Kodiak is running out of room. Like other Alaska communities, there is not enough housing available within city or borough limits, and the homes that are for sale are too expensive for the average lower to middle class resident. It’s an issue affecting teachers, police officers, and firefighters, among other essential workers. Some have blamed short term or vacation rentals, but the problem and the solutions are multi-faceted.
Oshiana Black and her daughter are flying from Bellingham, Washington to Cordova and then through a combination of driving and riding the ferry, will arrive in Kodiak in early August. She has a job lined up as a fourth grade teacher at North Star Elementary School.
“I was really excited because it was like my dream of becoming a teacher was actually coming true," Black exclaimed.
But Black almost changed her mind about coming to Kodiak due to how tight the housing market is here. She said she was watching a local housing page on Facebook like a hawk, but only found a few properties available for rent that were filling up fast.
“And I was trying to find houses, rentals that were available and they were $1,800 a month for a place that was okay, and it wasn’t even available until October," Black said. "So I was like ‘oh my goodness what am I going to do?’ And I actually had second thoughts about going to Kodiak and I thought ‘oh gosh, what am I going to do?’”
Black eventually found a one-bedroom apartment, roughly 300 square feet in size. It costs $1,000 a month for her and her almost nine-year-old daughter to live there. It’s small and may not be enough long term, but she says it’ll do for now.
“I put so much time and energy into finding a place. And I still don’t know if it’s going to be the best place for us because…it’s a big hurdle," Black stated.
Last year, the cost of homes in Alaska reached its least affordable level in the last 20 years, and rural communities across the state are facing housing shortages. In Kodiak, it affects transient workers and long term residents who can’t find affordable housing. Some have had to temporarily stay in hotels, or live in mobile vans.
Part of the issue is cost. According to data from the Department of Labor and Workforce Development, cited in the Alaska Economic Trends magazine from July, the average single family home in the Kodiak Island Borough sells for roughly $485,000 with a monthly mortgage payment of $2,400.
The Kodiak Island Borough Assembly is exploring options like opening up more land for residents to build on to try to ease some of these tight market conditions. During a regular meeting on July 18, the assembly appointed two new members, one city representative and one borough representative, to reinvigorate the Borough Lands Committee.
According to Borough Manager Aimee Williams, the last time the Borough sold plots of land was prior to 2018, when it sold twelve total lots in two separate sales; half in Bells Flats just past the Coast Guard Base, and the others in Monashka Bay and Chiniak.
But Williams told the Borough Assembly during a work session on July 11 that only two new homes were built as a result of those lots being sold.
“So it sounds good, sell land and get homes. But I just want to point out that A does not directly lead to B all the time," Williams explained. "Because there were eight lots out there that were sold that do not have homes.”
Even if more land is available, sometimes property owners in Kodiak face other cost-prohibitive barriers to building a home. For example, the Anchorage Home Builders Association said building material prices have increased more than 35% since January of 2020. And Kodiak residents said recent hikes in property tax assessments from the borough have made it challenging to afford to live in the borough.
Interest rates also continue to be higher than average, but the Department of Labor and Workforce Development said rates for 30-year mortgages could come down in the coming months.
Kodiak Island Borough Assembly member Bo Whiteside argues that affordable single family homes are gone, in part, because the available ones are quickly bought up and turned into short term rentals. It’s a sentiment echoed by other Kodiak residents and Whiteside wants to put some kind of cap on those types of units.
“My first attempt did not go well," Whiteside said. "But I’m going to keep making more attempts until we put some sort of limitation on short term rentals, because it comes to available inventory for that demographic we are targeting.”
There are currently about 130 listings on AirBnB, VRBO, or both for this September - October of 2024. According to the Kodiak Island Borough Housing Needs Assessment, compiled for the local housing authority and released in May of 2022, 117 total properties in Kodiak were listed on Vrbo, AirBnb, or both in the third quarter of 2021, which was a decrease from 126 listings in the 3rd quarter of 2019.
Mindy Pruitt, the director of the Kodiak Island Housing Authority, said her organization estimates roughly 75 more homes are needed in Kodiak just for families who have household incomes above $100,000.
Between 2017 and 2021, 35 single family homes and 85 multi-family units were built in Kodiak. But in 2021 only one new single family home and no multi-family units were constructed.
“We have been looking for property for years. This is our challenge: land, affordability of the land, and construction costs of the property," Pruitt said.
In January, both the local Fire Chief and Police Chief urged the City Council to help them solve their department’s staffing shortages by offering public safety housing. Pruitt and the Housing Authority are trying to answer that call to house local workers by buying and renovating privately owned housing units. One such multi-family unit off of East Rezanof Drive is called Stellar Heights.
“Stellar Heights was purchased especially for workforce housing," Pruitt said. "And so really what it is, it’s teacher, emergency responder housing and for health care workers, and so per the policy that we purchased that particular property for, it’s definitely to support our workforce families."
Black, the elementary school teacher, is part of that local workforce in need of housing in Kodiak. She said once her and her daughter arrive on the island, she isn’t sure if she’ll be able to stay for multiple years or not.
For more about potential solutions to the housing shortage in Kodiak, like residents choosing to downsize and open up existing lots, tune into the second part of this special two-part series later this month. KMXT will look at what housing could potentially look like in Kodiak in the near future, as well as the Coast Guard’s impact on future housing conditions.
