CITY OF SALT LAKE The kitchen of Grace Cunningham and Jamal Cureau’s rented house is filled with the aroma of creole seasoning as dinnertime approaches.
Cureau stirs the meal and explains, “Where I’m from in the Deep South of Louisiana, we call it fresh sausage, but some people in Utah call it bratwurst.”
Four years ago, he relocated to Utah from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and was taken aback by the high expense of living. “I couldn’t find a place under $1,200,” he adds, despite his resolve to never pay more than $1,200 in rent. “So here I am $1,750 a month later.” Additionally, the pair is appreciative of the favorable rental agreement from a family friend.
They are engaged, intend to get married next year, start a family, and eventually buy a house. Having grown up with a single mother who was able to own a home, they believe they are doing everything they can to achieve that.
Cureau, 31, earns a nice living in construction, and Cunningham, 26, works for a nonprofit and has two other jobs on the side. They can’t even save enough money for groceries, much less a down payment. Purchasing a home in the current market feels nearly unattainable, which is disheartening, according to Cunningham.
“I am a young woman, born and raised in Utah, and I am being priced out of my hometown,” she claims. “Honestly, it breaks my heart and it makes me angry.”
“We’re stopping young people from creating wealth”
Home prices in Utah began to rise even before the epidemic, and they then skyrocketed as more people began working remotely. With the typical property price in the state having risen to $506,000, 87% of renters can no longer afford it. In a nation where a record number of people struggle with the high cost of purchasing and renting, this makes it one of the least affordable housing markets.
“The lower classes no longer have this issue. Steve Waldrip, who provides housing advice to Utah’s governor, says, “This is a problem of the middle class and the upper-middle class.” “We’re stopping young people from creating wealth.”
He claims that the middle class in the US was historically created by homeownership. He fears that a whole generation of Americans may be excluded due to federal laws that denied it to Black people for generations, which had severe economic repercussions.
“The median first-time homebuyer age in the United States last year was 38 that’s a shocking statistic,” adds Waldrip. “We’ve just killed 10 years of wealth creation there, and that will have impacts generationally.”
Additionally, the median age of 38 is a record high, having increased from 31 ten years ago.
The severe housing shortage is one of the main issues driving up costs. Restrictive zoning regulations only permit single-family residences in a significant portion of many communities. Additionally, although some locations have changed their zoning to permit apartments and duplexes, doing so is frequently contentious, expensive, and time-consuming. Local opponents, known as “not in my backyard” or “NIMBYs,” can also completely prevent it.Enraged by this, an increasing number of states, both blue and red, have begun to pressure local governments to construct more affordable housing and enact legislation that facilitates this process.
In the 1990s, Utah began mandating that counties and localities offer affordable housing options, with an emphasis on those earning 80% or less of the local median income. However, it was easy to disregard that rule. The state has therefore strengthened both the carrot and the stick in recent years, enacting legislation to promote growth and carry out its duty. Currently, counties and towns must choose a few strategies to build more affordable, dense housing and submit an annual report on their progress.
Even more is being done by some states. Texas is the most recent state to enact a more comprehensive rule that permits smaller dwellings on smaller lots by superseding local zoning. Despite Utah’s unsuccessful attempt, Waldrip says the state isn’t giving up.
High costs are a challenge for developers, too
Francis Xavier Lilly pulls up to an apartment complex under construction in an area that looks industrial and is close to a light-rail station. He serves as the assistant city manager and planning director for Millcreek, a well-liked Salt Lake suburb that has been creating its own town center. According to Lilly, the city is exceeding Utah’s housing requirements.
Half of the 150 apartments in the Howick building will feature three or four bedrooms, making them ideal for families. Depending on the size of the flat and the income of the occupants, the range of subsidized rents will be between $900 and slightly less than $2,000. According to Lilly, some people who truly struggle to afford market-rate rent will benefit from it.
“They’re either doubling up or they’re considering moving out of town or they’re potentially, you know, one paycheck away from homelessness,” according to him. “If we can meet that need at the very bottom, I think that will be both a moral and fiscal success for our city.”
To construct this facility, the city collaborated with the Community Development Corporation of Utah. According to CEO Todd Reeder, building large-scale housing from the ground up is a significant change. The nonprofit primarily assisted low-income individuals in becoming homeowners by flipping existing homes for almost thirty years.
“We’d acquire homes at $200,000, fix them up and sell them at $210,000,” he states.
However, since those low-cost fixer-uppers are no longer available, Reeder says he will need to think outside the box to discover other ways to assist individuals in purchasing. He is searching for small pieces of public property to construct cottage communities or modest dwellings on.
Additionally, Millcreek has modified zoning to facilitate greater density, simplified permitting, and decreased parking restrictions.
On a sixth-floor balcony at City Hall, Lilly displays a brand-new rock climbing wall and skating rink that encourage social interaction and community building. Additionally, he identifies a number of locations that are planned for new residential development.
“There are a lot of service jobs in all of these buildings if you look around. And I think it’s tragic that folks who can’t afford to live here are expected to work here and serve this community,” he continues. “I think that’s wrong.”
He’s hoping the city can buy out one development site and build housing that would be permanently affordable. Otherwise, many people will still be unable to afford a large portion of the new building here. He claims that developers must optimize earnings because the land is costly. Lilly recalls pitching new incentives to one developer, explaining he could add more units if they sold for less.
“He replied to me, like, ‘Why? Why would I sell eight units at $450,000 when I could sell six at almost a million?’ ” he says. “It’s harsh, but that’s a fair question, right?”
For some cities, Utah’s housing mandates are “flouting the will of the people”
There’s also been widespread pushback from many places concerned about losing local control.
“State mandates coming top down are really just flouting the will of the people,” says Trent Staggs, mayor of Riverton, a fairly affluent city about half an hour south of Salt Lake.
Not long ago, Riverton was mostly a farm community. Now, Staggs says some constituents have moved away complaining of overcrowding. And he worries that “conscientious, decades long planning” for things like roads, water and sewer is getting blown up.
“Where there’s so much housing going on and density going up that has been forced on us by the state, and the infrastructure isn’t there, you’ve seen that quality of life diminish,” he says.
Some mayors and city council members have been voted out for supporting too much density. Last year, when Waldrip, the governor’s housing adviser, spoke at a public hearing in favor of a new development in the city of Orem, it was a tough crowd.
“I find it insulting when the governor sends in a mouthpiece to preach and talk down to us,” one resident said during public comment. Others criticized the smaller size of the proposed houses, saying they would not fit in with the rest of the neighborhood.
“It’s all gonna be ticky-tack homes in tiny little lots,” one person said.
Waldrip says he understands such fears, but that something has to give. For all Utah is doing to encourage more affordable housing, it’s still not enough. The state’s housing shortage keeps growing.
For Salt Lake City renters Grace Cunningham and Jamal Cureau, the lack of options has them thinking about leaving, maybe for Louisiana or somewhere else cheaper than Utah.
“Because I want to have little kids, I want to have a space to run around, I want to have people over,” Cunningham says. “And I’d say it’s the American dream.”
It’s how she grew up, she says. But she worries Utah is no longer a place where she could raise her own children that way.
Copyright 2025 NPR
