Bellingham, the ugly truth.... (Bellevue: dental, recruit, pay)

[CalWorth]

Originally Posted by MechAndy

When was the last time you saw it this bad?
The worst I seen and been effected by was the Carter administration.
That was real bad.
It even changed the country but it wasn’t this bad.

I think you’ve confused the Carter administration with the Reagan administration.

BUT, this is a thread about Bellingham, not politics. Some posters forgot that.

[mayfair]

On the topic of economy, Bellingham's job market is very weak outside of minimum wage jobs and there are few major employers there besides the hospital and university. There are lots of low wage jobs but not living wage ones.

That won't change unless the town brings in some major new employer somehow, and it's a very expensive, isolated place so that likely won't happen.

The economy in Bellingham isn't going to rise and fall the same way as somewhere like the Seattle Metro which has major employers. Retirees, remote workers and WWU employees prop up the housing market and keep the vacancy rate low, prices up.

And it's so beautiful, everyone wants to live there.

I'm not sure politics play heavily in it.

[rkcarguy]

Originally Posted by mayfair

On the topic of economy, Bellingham's job market is very weak outside of minimum wage jobs and there are few major employers there besides the hospital and university. There are lots of low wage jobs but not living wage ones.

That won't change unless the town brings in some major new employer somehow, and it's a very expensive, isolated place so that likely won't happen.

The economy in Bellingham isn't going to rise and fall the same way as somewhere like the Seattle Metro which has major employers. Retirees, remote workers and WWU employees prop up the housing market and keep the vacancy rate low, prices up.

And it's so beautiful, everyone wants to live there.

I'm not sure politics play heavily in it.

The bolded is the big issue(s), but add in students. Over 1/3rd of the population is students and they have always gobbled up any and all "cheap" housing. Some say B'ham has surpassed SF in income/cost of living ratio. Very common now to see $800-$1000/head to rent a room in a house. $1,500 on up for anything that is it's own unit(~400sq/ft studio or MIL suite). I suspect REITS are purchasing many of the homes as there is new listings almost daily by property management (I'm still following all my same FB pages) renting individual rooms in whole houses one after another.
There is far more homeless in B'ham alone, than there is available units.

[Transmition]

One obvious solution would be more student housing. There are blocks and blocks of private apartments filled with students and I'm sure it is spread among the single family homes too. My hometown had a large university and had the problem of all the family housing being taken up by students. They built a huge accommodation center and the problem was reversed very quickly. Also tidied up the place too, since students are pretty bad at upkeep of yards and landlords don't address the appearance of houses as well as a live-in homeowner.

[mayfair]

Originally Posted by Transmition

One obvious solution would be more student housing. There are blocks and blocks of private apartments filled with students and I'm sure it is spread among the single family homes too. My hometown had a large university and had the problem of all the family housing being taken up by students. They built a huge accommodation center and the problem was reversed very quickly. Also tidied up the place too, since students are pretty bad at upkeep of yards and landlords don't address the appearance of houses as well as a live-in homeowner.

That's a huge problem. WWU hasn't built any new dorms in many years except to replace one they tore down. They have dorm space for 4000 students and now have over 16000 students. Many students are living in older single family homes in town with like you said, trashy yards that could be cleaned up.

Given that this works for the university, they don't seem to have any plans for more dorms. The university keeps increasing enrollment and the town has to absorb those extra students and house them.

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by mayfair

That's a huge problem. WWU hasn't built any new dorms in many years except to replace one they tore down. They have dorm space for 4000 students and now have over 16000 students. Many students are living in older single family homes in town with like you said, trashy yards that could be cleaned up.

Given that this works for the university, they don't seem to have any plans for more dorms. The university keeps increasing enrollment and the town has to absorb those extra students and house them.

Sounds like the university isn't being a good neighbor. It also sounds like the university's footprint was too small, and didn't allow for future growth, plus there's probably not a dedicated endowment for acquiring new property and building new buildings, unlike the UW. It looks like the UW was prioritized in state funding when the state university system was created.

[rkcarguy]

Originally Posted by mayfair

That's a huge problem. WWU hasn't built any new dorms in many years except to replace one they tore down. They have dorm space for 4000 students and now have over 16000 students. Many students are living in older single family homes in town with like you said, trashy yards that could be cleaned up.

Given that this works for the university, they don't seem to have any plans for more dorms. The university keeps increasing enrollment and the town has to absorb those extra students and house them.

And this is the same with WCC and BTC too. That's why home ownership is inverted in Bellingham, with almost 2/3rds renting. With the exceptions of neighborhoods that require owner occupy, one of the most common house sales is to turn every dining room, basement, bonus attic space, garage, and walk in closet into bunk rooms for students. We all call them student flop-houses. During the pandemic many of these students went remote. Combined with the "free rent" movement, many landlords converted their units to condos and sold them. Now they are returning to an even tighter and more expensive rental market that is now $800-$1000 a head for a room.

[xPlorer48]

WWU wants to increase enrollment numbers:
https://president.wwu.edu/budget-upd...andemic%20drop.

The key phrase is in the 4th paragraph. They lost a number of students due to COVID protocols but still want increased enrollment moving forward.

[mayfair]

That's interesting. I hadn't realized enrollment had dropped a bit from the 16,000 a few years ago. That's still a lot of students in town for the amount of student housing the university and tech and community college provide.

[xPlorer48]

Originally Posted by mayfair

That's interesting. I hadn't realized enrollment had dropped a bit from the 16,000 a few years ago. That's still a lot of students in town for the amount of student housing the university and tech and community college provide.

When I first attended in the late 1960s, there were around 8,000 students iirc. There were 10,000 after I graduated in 1973. Thus was probably due to the Boomer generation swelling the enrollment numbers plus the GI Bill for returning Vietnam veterans.

Here is a graph showing enrollment trends:
https://oie.wwu.edu/New%20Enrollment/