Port Townsend attracts especially creative, talented, engaged citizens from all walks of life.

There’s an air of acceptance, as important to the local environment as our Victorian architecture, but also a whiff that those who complain about standing in line for a latté at one of our coffee shops might be better served by going to the nearest SBux.

We like to think this characteristic of our town is robust, but it’s not. The “PT Ethos” might be more fragile than we want to believe. Cracks are showing.

One fissure is housing. People who grew up here, people who work here, people who came here just because this place is special, are often people who can no longer afford to live here.

This is not about the homeless with drug or mental health issues, or those who have simply tumbled into exceptionally difficult circumstances. We want these unfortunates to have a roof, adequate nutrition, and medical care. We may disagree about what that means, but it’s a baseline for calling ourselves civilized.

Neither is this about “equality.” There will always be income inequality, and economists debate if inequality is necessary for a dynamic economy.

But we can improve opportunity. That’s what we may be losing in Port Townsend.

It would be one thing if local workers, artists, musicians, were competing for modest houses against people of similar assets and income, but that’s not the case. Too many drive to work past empty houses purchased as rentals by someone who sold a home in California at a price that bought five homes in Port Townsend, or with a billionaire from Seattle who designed an app no doubt of major benefit to mankind.

Those who buy several houses here to increase an already sizable asset base are consuming “low hanging fruit” once available to families willing to sacrifice in the present for a more secure future. Workers lose out in the bidding.

This results in a sense of unfairness that can’t be brushed aside.

It can’t be brushed aside with the statement “Get a Habitat home!” Habitat does wonderful work, but there’s not enough Habitat to go around at a price workers can pay without losing child care.

It can’t be brushed aside with the statement that folks should “just work harder.” Say that to a barista or a shipwright or clerk and they’ll help you understand that to buy a home here while making $25/hr. they’d have to work a 36 hour day.

Maybe we just accept that and say “isn’t America great?” That if house prices decrease, then those who already own one lose out. If we subsidize ownership, we create problems with price. If we ask the wealthy to give up a prime benefit of wealth, which is to become wealthier, we are asking them to give away property rights that have existed for a couple hundred years.

But investing in a home has been one of the primary sources of asset growth for those not born into the privileged class. It is also a foundation of “neighborhood,” a hidden community asset recently recognized.

If we can agree there is an affordability issue, solutions start with the simple conviction that we don’t want those with whom we share the air to be without a place to live they can invest in and call their own. Here.

Or we might lose the quirkiness of those who do what they do out of love for what they do and not just for the money. We could lose the best of Port Townsend.

~ ED