Coeur d'Alene veteran navigates rising costs, housing delays

Dick Woller smoked his filtered cigar and remembered the good old days at Hayden Lake Eagles. 

He recalled one cookout when he used a backhoe to dig up a hole beside the bar, a pig was skewered in the subsequent pit, and a couple of guys tended the roast with a fifth of whiskey.

“It was packed,” he said of his days at Eagles. “It always had something going on.”

Woller, 84, moved to Kootenai County in 1992. A contractor for 30 years, the California native ventured to the Coeur d’Alene area to build houses and duplexes.

Many years earlier, Woller served in the U.S. Navy. He said he enlisted sometime between 1958 and 1959 and was discharged a month before “Kennedy was assassinated,” in 1963. As a Navy man, he sailed the seas. He also served in fighter and heavy attack squadrons.

In October 1962, Woller was in Florida, accompanied by U.S. aircraft equipped with nuclear bombs. Each aircraft was ready to be escorted by McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II supersonic fighter planes.

This is known in history as the Cuban Missile Crisis.

“I believe if Khrushchev didn’t blink,” Woller said, “Kennedy would’ve told us to go bomb the (SOB).”

Woller’s battles, however, haven’t ended. 

Nowadays, the retiree faces inflation, isolation and limited financial resources. With a beard of wild white whiskers, he lives alone in a Coeur d’Alene apartment complex for older adults, waiting for a housing voucher to make his life a little more livable.

According to Woller, he’s been waiting three years for housing assistance from the Idaho Housing and Finance Association. The nonprofit allocates funds from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to people like veterans and older adults struggling to pay bills.

Woller currently receives two monthly checks: $1,852 from Social Security and $552 from his pension. Meanwhile, Woller drives a 1999 Chevy Suburban and pays for its insurance. His additional bills include groceries as well as TV and internet. 

He also pays $1,096 in monthly rent.

If the housing office greenlights Woller’s voucher, he believes he’ll receive an extra $525 per month.

“I ain’t got much left,” he said, later adding, “That would probably get me $300 to $400 a month to maybe go out to dinner.”

But over the past year, Woller and people like him have been consistently told by IHFA, despite receiving $27.7 million statewide this past fiscal year and North Idaho receiving 28% of it, that there currently are no funds to give.

“Unfortunately, housing affordability and housing instability are challenges nationally. Idaho is not immune,” Benjamin Cushman, an IHFA spokesman, told the Coeur d’Alene Press via email. “While we’re grateful for the federal resources that are at our disposal, we wish more resources were available to serve additional households that need this type of support.”

The IHFA Coeur d’Alene office currently administers 815 standard Housing Choice Vouchers, also known as Section 8. North Idaho also has 292 vouchers funded through other federal programs.

The Coeur d’Alene housing office currently has more than 1,700 people on the waiting list for a housing voucher, and the expected wait time is 45 months.

“The amount Idaho receives depends on criteria set by HUD, including things like inflation and fair market rents for an area,” Cushman said of housing funds. 

The IHFA said its annual $27.7 million allocation from HUD has run out, which is why people like Woller aren’t receiving housing vouchers right now.

"The $27.7 million went to housing the thousands of Idahoans who already receive assistance," Cushman said. "We do not have funding to issue additional vouchers at this time."

Woller worries Coeur d’Alene residents waiting for housing vouchers are getting evicted.

“Where did that money go? Why isn't it being distributed? Is it sitting dormant?” he said. “Why are the people who need it now not getting it?”

HUD itself is operating under mounting pressure from the federal government to implement budget cuts. Right now, the Trump administration seeks to reduce HUD’s budget by 13% for fiscal year 2027. That would mean the organization, which has seen 3,000 employee resignations since 2025 prompted by the deferred resignation program, faces $10.7 billion less in its budget.

Meanwhile, Woller tries to be as frugal as possible.

When he has the money, he’ll buy clothes at Walmart. Sometimes, he said, he drives his Suburban over to Newby-ginnings of North Idaho, Inc., a nonprofit in Post Falls that provides free clothes to veterans, to pick up a shirt or two.

It’s a world away from his old days at the Hayden Eagles lounge. 

“We had fun doing it,” he said of those days. “I go over there now, and I’ll be damned if there’s 10 people.”