Long lines of cars at drive-thru restaurants, and more automated check-out stations at retail stores.
Employees in service jobs and construction workers having to live in other counties and drive here to work.
Residents moving away after downsizing because they can’t find a smaller home at a decent price.
They’re all indications that Gilmer County is in the midst of an affordable housing crisis that is resulting in less people being able to work here. However, there are efforts to address the problem, and local citizens are being asked to pitch in and help.
Beginning this Sunday, churchgoers have an opportunity to give toward a nonprofit organization that is addressing the local affordable housing issue. New Beginnings, which provides temporary and transitional housing assistance to residents in emergency or need situations, will receive the funds. The “Independence Day Offering” is in its seventh year and will, for the first time, partner with a local charity, said trustee Kent Sanford.
“Because of the lack of available housing, we have recently seen multiple working families complete our program and be forced to leave our community — and leave local jobs,” Sanford wrote in a letter to churches. “With Faith, Hope and Charity (recycle store) as our initial nonprofit partner, the emphasis for this year’s offering will be to mobilize local churches and nonprofits to have a greater impact on available housing at entry-level price points.”
Sanford went on to explain if New Beginnings can raise $100,000 through the offering, Faith, Hope and Charity will match it with $100,000. Two New Beginnings units were just vacated, and 10 families have applied for the transitional housing. It shows how needful transitional and affordable house is in the county, he said. The single mom who left one of the homes had to move to Florida, and a man and wife with three little girls had to move to Pickens County; both families had to leave their jobs also.
New Beginnings is just one aspect of a multi-pronged approach to helping bring affordable housing to the county called the Gilmer Initiative for Community Housing. It is modeled after the Georgia Initiative for Community Housing, said County Commissioner Karleen Ferguson.
“If you haven’t heard, there’s sorta a shortage of affordable housing,” Ferguson said at a recent Kiwanis Club luncheon. “It’s not just our county, it’s not just our state, it is a nationwide problem.”
Tourism’s impact
Tourism has certainly boosted revenue in the county, but it also has a downside for those looking for affordable housing, she said.
“In the last few years, our short-term rentals — our tourism, our cabin rental companies and hotels — went from 400 to probably over 2,000 in the last three to four years,” said Ferguson. “It’s just exploded, and what has happened is a lot of these homes … that are being rented long-term — yearly rents — (the residents are) being asked to leave so (owners) can take advantage of the short-term rentals because you make so much more money. Where you’re paying $1,200 to $1,400 a month on that cabin, they can make that much on a weekend. That market has really hurt our workforce. All of these things have kind of accumulated.”
Changing demographics are also an issue
“We’ve found ourselves in quite a pickle here,” Ferguson continued. “Then you add on our seniors — we love our seniors, most of the people who move to Ellijay are seniors — but are over 65 and take advantage of that (school) tax break. So we have more seniors coming who expect services and restaurants and ambulance drivers and firemen and all of these things. But unfortunately, those people (who fill service jobs) are losing or have lost where they live, including teachers. We’ve even struggled to find some teachers this year for our school year because there was nowhere for those teachers to physically live here or one county over, that they could afford.”
The local GICH is attending retreats and trying to learn how other communities in Georgia are addressing the affordable housing issue, Sanford reported.
“There are no funds available (through the state GICH), it is an educational opportunity primarily,” he said. “(But) if you are a GICH community, you can apply for funds through different programs in the Department of Community Affairs, and you get awarded extra points in the scoring system that will make you more competitive. Some funds can help elderly or widows who need help maintaining their home.”
Sanford said the Georgia High Country Builders Association has been “very supportive.”
“The requests that they’re getting (to build homes) are on the upper end of the price (range) because the people moving to the community are retirees that want more than entry-level housing,” he pointed out. “It’s not their fault. They’re just like every one of us — they just have 24 hours in a day, and most of the builders in our community are backed up a year or more on projects. Consequently, they’re doing all they can do, and they’re not getting as many requests for the entry-level (builds). So they’re not disinterested, they’re very interested. They have workers that need housing as well.”
Sanford was asked about workers who were looking to rent rather than buy, and called that “a key point.”
“When you’ve worked for 40 years and are looking toward retiring, you have a lot more flexibility,” he said. “Affluent people can live anywhere they want to; working-class people have fewer options available to them.”
Workers need housing
Devell Frady is president of the High Country Builders, which includes Gilmer, Fannin and Pickens counties, and also serves on the local GICH board.
“I think anything we can do for affordable housing — speaking for myself and the builders association — is necessary, it’s where my heart is,” he said. “No young people move to this county. We’re getting plenty of 65 years and older. If we can improve workforce housing, we’re all in. (But) material and labor is through the roof at this point. Material shortages and lack of ability to get materials is incredible — windows are six and eight months out. And when you get them, it doesn’t matter what the cost is, it’s just ‘Get me the windows, I’ve got to work.’ That’ll get a little better, I think, in the next year or so.”
The lack of workforce housing is affecting the builders’ labor force, Frady said.
“I need more people to work, and everybody I know (in building) needs more people,” he shared. “Starting several years ago, we started building houses my workforce couldn’t afford. I don’t mean ‘special’ houses, I mean our common houses were getting past the point our workforce could afford. It kinda leaves those (workers) out.”
When asked about possible solutions, Frady replied, “I do see interest rates helping. It’s driving houses down a little bit … interest rates will change our market a little bit. I don’t know if it will ever drive the market back to where it’s enough for workforce housing to be achievable.”
Frady noted several years ago the county “just all but outlawed trailer parks — back when I was a kid, that was affordable housing.”
He added that there are those in the county who do not want to see any kind of federally-subsidized housing that would help with workforce lodging, although the “government housing” that has been here for decades has proven valuable, although maxed out without vacancies.
Frady said he’s been told by the Gilmer Chamber that there are at least 1,800 overnight rental properties.
“That’s taken almost all the common rentals off the market,” he noted. “Supposedly you can get more money and it’s much more lucrative, and people have opted to do that instead of long-term rental. So it’s killed the ability for (the workforce) to be able to rent common (housing).”
Frady said many of his employees commute from Pickens and Cherokee County where they can lodge for less.
“But now with gas prices at $5 a gallon, they can’t drive here (to work) … a lot of restaurants are losing their ability to stay open, they don’t have workers to serve the tables,” he said. “I’d like to see young people move here. You don’t see that anymore. But Kent and Karleen are doing their best to figure out what we need to do, and I think they’re headed in the right direction; they’re two incredibly great people we need in the county working hard to help us understand the hurdles and how to get over them.”
Sanford said of young people, “If they have to go somewhere else to live and work, they will work somewhere else where they live … we do not have enough workers now to do all the jobs that need to be done in Gilmer County.”
What’s next?
“We are actively seeking partnerships in the local community — Habitat for Humanity, New Beginnings, Faith, Hope & Charity Recycle Store, local churches, the builders association,” he said. “There needs to be some availability of entry-level housing created for people … if you don’t put any skin in the game locally, the state’s not going to help. Our first step is to raise some seed money, and we’re hoping to do that through partnerships with like-minded groups, including churches and people in our community.”
Sanford wrote to the churches, “We do not want to take away from your church’s regular mission activities, but simply to make a special giving opportunity available to your membership on (or near) Sunday, July 3.”
How to help
Tax-deductible donations can be mailed to:
New Beginnings
P.O. Box 2402
Ellijay GA 30540
﹣ Phone: 706-515-4663
﹣ Facebook: New Beginnings for Gilmer County
﹣ Email: newbeginnings@ellijay.com
﹣ Purpose: New Beginnings for Gilmer County is a 501(c)(3) coalition of churches and other organizations providing temporary and transitional housing assistance.