible for our non-tourism business to attract workers (because they can’t afford housing). It’s a giant brake on our economy.

Thank you North Idaho Tourism Alliance for making housing unaffordable, for stressing out our health care system, and for making our parks and recreational amenities so crowded they are unusable for residents. In the words of Dodgeball’s White Goodman, “Take your tourism and cram it up your cramhole!”

TODD HOFFMAN

Coeur d’Alene