The American dream is alive
and well in Missoula, Mont., sort of. Not long after arriving here
in the late 1990s, I found myself in the same conversation about
real estate, hearing the same words and sharing the same sentiment.
“You can’t eat the landscape,” someone would say,
and everyone within earshot would laugh at the cliché, though
it would usually be followed by an uncomfortable silence.
Here’s what wasn’t funny then or now: In a recent
Missoulian article, local realtors tallied their statistics and
calculated a whopping $206,850 median price for a house, but only a
median income of $43,200.
At that income level, according
to the article, a family could afford to buy a house for $143,000,
and at the time the report was completed, there were all of nine
such houses for sale. I know those houses. They fall into the
category of former rentals where the landowner’s sole
interest in the place was collecting the rent while paying no mind
to the leaky roof, cracked siding and dirt patch for a yard. Aside
from being a 700 square-foot box, almost every one of the nine
houses was between a highway and the train tracks.
I keep
thinking about the changes I need to make in my life, first, to
raise my income, and then to find an extra $15,000 so I can afford
a home that’s not a beat-up fixer-upper a block from the
highway.
At the time those grim housing statistics hit
the stand, I was scrambling for more gainful employment — for the
opportunity to draw on my expensive knowledge, utilize my skills
and realize my economic potential. Then, I could pay off my
education, buy a house and live like an American. Over the years
I’ve become well versed in the number of jobs available for
non-professionals, which I define as anything but doctors, lawyers
and professors that fall into the median income bracket. And how
many jobs do you think there are here that pay enough to buy a
$200,000 house? The answer is none.
Since my arrival out
West, I have managed to do fairly well for myself, though that is
only my opinion. I have never been afforded the luxury of working
only one job or a 40-hour week, and I’ve never had an
employer who provided health insurance. But I have made what is
considered a decent living “for Missoula.” That phrase
is now spoken among my family members back home as if adding the
local caveat makes everyone feel a little better about the fact
that I am financially guttered. Currently, I work two
semi-professional positions at a 55-60 hour-a-week pace, and I fall
just shy of the median income. I am not sure how much manure a girl
has to shovel to push her into the next income bracket, but surely
if there is a way, I have the will.
Unlike many of my
fellow immigrants who arrived in the West with me so many years
ago, I did not admit defeat and retreat to the higher wages and
cooler real estate markets of the Midwest from whence we came.
Nope, and as one long-term relationship ended and my ex went
sailing off to better economic climes, his parting words included
the line: “I think you enjoy suffering.” For the
record, I don’t. But I have learned to live on the most
minimal budget, and I never — absolutely never — throw
my nose up at any work.
It’s not that I like to
suffer, it’s more like I have a dysfunctional relationship
with the landscape of Montana. Like the high school girl who
can’t shake her love for the guy who keeps leading her on but
who really has no interest in her whatsoever, I am absolutely
obsessed and in love with the West, with Montana, with Missoula. I
love the open space buffering my ever-growing mountain town. I love
that I can walk out my front door and within an hour reach a
wilderness area by foot. I love that I drive just a few miles in
any direction and find myself bathed in glory.
So what if
I have to scratch, kick and claw my way to the lower edges of the
middle class? So what if Missoula is doing its best to shake the
likes of me? I love it. I will always love it. Besides, I started
shopping for real estate in Boulder, Colo., just to make myself
feel better. At least it’s not that bad here, yet.
Kathryn Socie is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a
service of High Country News in Paonia, Colorado
(hcn.org). She works hard for a living in Missoula,
Montana.
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