HomeMy WebLinkAbout06-24-25 Public Comment - B. Finegan - Public comment 6_24From:Benjamin Finegan
To:Bozeman Public Comment
Subject:[EXTERNAL]Public comment 6/24
Date:Monday, June 23, 2025 2:38:56 PM
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Tenants in Bozeman and across the country are suffering through the housing crisis. As the
elected Director of Bozeman Tenants United, the citywide tenant union, I speak daily to
young parents, retirees on Section 8, service, care, & tradeworkers, and generally the
people whose labor and rent create the foundation of our economy. Poor and working class
people have been exploited, squeezed for everything we have, and then blamed and
displaced for our poverty by corporations and a state and federal government that rubber
stamps that greed. In desperate times people are desperate for answers, or people to
blame - no wonder fascism is on the rise.
Tenants need equal legal representation in eviction court and other practical, proven and
cost-effective solutions. By moving towards funding legal representation to families facing
eviction, The Bozeman City Commission is headed in the right direction to protect the
people of Bozeman from exploitation and displacement. Tenants ultimately need a
renaissance of public investment in public or decommodified housing - homes that are safe
from the predatory greed of corporate landlords and companies like RealPage.
As we push for solutions that build up to a truly affordable, safe, and dignified future,
tenants in Bozeman also just need places to live.
When we do not have enough housing, rents go up, tenants end up on waitlists and in
bidding wars, and corporations gain even more leverage to exploit tenants.
Tenants hate poorly built and designed, yet still expensive apartments more than anyone.
We live there. We work 50-60 hour weeks and then pay 30-50% of our paychecks to rent
there. But it's what we can afford, and what we call home.
Tenants need a Unified Development Code (UDC) that will make more homes and home
options available to poor and working class tenants, close to the places where we work
(and if our punishing economy allows, play). I’m talking density, I’m talking apartments (not
skyscrapers don’t worry), I’m talking more sturdy mid-rise homes like the Evergreen, the
Boulevards, the Artemis apartments, which are integral to the fabric of neighborhoods, and
in the areas of town that tenants need and want to live in.
The City should work with our homeowner neighbors to ensure that aesthetic and
neighborhood character jive as much as possible with new apartments, but tenants cannot
afford a moratorium on new apartments. For our most vulnerable, making sure we have
enough housing is a matter of life and death. True Bozemanites and Montanans would
agree, the soul of our city is not the architectural legacy of that greedy bastard Nelson
Story, or neighborhood aesthetics. The soul of our city is our people.
***Benjamin Patrick Finegan
Director, Bozeman Tenants United 708 N Church Ave
@bzn.tenants.unitedbzntenantsunited.org