Housing affordability has been a preeminent topic of conversation at every kitchen table and town hall in Boise for half a decade now. That puts a lot of pressure on Nicki Olivier Hellenkamp, Boise’s Director of Housing and Homelessness Policy, who says the city has made a lot of progress with affordable housing projects in the last year — but you don’t need to tell her it isn’t enough yet.
Last week, she joined our City Cast Boise podcast to reflect on new city projects that opened in 2024 and how the city started 2025 strong with a new Housing and Urban Development (HUD) grant.
Can you give a snapshot of the progress the City of Boise has made to solve our affordable housing shortage?
“ In terms of the progress that we've been seeing, we have seen many more affordable homes come online for Boise residents than we've seen in the past. Just in 2024, there were over 150 affordable homes that completed construction and welcomed people home. Just for context, we've historically averaged about 50 affordable homes per year coming online, so this is a very significant increase. But to your point, this absolutely does not meet the larger need in our community.”
Boise was recently awarded a new $6.7 million federal grant for preserving affordable housing. Why specify preservation as a priority?
“[Preservation of existing affordable homes] could be affordable homes where a developer has agreed to keep rents at a certain level for a certain number of years, but we’re getting close to the end of those years. When we see the market swing and see rents go up really significantly like we did around 2021 … we have what’s sometimes described as a leaky bucket where we’re pouring more and more water at the top — and that the new affordable homes we’re building — but we’re losing water at the bottom as we have agreements that are coming to their conclusion in terms of holding rents at low levels.”
The city received several grants under the Biden Administration's HUD, but are you worried at all that access to federal grants will dry up under the new Trump administration?
“ It’s one of those things that we’re just going to have to wait and see what the agency's priorities will look like under the new administration. You’re right that we have received several competitive grants in just the last few months, and that's been really exciting. But also, these are honestly the first competitive grants that the city’s received on the housing side for, I think, at least the last five years. So it’s something that I think we’re getting better at competing for and I hope that we will continue to be very competitive as there are future opportunities.”
