By Ross Anderson
OK boomers. Take a look at what we’ve done to our adopted home.
A generation ago, Port Townsend was a nice, waterfront town with affordable old homes, good schools and living-wage jobs at the mill, boatyard, hospital, and government.
And now? Forget it. Aging baby boomers have transformed the town into a retirement enclave with a median age pushing 60. That means half of our population would qualify for the Denny’s senior menu. If we had a Denny’s. Which we don’t. And that’s OK.
There are some upsides to the invasion. Because their income comes mostly from pensions and investments, retirees are far less subject to economic downturns, including the pandemic. And boomers donate and volunteer in droves at the food bank and schools, and at signature festivals. All that helps.
But, at the same time, well-intentioned seniors are collectively undermining the town’s civic and economic life, impacting schools, health care, jobs, taxes and especially housing. And we need to do something about it. We’ll get back to that.
Let’s consider some of the consequences of those demographics.
Take health care. An aging population means that Jefferson Health Care and other local providers are being reimbursed largely by Medicare and, to a lesser extent, Medicaid. Those reimbursements are generally more stingy than private insurance plans – as low as 20 cents on the dollar, according to Amy Yaley, communications director at Jefferson Healthcare.
To balance their books, healthcare providers say they need a minimum of 20 percent of their payments to come from private insurers. Jefferson gets more than 78 percent of its reimbursements from Medicare and Medicaid, and the percentage is likely to increase with the pandemic. “Primary care doesn’t pay the bills,” Yaley says. “So we have to be more creative.”
The strategy has been to develop specialty services – rehabilitation and cardiology and elective surgery such as knee and hip replacements. Those services tend to pay for themselves and help offset the losses from primary care, Yaley says. But those services were closed down to deal with the pandemic.
What healthcare providers need is younger clients with fewer health issues and private insurance. And that is not happening.
And schools? The good news is that local seniors have supported school taxes, including the $40 million bond issue to build a much-needed new elementary school. And the schools benefit from seniors who volunteer as mentors and classroom aides, says outgoing superintendent John Polm.
But, as aging boomers displace families, schools are left to deal with a steady decline in enrollment. Every student lost translates to a loss of state tax dollars for local schools.
At the same time, the spiraling real estate market makes it tougher to recruit and keep teachers and staff, Polm says. Recently, a staff member who had been renting had to move out of town because he couldn’t afford anything in Port Townsend. “We have teachers commuting from Poulsbo and Port Angeles because they can’t afford to live here,” Polm says.
There lies the rub. As retirees flock to Port Townsend, they affect both the supply and price of homes. The median price of a home here increased by 50 percent in just three years, from 2015 and 2018.
Newly-arrived boomers can afford it. They’ve sold their homes in Seattle or California, and can pay those six and seven-figure prices for homes that previously sold for five figures.
And they can pay cash, which makes a difference when there are multiple bids for a home, says Michelle Sandoval, a Windermere realtor and Port Townsend mayor. “Even if they can meet the selling price, younger people who need loans get beat out by retirees who can offer cash.”
Some of those new homeowners don’t even live here, she says. Wealthy boomers split their lives between Seattle and Port Townsend, so perfectly good homes sit empty for much of the year while younger people are forced to buy out of town.
This explains the heavy traffic on Sims Way during rush hours – hundreds of working-age people commuting from Quilcene or Sequim to their jobs in the schools, hospital and mill.
Rising home prices also increase property taxes, she says. “People from out-of-state like the fact that we have no income tax. But they get here and complain about school levies. It doesn’t make sense.”
What can be done about this? It’s tricky. Government has been trying to deal with housing issues for decades – with huge housing projects that turned into slums, or subsidies to private builders that inadvertently enriched wealthy slumlords. It seems to be an issue that defies both market economics and liberal reforms.
Sandoval and others have been looking at programs focused on home equity. Boomer retirees tend to have an average of nearly 50 percent equity in their homes – equity that has increased not because of hard work, but because of the whims of rising home prices. Is there a sensible way to capture some of that equity and transfer it to younger buyers who need to get a start in the market?
People are looking for something that works. Housing Solutions Network, at housingsolutionsnetwork.org, is a local nonprofit that is looking as far as Vermont, California and Hawaii for ideas.
We’re looking too. If you have an idea, let us know.
We love our elder neighborhoods, and the PT community. But it is significant, notable and sad that housing purchase is nearly impossible for the working people with children, while the boomers put cash down on 3-4-5 bedroom homes on large properties. In our neighborhood the people with children live in the tiniest houses. Many boomers who own houses in PT own elsewhere as well. They leave for months at a time, leaving their homes empty, while renters struggle to find a rental. We have friends with three children who have to find a rental every 9 months as their landlords come back to “summer” in PT. It is a vulnerable life in PT for many families with kids, working from home fulltime, homeschooling kids from home, renting without protection and getting squeezed out of the buying market. The boomers in PT have liberal ideals… but does their lifestyle match their values? Why not downsize? Live simply? Trade houses with a family who could use the space? Think radically! Act radically! You were the radical hippies once… It is an issue beyond PT as well… boomers taking up a lot of literal space. My mother lives alone in a 4 bedroom house. Her kids and grandkids squeezed into studio apartments and smaller houses. It is out of what would feel like a “natural order”. What is the remedy?
That was a good, informative chart. Just had the legend wrong. Hope you will reinsert.
Significant issue. It has become a syndrome both in urban neighborhoods in cities like Seattle, and towns like PT and Asheville, NC. A place is artistic and desirable with reasonably affordable houses and those with means, often retired or semi-retired flock there, drive up the price of housing, often tear down or upgrade affordable housing to build their dream houses and large segments of the working population get priced out of the market. If you want people to live in the community in which they work, the solution available involves the building of well designed, infill small lot or multifamily subsidized housing which requires higher property taxes on housing over a threshold value.
The good news is we’ll be gone soon and look at what a beautiful environment we leave to the next generation. Also, Hadlock is rated Urban by WA ST. Once the sewer is in, here come the boxes, apartments, etc. We are growing and will look like Poulsbo? one of these days. Our local merchants rely on tourism and can’t afford to pay living wages. I’m going to have hip and knee replacements whether I need them or not. Loved the article!
The most direct way to make housing affordable is to supply more subsidized housing, where people pay a set percentage of their income rather than a flat rent amount. This doesn’t have to result in slums. The federal government can manage this process both for renters and buyers if they have the political will. Another solution cities can explore is denser housing — affordable condos, duplexes & tiny house developments. These are known solutions. Why we don’t make more progress on these things is beyond me.
Cohousing can be an affordable solution. Getting the city and county on board with that radical idea has been disappointing. There are models galore but I rarely hear the idea being discussed.
Here’s an okay start, but no ending. Nothing, the thing just ended. Where’s the viewpoints from the County Commissioners candidates and what they’re going to do about all this? You know, the very people who are trying to help this. How about a counter-interview with the county planners, the people supposedly blocking new building. I could go on, but so could you have.
Larry I totally understand your point of view and if we had money to pay our writers perhaps we would do that all in one bit. There has been a lot of discussion behind the scenes before your comment about doing more on this issue and I think you’ll be happy to know that we are going to be doing some more on it in the future.This is considered more of a series than a one off story.
Your right, Port Townsend is full of old people. The ones that stick around, spend their money in Port Townsend, mostly in restaurants and entertainment. In 1976, as a single mother of three, I received a loan from the government, where I paid the principal on a new three bedroom home on Tremont Street, the government paid the interest. I had to have a job that paid at least $8,000 a year. So, I moved from a one bedroom apartment (thank you George Gunn, who was the only one who would rent to me) into a new, three bedroom home. I remember a future neighbor complaining about the poor trash moving into her neighborhood while I was working at Safeway and she about dropped her teeth when I said I had bought the house across the street from her. So what happened to those programs? I also received a child credit for my kids that helped me pay the down payment. Eventually I sold the house and moved because of circumstances in my life. I will be forever grateful for the Real Estate People who set me up with the government loan program and the opportunity to get a decent paying job, with benefits. I call it my hand up, not a hand out. We need those programs again.
Well, Mike and others, you’re quite right. The chart is gone, and the world is better for it. Thanks.
Hmmm – the chart in the text above indicates the blue bars are the number of units sold & the brown line is median price. The vertical axis is labeled median price on the left side ($0 to $350,000) and units sold on the right (0 to 250) . Are we looking at the same chart, Al ?
Right you are! Good catch Mike! I hadn’t noticed that the label is wrong it should be reversed. Will try to get to that today
From what I’ve seen & heard in the 16 years I’ve been living here, the building codes and requirements in this town are complicated and sometimes absurd. Getting spare rooms or an outbuilding converted to an ADU is one example. Apparently, you need to attain sufficient “ecological points”. A friend found that would require insulating their foundation, replacing windows that don’t need to be, & resurfacing their roof which is sound & without leaks. Other friends have had similar horror stories when building a new home or trying to get remodel work approved. Maybe these are exceptions, but their stories seem credible and they come up on a pretty regular basis. I’ve heard that John Mauro, our new City Manager, is looking into this as part of our affordable housing issue, but the pandemic crisis has been filling his plate. So, this might be an area to consider.
One other thing, Ross. Your chart seems to show that median home prices in PT are still a bit below what they were before the 2008-2009 housing market crash. Is that accurate?
Mike, I think you read the chart wrong. The number of salesis the upper line chart the median price is the bar chart.
i believe michelle is still our mayor?
Corrected, but to be clear, I think she has been before as well.