MNeagle
15th November 2011, 05:53 AM
http://stmedia.startribune.com/images/630*417/1nd111511.jpg
Alton and Mary Lou Sundby take a break during a move into a new apartment in Williston, N.D. The Sundbys were notified that their rent would nearly triple to $2,000 a month.
WILLISTON, N.D.
After living all of her 82 years in the same town, Lois Sinness left her hometown this month, crying and towing a U-Haul packed with her every possession.
She didn't want to go, but the rent on her $700-a-month apartment was going up almost threefold because of heightened demand for housing generated by North Dakota's oil bonanza. Other seniors in her complex and across the western part of the state are in the same predicament.
"Our rents were raised, and we did not have a choice," Sinness said. "We're all on fixed incomes, living mostly on Social Security, so it's been a terrible shock."
It's an irony of the area's economic success: The same booming development that made North Dakota virtually immune to the Great Recession has forced many longtime residents to abandon their homes, including seniors. In addition to raising the rent, Sinness' landlords were going to require even long-term tenants to pay a $2,000 deposit. She fled for a cheaper apartment in Bismarck, the capital 230 miles to the southeast, where her daughter lives.
A region that used to have plenty of elbow room is now swarming with armies of workers. But because it has limited housing, the influx of people have had a difficult time finding places to live. The result is that some rents have risen to the level of some of the nation's largest cities, with modest two-bedroom apartments commonly going for as much as $2,000 a month.
The skyrocketing cost of living is all the talk at the senior center in downtown Williston. "Grandma can't go to work in the oil fields and make a 150 grand a year," said A.J. Mock, director of the Williston Council for the Aging. Many of the seniors who are moving out "have lived here their entire lives and wanted to live here until they die."
Ellavon Weber, 88, is leaving the state entirely. She's reluctantly moving to Arizona, where two of her three children live, leaving behind friends, her church and her weekly aerobics classes, as well as pinochle games and quilting bees. She'll even miss the brutal winters.
"I thought I'd be in North Dakota the rest of my life, but evidently, that's not the case," Weber said.
Drilling operations have transformed the area, which now resembles an industrial park. Some workers live in tents, cars and campers. Hotels are booked for months. Just a handful of homes were listed for sale in October in Williston, including a humble mobile home priced at $149,500. Two mobile home parks that were abandoned after the last oil bust are now full.
In surrounding towns, temporary housing camps have sprung up. Because many of them are little more than dormitories made out of shipping containers, some communities have banned them for sanitary and safety reasons.
Last summer's flooding that damaged thousands of homes in Minot, about 100 miles to the east, has exacerbated the housing shortage. Developers have been slow to build more apartments, largely because they got stung by the region's last oil boom when it went bust in the 1980s. About 1,000 new housing units are planned for this year, but no one expects them to make a real dent in demand.
Local officials are "turning over every rock to see if we can find a solution," Mayor Ward Koeser said. But "nothing has been found yet." He blamed supply and demand, and in some cases, greed and gouging.
North Dakota law forbids capping rental rates. And dozens of low-income housing units built decades ago are now being used to house oil workers at higher prices.
Jolene Kline, director of the state's Housing Finance Agency, said landlords who have pulled out of the low-income program have fulfilled legal requirements to provide the housing for 15 or 30 years. But, she added, that doesn't make it right.
"You can't put people in these situations, and in the worst cases, make them homeless because they can't afford shelter anymore," Kline said.
http://www.startribune.com/nation/133824983.html
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Even as North Dakota revels in its newfound prosperity, some worry the oil boom is too much of a good thing.
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Minnesotans drawn to North Dakota’s prosperity
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So much prosperity is flowing from North Dakota's oil wells that it's spilling into neighboring states, with a growing number of Minnesota companies and workers sharing the lucrative oil field contracts and wages.
Alton and Mary Lou Sundby take a break during a move into a new apartment in Williston, N.D. The Sundbys were notified that their rent would nearly triple to $2,000 a month.
WILLISTON, N.D.
After living all of her 82 years in the same town, Lois Sinness left her hometown this month, crying and towing a U-Haul packed with her every possession.
She didn't want to go, but the rent on her $700-a-month apartment was going up almost threefold because of heightened demand for housing generated by North Dakota's oil bonanza. Other seniors in her complex and across the western part of the state are in the same predicament.
"Our rents were raised, and we did not have a choice," Sinness said. "We're all on fixed incomes, living mostly on Social Security, so it's been a terrible shock."
It's an irony of the area's economic success: The same booming development that made North Dakota virtually immune to the Great Recession has forced many longtime residents to abandon their homes, including seniors. In addition to raising the rent, Sinness' landlords were going to require even long-term tenants to pay a $2,000 deposit. She fled for a cheaper apartment in Bismarck, the capital 230 miles to the southeast, where her daughter lives.
A region that used to have plenty of elbow room is now swarming with armies of workers. But because it has limited housing, the influx of people have had a difficult time finding places to live. The result is that some rents have risen to the level of some of the nation's largest cities, with modest two-bedroom apartments commonly going for as much as $2,000 a month.
The skyrocketing cost of living is all the talk at the senior center in downtown Williston. "Grandma can't go to work in the oil fields and make a 150 grand a year," said A.J. Mock, director of the Williston Council for the Aging. Many of the seniors who are moving out "have lived here their entire lives and wanted to live here until they die."
Ellavon Weber, 88, is leaving the state entirely. She's reluctantly moving to Arizona, where two of her three children live, leaving behind friends, her church and her weekly aerobics classes, as well as pinochle games and quilting bees. She'll even miss the brutal winters.
"I thought I'd be in North Dakota the rest of my life, but evidently, that's not the case," Weber said.
Drilling operations have transformed the area, which now resembles an industrial park. Some workers live in tents, cars and campers. Hotels are booked for months. Just a handful of homes were listed for sale in October in Williston, including a humble mobile home priced at $149,500. Two mobile home parks that were abandoned after the last oil bust are now full.
In surrounding towns, temporary housing camps have sprung up. Because many of them are little more than dormitories made out of shipping containers, some communities have banned them for sanitary and safety reasons.
Last summer's flooding that damaged thousands of homes in Minot, about 100 miles to the east, has exacerbated the housing shortage. Developers have been slow to build more apartments, largely because they got stung by the region's last oil boom when it went bust in the 1980s. About 1,000 new housing units are planned for this year, but no one expects them to make a real dent in demand.
Local officials are "turning over every rock to see if we can find a solution," Mayor Ward Koeser said. But "nothing has been found yet." He blamed supply and demand, and in some cases, greed and gouging.
North Dakota law forbids capping rental rates. And dozens of low-income housing units built decades ago are now being used to house oil workers at higher prices.
Jolene Kline, director of the state's Housing Finance Agency, said landlords who have pulled out of the low-income program have fulfilled legal requirements to provide the housing for 15 or 30 years. But, she added, that doesn't make it right.
"You can't put people in these situations, and in the worst cases, make them homeless because they can't afford shelter anymore," Kline said.
http://www.startribune.com/nation/133824983.html
related content
http://stmedia.startribune.com/images/192*124/02NDBOOM1009.JPG
North Dakota’s great oil rush
(http://www.startribune.com/local/131923403.html)
Last update: Monday October 17, 2011 - 11:13 AM
Even as North Dakota revels in its newfound prosperity, some worry the oil boom is too much of a good thing.
http://stmedia.startribune.com/images/186*124/2ndboom1017.jpg
Minnesotans drawn to North Dakota’s prosperity
(http://www.startribune.com/local/131956973.html)
Last update: Monday October 17, 2011 - 1:39 PM
So much prosperity is flowing from North Dakota's oil wells that it's spilling into neighboring states, with a growing number of Minnesota companies and workers sharing the lucrative oil field contracts and wages.