BOISE, Idaho — This article originally appeared in the Idaho Press.
Boise Mayor Lauren McLean announced several new plans during her State of the City address to confront issues like housing and childcare, while pushing back on the Legislature for interfering in city initiatives.
Those include the city matching a local couple's $250,000 donation to Jesse Tree — a local housing non-profit — and the launch of the Supportive Housing Investment Fund in partnership with the Idaho Community Foundation. The city has committed $7.5 million in seed funding.
McLean will also appoint a director of homelessness and housing policy in her office, she said, to applause from the crowd at JUMP in downtown Boise on Thursday.
“Our small-but-mighty team in the housing and community development department has worked relentlessly to deliver results,” McLean said. “They’ve kept people housed, provided emergency services needed in the moment, dreamt up creative solutions, even as our state government seeks to roadblock or undo their hard work.”
Earlier this year, the Legislature passed a bill that eliminated Boise’s rental protections, including its rental application fee cap of $30 and an ordinance that requires landlords to consider Section 8 applicants.
Critics of the bill said the issue came down to local control and giving cities the tools to fix the housing crisis in Idaho.
However, supporters of the bill said it was about individual rights and the free market, and many said landlords shouldn’t be forced to accept vouchers.
Both the city of Boise and the Legislature have been working on solving the issue of childcare.
“I think that the state that figures out childcare will be the economic powerhouse of the nation,” Councilmember Luci Willits previously said during a city council meeting. “Because it is so disorganized and parents need care for their children, businesses need employees and we really don't have a system in the United States to help families in this area.”
One of Boise’s temporary initiatives — waiving license fees for childcare facilities — will now become permanent, McLean said. Childcare providers will not pay to license and operate their facility.
Next year, the city will also start providing up to a $500 property tax rebate for people operating licensed in-home childcare services in their own homes, McLean said.
In her first State of the City of her second term as mayor, McLean often looked to Boise’s past, showing old photos and recalling moments like the 2001 levy which set aside funds to conserve the foothills. She pointed to a 1989 article from the New York Times that called Boise “mildly improbable.”
The author of that article wrote of his journey through "seemingly endless leagues of gray sagebrush and black-rock desert," to the "densely treed oasis" that was Boise.
And as photos of McLean at a Pride parade, speaking with children and taking selfies with residents flashed on the screen, she called on Boiseans to watch out for each other and contribute their time and talent to the city.
“Join us in dedication to our Boise,” McLean said. “Because way out in this high-mountain desert, our success is both hard-won and fragile.”
This article originally appeared in the Idaho Press, read more on IdahoPress.com.
The full 2024 Boise State of the City address is below:
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