LEELANAU COUNTY, Mich,. (WPBN/WGTU) – – Leelanau County is short on housing, according to data gathered by non-profit housing north, showing a gap of more than two thousand units.
As the conversation continues around the county’s lack of affordable housing.
“It has definitely gotten worse,” said Bryan Ferguson, Glen Lake Fire Department Chief.
Bryan Ferguson is the Glen Lake Fire Department Chief, and he’s worked for the department since 2007.
“In the last 20 years we’ve increased probably double our calls in that time frame,” said Bryan.
Double the calls means Bryan needs more firefighters.
“Our on-duty staff is generally five people so to cover those two calls is one of the main reasons we have five people on duty mainly medical calls if we get a fire call in that time frame five isn’t nearly enough,” said Bryan.
This fire department covers Glen Arbor and Empire Townships, and within those boundaries is the majority of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, which attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors every year.
“The property value that creates because of the National Park that makes us pretty unique,” said Bryan.
Unique in the fact that Bryan says his firefighters can’t live anywhere near where they come to work every day.
“Three doors down last year the house sold for $700,000 and with our employees starting off in like the mid $40,000 range and they top out at nearly $70,000 but that that’s just not enough to buy that that much of a house,” said Bryan.
And Bryan says rentals aren’t an option either.
“It’s nearly $3,000 a month which in a lot of cases that’s more than a mortgage,” said Bryan.
Of his 23 full-time employees, only five live within the boundaries of the department’s response area.
“A lot of people live in Benzie County so 10-15 miles away up to nearly 70 miles away which makes that response time a long time,” said Bryan.
That’s why he says they can’t utilize volunteer firefighter positions.
Because no one lives close enough to respond in a moment’s notice.
“It just not only our current employees but the ability to recruit new employees. There’s not a lot of young families that live in our area that want to get started in a career. I think our average age here is 65 years old which we know it’s a retirement community but it’s just it’s very hard to recruit new people into the profession,” said Bryan.
Bryan wrote out these same thoughts in a letter shared with the community a year ago, and since then, there hasn’t been much change.
“I think it almost has to take someone or a group that’s I don’t know if they would need to be willing to take a loss to make it affordable for the workers whether it be teachers, firefighters, police officers,” said Bryan.
Unless someone is willing to take that risk, Bryan says it’s hard to point to a solution to solve the affordable housing crisis.
“I don’t have a good answer for that. I don’t think anybody does is the main issue,” said Bryan.
Bryan tells UpNorthLive when there are a lot of calls at once, they depend on their mutual aid partners across Leelanau and Benzie County.
However, whichever station is assisting them is temporarily leaving an empty spot in their coverage area.
It’s a situation he says happens daily in Leelanau County.