Private jets flock to Montana - but locals can't afford the trailer park

Private jets flock to Montana - but locals can't afford the trailer parkImage source, Getty ImagesImage caption, The rugged beauty of Montana has attracted the rich and famous BySheila FlynnSenior US ReporterReporting fromBozeman, MontanaGrandmother Sara Folger sits in the kitchen of her single-wide trailer, the Rocky Mountains looming in the distance, and remembers the Bozeman, Montana she fell in love with decades ago.Back then, Folger says, the rural western outpost was filled with "back-to-the-land hippies, college students, cowboys and ski bums". But nowadays, the formerly sleepy streets are awash with diggers, orange construction cones and out-of-state license plates.Since the pandemic, Bozeman's population has grown by about 20% - a huge jump for a town that had fewer than 50,000 people in 2019. The influx was fuelled by a unique set of drivers. The state had for years been drawing in conservatives from around the country, who were attracted to the state's historic emphasis on rugged individualism and self-reliance - as well as its lack of sales, luxury and inheritance taxes.Their numbers increased exponentially as droves began "fleeing the Covid mess … on the East Coast and West Coast," says Mark Corner, president of Southwest Montana Realtors. And that made housing prices soar.Many are choosing to pack and leave their hometown, while developers from elsewhere have gotten rich. A recent rent strike by two mobile home parks has epitomised the ongoing socioeconomic culture clash between the haves and have-nots - while highlighting a growing grass-roots effort to fight for the survival of the working class.Image caption, Sara Folger, who works part-time at Montana's first Whole Foods, which opened in 2023, has lived in Mountain Meadows mobile home park for 17 yearsBozeman Mayor Joey Morrison, who was elected at 28 on a platform focused on affordable housing, says the rapid change has created a sharp divide between locals and people from out of state."We were watching our rent double or triple in the span of a year or two," he says."Suddenly, every coffee shop is full of people coding on their computer or working for an organisation that has never stepped foot in the state of Montana."One factor fuelling outsider interest in Bozeman, according to many, was the "Yellowstone Effect" – transplants drawn to the state by the fictitious runaway hit drama Yellowstone, starring Kevin Costner. The show depicts the power struggles between patriarch John Dutton III, his children, the locals, and the outsiders seeking to change their bucolic ranching way of life."Everyone in Montana believes the Yellowstone television show, with its dramatic scenery and montages of Montana life and how beautiful it is here… had an impact on the housing market," says Jeff Michael, director of the Bureau of Business and Economic Research at the University of Montana.Realtors and owners watched as "our home values jumped 40% in two years," says Corner - and the prices just keep going up.Downtown has totally changed - small businesses were replaced by bespoke steakhouses, high-end retail chains and stores selling custom cowboy hats for tourists.Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Developments have sprung up around Bozeman, and are commanding high pricesThe airport - with a renovation under way - gets a steady stream of private traffic ferrying the rich to their homes at places like the exclusive Yellowstone Club in Big Sky, about an hour south, where stars like Justin Timberlake and Tom Brady own multi-million-dollar piles."Any given day out at our airport, there will be 80 to 100 private jets on the tarmac, primarily Yellowstone Club guests," says Corner.During Covid, local buyers were systematically outbid by cash offers from out of state. So many people bought homes sight-unseen that the state realtor association added a new disclosure form to its contract library. And while Montanans were finding it impossible to get onto the property ladder, others were finding it equally unfeasible to even still rent."Every developer in America heard about the exorbitant rental rates in Bozeman and how attractive it was to develop here," Corner says. Apartment blocks and townhomes began materialising everywhere - fast - with rent for one-bedrooms coming in at $2000 a month or more - something no locals could afford, particularly those on single incomes.It was on this wave of frustration that Mayor Morrison swept to victory in November 2023.Now 30, the mayor lives with his fiancée – and two roommates. Before that, about 10 years ago, he rented a room in a duplex for $333; that same room now rents for $900, he says.Morrison, who grew up in eastern Montana with a nurse mother and incarcerated father, was a founding member of Bozeman Tenants United, the union chapter that has since helped the mobile home parks strike. His mayoral election, he says, was a referendum on housing policy and local government's perceived abandonment of the average Montanan."It really was this huge groundswell… that was clearly saying: We want one of us to represent us in City Hall," he says.He sees "a lot of hopelessness out there for the ability to stay in this state, stay in this city in particular," he says.Image caption, Bozeman, Montana has seen a huge influx of people and wealth since the pandemicMany homeowners have sold up, cashed out and fled the state; renters who've stayed are working two to three jobs or living with roommates. They're moving further out of Bozeman and commuting on mountain roads. Some couples are putting off having children, the mayor says.Even Folger's trailer park - where she has lived in her three-bedroom, two-bathroom home for 17 years - is not immune. Her lot rent has nearly doubled since moving in, even accounting for inflation."There are so many people here [for whom] this is their last stop," says Folger, 73, a former Bozeman city grants administrator who now works part-time at Whole Foods (which opened in 2023, the first one in the state). "They have no place to go. They don't have the money to pay the rent. There's no housing for them that they can afford. There's nothing."Where are they going to go?"She and other residents of two mobile home parks unionised in May to stage Montana's first rent strike in 50 years, according to the fledgling, youth-filled local tenant union that helped them organise. The strike was a response to an almost $100 hike in monthly plot rent - the rent mobile home owners pay to park their home.The park was soon sold, and is now being managed by a company out of California, leaving the fate of residents - and their mobile homes - in doubt."You can't move a mobile home that's been sitting for 25 years. It will disintegrate," says Mountain Meadows resident Ben Moore, 35, who first moved to the park with his father in high school. "The only equity I have is in this trailer. It's the same for a lot of people … even if we could move the trailer, where are you supposed to move it to?"Although some residents have agreed to new terms with management, others say the fight isn't over.Image caption, Montana State Representative and Bozeman local Katie Fire Thunder, 25, is among the wave of youthful progressives fighting for the working classIn addition to the election of their young mayor, Bozeman local Katie Fire Thunder, 25, was appointed in December to the Montana House of Representatives. Sam Forstag, a 31-year-old union leader and former smokejumper - a person who parachutes in to fight forest fires - just won the Democratic nomination for Montana's 1st congressional district, defeating a more establishment candidate."Young people have seen, right in front of our very eyes, the way that our leaders currently are not making decisions that are protecting us," Fire Thunder says."They are making reactionary, short-term decisions that are benefiting… the wealthiest in this state, while we are all watching and are like: This is not how Montana works or Montana runs."The coffee shop she's sitting in, near MSU's campus, is not even 1.5 miles away from JW Heist, a swanky Main Street eatery downtown - where the previous night, diners at the ornate wooden bar included a medical sales rep, an out-of-state property investor and a Colorado dad in town for his son's MSU orientation.Looking at the whiskey list - with the most expensive pours costing $170 - the Colorado man noted he'd "seen these elsewhere for a quarter of the price."The blonde sales rep seated next to him answered wryly."That's Bozeman."More on this story