Homeless shelters and services to help people stop being homeless.
But a common theme of local politics where “property values are the only values” is that anti-development (of housing of any type) is a major force because it will compete against existing property owners’ housing (in either the for-sale or rental market). On the homeless front, residents complain about homeless people being unsightly, but don’t want to do anything to deal with it like have more homeless shelters and services to help them stop being homeless (and wanting the police to put them in jail just makes the jail an expensive ineffective homeless shelter that reduces its ability to serve its intended purpose).
Young college grads have no place to live IF they want to rent or buy homes in this community.
Seniors who want smaller, single floor homes have no options here. We have one small with a HUGE waiting list senior housing area. That’s it.
We also don’t have any small inns or hotels.
Housing in this town is pricy, and lots in most parts of town are two acres or more per zoning. Some people just have no interest in that large space.
This is a fabulous place to raise a family, and we love living here. But honestly, we don’t need this big house….at.all. Anymore.
We had friends visit and they wanted to treat us to a “nice dinner”. We had to go to a neighboring town. We just don’t have any nicer restaurants here.
BUT (reasons we love it)…we live in a lake community with a gorgeous lake right at our corner. Our teeny town has a little ski area. Recreation is big here. And it’s nice and quiet!
I live in a very similar town. We don’t have any inns, hotels or motels for short term visitors and very few Airbnb or vrbo.
Only one small residents only movie theater at our lakeside park. Not a lot of variety of restaurants.
In our area, there seems to be strong community support for the use of shelters, which are consistently under capacity. The city has invested significantly in both the facilities and support services. The current effort is focused on banning homeless encampments and sleeping outside in city limits when shelter space is available—not primarily because they’re unsightly, but because they pose serious health and safety risks. Trash accumulation and lack of toilets create unsanitary conditions, and campfires in the urban-wildland interface present a real danger to the community.
Current town and even county has not enough of many things:
No swimming pools besides backyard/ condo pools
No stores like Target, dollar stores, department stores, Costco, big box hardware stores
No urgent cares i know of
No dry cleaners
Only a couple nail salons
No automated car washes
No place to send UPS/Fedex packages
No fast home deliveries- Amazon prime is about 4-5 days
No chain hotels or restaurants
No fast food restaurants
Very little to no Uber/Lyft services
Too few “affordable homes”
There are lots of gift shops, too many airBNBs, lots of great scenery, lots of outdoor activities. There are enough small stores for basics, but we need to drive to next county with city (45 min) for many items and services. We also share and borrow things between friends and neighbors, more than people do in other places I think. (This is in US and not on an island)
Our community has been debating the “missing middle” for the last few years. It’s the idea (mentioned above) that affordable entry level housing is missing. There’s no place that recent grads or young marrieds can afford to buy. The community does have what seems to be a sufficient amount of designated lower income housing, hence the “middle” aspect of what’s missing.
Other than that, I’d say we’re in pretty good shape. I mean, it’s no Lake Wobegon, but pretty much everything we want/need is within a short drive or long walk and the community seems appropriately resourced in terms of fire/police/parks/rec/schools.
I agree wit @OctoberKate on the idea of the missing middle. Our town is on the coast and has long depended on tourism. There are a few affordable housing options with income ceilings, mostly for seniors. However the short term rental market (aribnb, vrbo etc.) has decimated the year-round rental supply and inflated home prices since outside investors snap them up with cash and rent them short-term. There are no regulations on short term rentals in my town but some condos do have limits.
I go to housing forums which mostly discuss low income or affordable housing options but I always am the only one to bring up the issues of the “middle” in finding housing, whether rental or purchased home. For 9 years I have done a “winter rental” in order to stay in my town, where my children were raised, and have to scramble from June through October. This year I am giving up and moving elsewhere.
Affordable rentals or properties to purchase. There are so many things that I love about my Southern California beach city and so many things that I hate. The fact that D1 and SIL can’t afford to buy a home here even with their decent salaries makes me very sad.